The Children's Blizzard

Friends:

An interesting combination of the history of weather prediction and immigration from Europe to the Great Plains in the 1800s along with page turning facts of people freezing to death on the Great Plains within hours of seeming like a nice day....

L. Frank Baum, the author of " The Wizard of Oz " lived on the Great Plains and is included in this story. Some members of our family knew Frank Baum and they told us of how no one thought he would make anything of himself as he was always working on that story. President Gerald R. Ford told me he never discarded an unusual idea after knowing Frank Baum for many years and seeing his success.

Google my name to Learn more.....

Arthur Gerard Michael Baron von Boennighausen

Our book club really enjoyed "The Children's Blizzard" even though it was a tragic story. It read like a novel and we learned a great deal about that period of time and about weather. Our discussion afterwards was really interesting. Highly recommended for book clubs.

The Children's Blizzard reads like a "whodunnit" novel -- everything which could have gone wrong, went wrong and at the worst possible time. This book is going to touch your soul, and you won't be able to put it down.

LOVED this book. Have a signed book from the author and had to get another copy for my Kindle. Amazing what so many people had to go through with this blizzard. I'm from part of the area and cannot imagine. Something everyone should read!!

This book was very well researched as it detailed the origins of many of the settlers involved when the blizzard struck. By the time the storm came you felt a kinship with those people. 4 stars instead of 5 only because of a couple of very dry areas that detailed weather forecasts and forecasters. I kept wanting the author to go "meanwhile, back on the range..." much sooner than he did. Those were only occasional, but I found them dull.

My great-grandparents and grandparents lived in South Dakota in the 1880's. I cannot imagine what this must have been like for them. I especially liked the way Mr. Laskin put himself in some of those childrens' positions during that storm and the way he explained the origins of the storm (although I must admit some of it was a little above my head). I think this book would suit anyone who does or has lived or had ancestors that lived in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Montana and Minnesota. I've complained a lot this winter about the cold, but we never hit low temperatures like they did back in the day and at least my furnace was working. My hats off to all the pioneers who helped settle these great states and to Mr. Laskin for bringing it alive for me.

What an amazing read! Historical, true, and yet...how can it really be? That is what is so intriguing about
this book. With Grandparents and family who actually lived through this horrific blizzard, we now live in this
part of the country, and we know exactly how the weather can change so dramatically and so quickly! One day and
a community is devastated...the next day, the sun shines on the survivors. Truly a dramatic, inspiring, incredibly detailed read...sure to be a reminder for us all how devastating the weather can be, with a mind of its own!

Book was in excellent condition; contains alot about early weather forcasting; weather conditions leading up to the terrible snowstorm that took so many children's lives. No time for warnings. My interest was because my grandfather help keep the children at his school house during the storm, which undoubtedly save their lives. I'm still reading and looking at family histories in the area where I grew up. A real part of history.

David Laskin sets up the story of the January 12, 1888, blizzard well. He provides the back story of the Mennonite and Norwegian immigrants, the valiant teachers and students, and the Civil War veteran, whose daughter took refuge in a haystack during the storm. The reader learns to care about the participants before the blizzard starts and there is gut-wrenching suspense as the victims head out into the storm. Which of them will survive? Will any of them survive?

The main characters are the Schweizers, Swiss-German Mennonites who had emigrated to America from the Ukraine, the Rollags from Norway, and Walter Allen, a mischievous little boy who adds comic relief to an otherwise tragic story.

The day of the blizzard starts off unusually warm and the kids on their way to school and the farmers working in the fields aren't dressed properly. The temperature drops precipitously and the snow isn't ordinary slow; it's more like blinding sleet.

Laskin is also a weather geek; he provides more than we want to know about the cause of this "Storm of the Century." He provides info about lows and highs, jet streams and jet streaks (this little bugger is a main culprit), fronts, and St. Elmo's Fire. He also shows how the Signal Corps weathermen bungled the forecast. It's all very informative but we want to know what happened to the Schweizer children and Will Allen. An especially riveting scene is when Laskin explains hypothermia, using the Schweizer boys as an example.

In an epilogue, Laskin tells us what happened to the survivors and he makes a rather specious statement, suggesting that this storm put an end to the land boom on the Great Plains and that eventually immigrants learned that, although the soil was some of the best in the world, because of droughts and blizzards this land was uninhabitable. Apparently white people are leaving in droves and the land is returning to the buffalo and the Indians. When Wovoka told his people to dance and the buffalo would return, he wasn't too far wrong.

Very interesting book about the formation of the National Weather Service. How three storms come together in January 1888 and many children (as well as others) were literally frozen to death on their way home from school. The inadequacies and unpredictableness of the beginnings of the NSW. Parts are very sad but the book on the whole was captivating.

Wonderfully written book about an American tragedy. Many children died during a blizzard the swept over several states.

The morning weather was unusually warm and the blizzard hit mid-day catching all unprepared.

The characters and their backgrounds are well developed; you weep for these victems.

Should be required reading for anyone interested in early Am. History in the Great Plane States.

I grew up in Nebraska, and studied the blizzard of 1888 in school. The story is very compelling, and kept my interest. The hardest part of reading the book was keeping all the names and locations straight in my mind. Highly recommend this book for history buffs.

This is a book filled with emotion and enlightened me on the "good old days". This is actually the second copy I ordered and gave it to a family member. I couldn't part with my copy, going to read it again.

This was a well researched book. The narative is very smooth and reads like a novel. Taking the history of several families involved made the story seem much more personal. I highly recommend this book

"I have seen the Dread of Dakota."

Sadie Shaw, pioneer wife, from a letter to Eastern relatives.

I bought this because and my mother grew up on a S. Dakota cattle ranch and I recall my grandfather talking about the Blizzard of '88. (He was born in the 1890s.) One aspect of the social history of the region - settlement of the plains by immigrants - was well covered. The description of 19th C. meteorology and of the science of freezing to death were exhaustively informative. But, I was way more interested in social history in relation to the particular tragedy this book covers. A huge flaw: the absence of the Sioux and other Native Americans outside a few brief accounts of military actions. This is weird for two reasons: (1) the native people were a crucial thread in the social, political, and environmental fabric of the region, and (2) this is a 21st C., not 18th C., account! How did they & their children fare in The Children's Blizzard? We learn nothing about this. Imagine a modern account of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake without describing its effect on Chinatown! The best chapter, for me, was the last one,"Aftermath" -especially its summary of the human cost and utter failure of the gov't's policy of populating the plains on a scale its environment could not support. I would also have liked the perspective a few old photos of prairie winters, which are plentiful. How about more maps? There's only one and there can really never be TOO MANY maps! For a weather buff (like my dad), this book would probably rate 5 stars, but if social history is your thing, 3 1/2 stars is about right.

Laskin provides vivid description of the several and varied people who populated the northern great plains in the nineteenth century. His development of the story brings the reader to an inescapable sense of foreboding in the face of nature's unrelenting ability to dominate our lives. I shivered, grieved and rejoiced in turn with the pioneers who faced, survived or succumbed to The Children's Blizzard of January 12, 1988.

Excellent book. Very well written. Documents in very readable detail a portion of American history about which few people know. This is one of the best books ever written concerning the Northern Plains.