Bill Wangemann tells stories of Sheboygan’s horrific winters

Remember Grandma telling us how the winters in her time were much worse than they are now? Every year the snow was up to the top of the barn and you had to dig a tunnel through the snow to get to the hen house. Not only was the snow deeper, but winter was much colder.

Old timers like to talk of one winter that was so cold that when you talked to someone outside your words froze and fell to the ground. The person you were talking to had to scoop up the frozen words, take them into the house and thaw them out on the kitchen stove to hear what you were saying.

The great humorist and writer Mark Twain once said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

Weather records indicate that the warmest Christmas ever recorded was 59 degrees in 1982! The following year we recorded the coldest Christmas ever with a low of 14 degrees below zero, a difference of 63 degrees from the previous year.

As for snowfall, the snowiest winter that we have had in the last 100 years was the winter of 1978-79 when we had a staggering 98.5 inches of snow! The winter of 1903 and 1904 wasn’t too bad either with 94 inches of snow. However, in contrast, during the entire winter of 1936-37 we had a mere 5.31 inches of snow!

Winter can bring monumental snowstorms at times, but none can top the gigantic blizzard of March 2, 1881, when the city and county were struck with an unbelievable series of snowstorms that lasted for the better part of two weeks. When it was all over, it was estimated that the snow depth in places was an astounding 12 feet. Tunnels had to be dug in the snow to go from house to barn so that farmers could care for their livestock.

On Eighth Street in Sheboygan, drifts reached to the second floor of many buildings. Storeowners also dug tunnels so that customers could enter their establishments. Some homes in the city were almost completely buried. The city of Sheboygan hired an extra 200 men to clear drifts from the downtown area, some of which were more than 20 feet high. Residents had to enter their houses by crawling through a second-story window. Because all the windows in many homes were blocked with snow preventing light from entering, residents had to burn lamps night and day.

In the county, snow was as high as the telephone poles and in many cases even they were buried. With all landmarks covered by enormous drifts, people who had lived in an area all their lives got lost a few miles from home. It was reported that the last of the snow finally disappeared in July of that year!

In 1913, our area and much of the Midwest was struck with a “white hurricane.” A white hurricane can be described as a storm of hurricane-force winds combined with a blizzard. Today this storm is largely forgotten. The monster storm, which was really a combination of two storms, raged across the lake from Nov. 7 to Nov. 10, 1913, and it killed more than 250 people. On the Great Lakes, 19 ships were sunk and 19 others were driven aground, suffering heavy damage. Estimated property loss was over 100 million dollars. Many of the ships that were lost were carrying iron ore. The loss of iron ore was so great that for months afterward the price of iron and steel was driven upward.

Here in Sheboygan County, barns were blown down, trees uprooted and county roads simply disappeared under huge snowdrifts. As the raging giant moved across the county, shrieking winds were clocked in some places in excess of 90 miles an hour. Property damage in Sheboygan County was beyond estimation. For weeks after the monstrous storm, roads were blocked and farmers were marooned.

After the three-day rampage of the white hurricane, debris from the many ships that were smashed to pieces drifted ashore, along with bodies of the many seamen lost when their ships went down. The bodies of sailors from the Charles S. Price were found on the beach wearing life jackets from the steamer Regina, which was also lost with all hands. It became quite clear that the hapless survivors of the Price had been picked up by the Regina, which in turn was lost in the storm.

When the great storm of 1913 was over, the entire Midwest lay in shambles. Snow depth from that storm varied, but was not less than 17 inches in any area. Fortunately, a white hurricane in our area is extremely rare – but it can occur.

In our area, the gales of November 2009 have passed us by; let’s hope they will do so again next November.

Today’s Snippet: Due to the violent nature of weather on the Great Lakes in November, insurance companies in the past refused to insure ships beyond Oct. 31.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for a future column, feel free to contact me at (920) 458-2974 or e-mail wangemann@yahoo.com.