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Blizzard Baby in Kansas

By Capper's Staff
Published on January 30, 2013

Three weeks after my parents
arrived in Kansas
in February of 1880, a terrible blizzard struck. My father had erected a
building that he intended to be a barn, but the family was living in it, hoping
to get a house built soon. But the blizzard came on suddenly, and they had to
remain in the barn: my father, my mother (an invalid, seven months pregnant),
and the children.

The night of February 12, 1880, was
bitterly cold when Mother told Father he had better find a doctor as she knew
something was going to take place. He saddled his big black stallion which was
tied to the wagon beside the shack, the only windbreak the horses had, and rode
three miles to Cedar Vale for the doctor. When he arrived at the doctor’s
house, his horse was covered with frozen snow and appeared to be a white horse.

In less than three hours after my
father returned to the barn with the doctor, a little premature girl was born.
The shock and cold were too much for Mother, and she lapsed into
unconsciousness. The snow drifted into the building and turned to ice; the
covers on her bed were frozen to the wall. My father, a newcomer to the Kansas prairie, had an
invalid wife who was unconscious, a premature baby girl, and four other
children to care for in a barn.

Three days later my mother
recovered consciousness and found her daughter still alive. She began rubbing
the child with oil and feeding it, and somehow both mother and baby managed to
survive.

I was that blizzard baby.

Flora Moore
Glencoe,
Oklahoma

Back in 1955 a call
went out from the editors of the then
Capper’s
Weekly asking for readers to send
in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early
settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from
grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were
received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first
My
Folks title – My Folks Came in a
Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine
other books have since been published in the
My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from Capper’s readers, and we are proud to
make those stories available to our growing online community.