The Halloween Blizzard of 1991: Yes, It's Been 30 Years

Someone recently posted in an East Side online group I belong to whether people had memories of the Halloween 1991 blizzard. Even though it's been 30 years, that fateful day is etched in my mind. After all, at the time I had two small children who would not be denied their trick-or-treat adventure, regardless of the weather.

photo courtesy of twincities.com

Jess (not quite 4) and Andy (not quite 2) were quite excited about Halloween. And I had carefully planned costumes for them that would keep them warm. After all, Halloween in St. Paul was usually cold, sometimes rainy, so the best thing was to figure out a costume that would allow for plenty of layers, including long underwear.

The costumes I planned were homemade. I was continuing a tradition I was raised with. My father's favorite holiday was Halloween, and we had a large chest in the attic that was filled with odds and ends of fabric, hats, foil-covered cardboard swords, eye patches, old wigs, and a tackle box full of burned cork and stage makeup. Every year he would drag that chest out and fully outfit the five of us in record time after an early supper. Then out we would go. Never mind if your costume was the same one your brother wore the year before; he said nobody would remember.

I didn't keep an old chest but I did rummage through the Goodwill and the Salvation Army for likely costumes and props. This particular year I crafted a Holstein cow for Jess out of an oversized white hooded sweatsuit, with black felt patches concealing the stains, and a stuffed pink rubber glove standing in for the udder. Feet from pantyhose filled with cotton balls made cute horns. Oh, and a bell pulled from the Christmas ornament box completed the look. Underneath she had her long underwear and footie fleece PJs. Wool socks on her feet and black winter boots and she was good to go.

Andy picked his own costume idea. Both of those kids loved finding treasures at the thrift store, but that particular year Andy seized upon an old faux fur brown lady's coat and said, "I be a bear Mom." It was PERFECT! The coat had a hoot, and the sleeves were long enough to cut off some for legs while enough remained for his arms. That coat was heavy enough that he didn't need much more underneath it than his long underwear and his black winter boots with wool socks.

They were so excited for their first door-to-door trick or treat adventure, and John and I were as well. We planned for me to stay home and pass out candy while he took the kids up and down our street. At that time we lived just off Ivy and Payne behind Johnson High School, and it was a fairly low-traffic street since it dead-ended at the end of the block where fence around the athletic field from the school was. So we figured it was a safe spot.

But then the snow started. And it kept falling. The darker it got, the more the snow fell. But the little gremlins would not be denied their great adventure. They insisted Dad take them out, and he did. To his credit, that Kentucky boy was braver than I would have been. And they were all rewarded for their persistence. There were very few kids out that night, so the neighbors were generous with their candy. And more than one dad offered John a little liquid stamina to bolster him on his round up and down the block. They only had to cover both sides of our one-blocks treet and their little plastic jack-o-lanterns were almost overflowing. But by the time Dad and the kids got home it was so snowy he had to carry them up the stairs to our house one at a time.

It kept on snowing that night. Official records show that over 8 inches fell by midnight, and that didn't account for drifting. The city was all but paralyzed, because no snow plows could operate until after midnight. You see, the city officials in their wisdom had the snow plow equipment lease begin November 1st. So most of us were stuck. For days. In fact, as we were a side street, I think it was at least 3 days before our street was cleared. Neighbors banded together with their shovels and snow blowers to get the alley open, since most of us had our vehicles in our garages. The unlucky ones whose cars were on the street were literally stuck in a Catch-22: The snow plows couldn't get the street cleared because of the cars, but people couldn't get their cars out because of the massive amounts of snow. Drifts covered more than a few up and down our block.

John climbed out a window to get to the shovel leaning up against the front steps. (After that it always was kept in the house on the enclosed porch.) The snow had drifted up against both the front and back doors so there was no pushing them open. I had a flashback of my dad doing that when I was in 1st or 2nd grade, which would have made it 1961 or 1962 (not Halloween). A blizzard had dropped so much snow in one night that drifts covered much of the doors and windows of our first-floor duplex on Bush near Johnson Parkway. He had to go upstairs to the neighbor's and let himself out their 2nd story window to clear our doors. One of the few snow days I recall from my youth. My brother Tom and I had great fun tunneling under the snow in our front yard while my dad endeavored to clear our doors, windows, sidewalk, and steps....and then find his car under the drifts in the street. And now 30 years later we were facing the same thing.

And that suddenly makes me wonder if this Halloween or sometime thereabouts that St. Paul will again have an historic snowfall. Thirty years...thirty years... As I look out my window here in the Pacific Northwest and watch the rain fall, I am not missing the snow at all. I've never been trapped in my house from too much rain.