Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-09-02
A YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER.
Lost in a Snow-Storm in the Month of June
Farmers at Work in 0yercoats and Mittens

heavy coat on yesterday, and day before
the thermometer was standing at 46 de-
grees,a said an old resident to Homes
dale Pa. correspondent of The New York
Sun. S'and that is the most practical and
vivid reminder / have ever had of the
wear without summer, when it was
common thing to see the farmers, every
dav from June till September, wearing
only heavy coats but overcoats and mitt-
ems as well, as they went about theie work
That was in 1916, and | was II years old
and SO I have lively recollection of the
remarkable summer. lived in Vermont
then, where the seeson was at its worst, as
in New York state and Pennsylvania only
three inches of snow fell during the month
of June, while in Vermont we had ten in
ches. Snow fell several times during that
month and ice came daily.
Zone of the severest, snow-storms with
in my recollection fell III vermont on the
18th of that June; that was the day we
got the ten inches, and it was ten good,
solid inches on the level. [ have good
reason to remember that day. My father
had some sheep in. a DacA pasture, to reach
which we had to go through piece of
of woods for nearly a mile. The snow
began to fall on the 18th about IL o'clock
In the forenoon, and my father started,
after dinner, TO fix up some sort of
shelter for the sheep in the pasture.
No one had any idea, cold and eccentric
as the season was, that we could have
snow to amount to anything at that
time of year. [ remember father, as he
went out of the door, turning to my moth
er and saying in jocuiar way:
IF I'm not back in an hour, mother,
call the neighbors and start them after
me. June is bad month to get buried
in the snow, especially when it gets to be
SO near the Fourth of July
The snow increased in fury, and by
night it had drifted so that the roads
were almost impossible, but even then,
and when it grew dark, none of the fami-
ly felt uneasy about father. The weather
had grown intensely cold. When night
set in, however, land there were still no signs
of fathers return, mother sent me to
alarm the neighbors and tell that we be-
ieyed father had been lost in the snow.
In spite of the severity of the night all
the neighbOrs that could be reached turn
ed o ut and searched the woods all night
but no sigh of the missing man could be
found. The search was kept up all the
next day and the next night without find
ing any trace of him, except that he had
reached the pasture and built a shelter
of boughs in one corner of the lot, under
which the sheep were huddled. On the
forenoon of the third day they found
father half buried in the snow a mile
from, in almost the opposite direction
from home. He was dead. He had evil
IDENTIFY become lost in the binding storm,
and had wandered about until he sue.
cumbed to fatigue and exposure. 1t
seemed a most improbable thing that a
eoII
in the month of June in this latitude, but
/ have sorrowful knowledge of one i'll
stance where it was only too true.
The wind during June, July. and
August of 1916 was almost continually in
the north and it blew iercely and cold.
Farmers put in their crops and shivered
under their wraps while doing so. There
was but little use in planting. Nothing
sgrew, to speak of. There was very little
rain during the entire summer. The great
piles of firewood that always accumulated
during the summer months at the farm
house back doors, in readiness for winter
didn't accumulate in 1916. They were
needed for current use.
Il remember that an old farmer named
Shay was the only man that had any corn
to gather in our neighborhood that year.
He saved his crop in a funny way, and
that was by building immense bonfres
ground his field, which he kept burning
all night and on the coolest days He
and hired hired bel p tookturns i'll patroII-
ing the field at night and keeping the
fires well supplied with pine knots, which
were an abundant material in those days.
This novel expedient on the part of
Farmer Shay kept his corn-field warm
and free of pests, and he had the only
crop of corn in that part of the state.
July was colder than June, and August
was still colder. Ice formed a quarter of
an inch thick in July, but in August, in
Vermont, water was frozen to the depth
of nearly an inch. On the 30th of August
there was a severe snow storm. August
was as cherries and dreary as November
sometimes is. There was not a green
teing to be seen anywhere. The first two
weeks in September brought the first real
warm we had experienced since May.
The the thermometer registered as high
as 20 degrees.
The general opinion has been formed
that the cause of cold weather was a sud
den and rapid cooling of the sun, and
many believed that the end of all things
was not far off. The appearance of the
warm spell in September destroyed that
fear for time, but on the Is tn the cool
weather returned, and the people were
once more thrown back to the old belief
An old man named James Gooding
killed al the stock and then hanged
himself After yainly trying to induce
his wife to make way with herself also
to escape a gradual and terrible death by
freezing and starvation, which he believed
was to be the common doom. Cold
weather increased from the middle of
September until winter, and it may be
said that the year I8l6-in Vermont at
least-had no summer or autumn. There
wasn't grain enough raised for seed the
next year, and those who were lucky
enough to have more of the crop of 1915
on hand than they wanted for their own
use had no difficulty in selling it for So
and more a bushel.
"All the corn raised in Vermont in 1917
was from seed grown in 1916, and
guess that was the case all through the
eastern states. Those who were feared
that the sun was cooling off in 1916
changed their minds in 1917, for that was
hnt III