The 2009 version of Thanksgiving was great as usual, with a nice day (weather wise), a great feast as my family gathered at our home, plus many thanks. A holiday to be remembered! The next day, I awoke to find snow tumbling down. It didn't last long, though, for by noon, as you may recall, it all had melted.
On Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 23, 1950, I was nine years old in my little hometown village of Bridgeburg, Pa. Again, Thanksgiving was a great day for me and my family, which included my mother, father and brother. It was a pleasant day with a fine feast and many reasons to give thanks. We had no television at the time, but I listened to "Dragnet" on the radio that evening. During the late evening or early morning snow started to fall.
It was Friday morning, and we didn't have school, thank goodness, due to the holiday. My father worked night shift at the local brickyard, and on Fridays we all went to Kittanning for groceries. My brother and I were hoping to take in a matinee at the movies. Before we piled into our 1946 maroon Plymouth, I had an early snowball fight with one of the neighbor kids. I just loved to see the snow come down, and by then, snow started to accumulate. We rushed to Kittanning quickly, which was a five-mile trip, and my parents purchased their weekly supply of groceries and hurried back home due to the weather and no tire chains on our car. There was no time for a movie matinee.
The snow kept pelting down with no end in sight. We arrived home safely, and my dad walked to work, since the brickyard was close by. What weather news we received was from the radio in between "The Lone Ranger" and other favorite radio programs. It was not great, and the snow continued to tumble down. On awakening Saturday, Nov. 25, 1950, we couldn't believe our eyes. It was still snowing, and snow blanketed everywhere we looked. My dad returned home from work and measured 23 inches of snow at that time. He was called out later to shovel the roofs over the brick ware due to fear of weight and collapse of those roofs. By Sunday, the snow stopped completely, but school was canceled on Monday and all the rest of the week. This was truly the best part of the snowstorm. Everything was shut down.
Since then it has been called the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 and the 1950 Great Thanksgiving Snowstorm. Nearly 30 inches of snow covered Pittsburgh, and 2 feet or more blanketed Cleveland. West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio saw snowfall totals greater than 30 inches. Power was out to more than 1 million customers during this storm. It actually affected 22 states, killing 353 people and creating $66.7 million in damage. This, of course, was in 1950 dollars. U.S. insurance companies paid more money out to their policyholders for damage from this storm than for any other previous storm.
Steubenville's snowfall exceeded 44 inches with snowdrifts up to 25 feet. The classic Ohio State-Michigan football game was scheduled on Saturday, Nov. 25, and was luckily played in Columbus where it was not quite as bad, but still is described as "The Blizzard Bowl." The Big Ten Championship was on the line and a trip to the Rose Bowl. Michigan won 9-3 on 27 total yards gained without achieving one first down! Youngstown achieved 29 inches of snow. Many buildings collapsed under the weight of 2 to 3 feet of snow. The Ohio National Guard used Jeeps to transport people to hospitals and to deliver food to those in the rural areas. Ohio Gov. Frank Lausche declared a state of emergency in Cleveland, and the Youngstown-Warren area as drifts grew to 30 feet. Roads were closed; trains and buses canceled. People could not leave their homes for days. Milk and bread and other delivery trucks could not get through. School buses were halted, and it was a joyous occasions for all students. Snow clearing was much different in those days also, and, of course, they used no salt way back then.
So, here I sit on Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, writing this piece some 59 years later with no snow but memories of the Great Thanksgiving Snowstorm of 1950.