The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-04-15
NOBODY HERE
TO PROVE It.
The Year Of 1916 When There Was no
Summer and tho Ice Was
Thick on July
Fourth.
NOBODY HAD FLOWERS
People Wore Anxlousiy Looking For
ward to the Arrival Of Spring
Which Did Not
Come.

throughout the United States and
Europe as the coolest ever experienced
by any person then living. There are
persons in Northern New York who
have been in the habit of keeping
diaries for years and 1t is from the
pages of an old diary begun in 1910
and kept unbroken until 1910, that
this year without summer has been
taken:
January was so mild that most
persons allowed their fires to go out
and did not burn wood except for
cooking. There were few cold days,
but they We're very few. Most of the
time the air was warm and spring
like. February was not cold. Some
days were colder than any in January,
but the weather was about the same.
March, from the first to the sixth,
was inclined to be windy. 1t came in
like small lion and went out like a
very innocent sheep.
April came in warm, but as the
days grew longer the air became
colder and by the first of May there
was temperature like that of winter,
with plenty of snow and Ice. In May
the buds were frozen dead, ice fromed
half an inch thick on ponds and
rivers, corn was killed and the corn
fields were planted again and again,
until 1t became too late to raise a
crop. BY the last of May In this
climate the trees are usually in leaf
and birds and flowers are plentiful.
When ahe last of May arrived in 1916
everything had been killed by the
cold. Civ
June was the coolest month roses
ever experienced in this latitude.
| Frost and ice were as common as
buttercups usually are. Almost every
green thing was killed; all fruit was
destroyed. Snow fell ten inches deep
in Vermont There was seven inch
fall in the interior of New York state
and the same in Massachusetts. There
were only few moderately warm
days. Everybody looked, longed and
waited for warm weather but warm
weather did not come.
1t was also dry; very little rain fell.
Ali summer long the wind blew stern
1 ly from the north in blasts, laden
with snow and ice. Mothers knit
socks of double thickness for their
children and made thick mittens.
| Planting and shivering were done
/ together and the farmers who worked
out their taxes on the country roads
Wore overcoats and mittens.
A farmer near Tewksbury, VT,
owned a large field of corn. He built
fires. Nearly every night he and his
fmen took turns in keeping up the fire
and watching that the corn did not
! freeze. The farmer was rewarded for
his tireless labors by having the only
crop of corn in the region.
July came in with snow and ice.
On the Fourth of July ice as thick
as window glass formed throughout
New England, New York and in some
parts of Pennsylvania. Indian corn.
4 which in some parts of the east had
struggled through May and June, gave
up, froze and died.
To the surprise of everybody,
August proved the worst month of all .
Almost every green thing in this
country and Europe was blasted with
frost. Snow fell at Barnet, 80 miles
from London, England, on August 80.
! Newspapers received from England
stated that 1916 would be remembered
by the existing generation as the year
in which there was no summer. There
was great privation and thousand of
persons would have persisted in this
country had it not been for the
abundance of fish and wild game.