Comments on: Tuesday, Nov. 12, 1940: Armistice Day blizzard

By: Don Babb

Don Babb — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:20:12 +0000

I was with my parents in Sleepy Eye and we left with three nurses who needed a ride back to Minneapolis. We drove 9 miles and went into the ditch and after several hours were rescued by a farmer who took us on his tractor back to his house where we stayed for 3 days. We lived on apples and breakfast food as he had little food in the small home he lived in with his mother. Little did I know how dangerous it could have been for all of us. When my father left the car…he had my mother run the motor every 20 minutes for 5 minutes so we could use the car heater. He also had two blankets in the trunk as he traveled alot for his work. I thought it was an adventure…little did I know. I was 5 years old.

By: Jeri Lee

Jeri Lee — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:49:09 +0000

We were dismissed from school in Elk River, MN and told to go right home. I was 10 yrs. and like most kids I stopped to play and talk to friends. I had about a mile to walk and didn’t even know I was lost but just kept trudging through the snow when a man found me and told me I was heading up #169 out of town. He took me to my Dad’s garage, Flaherty Bros. and I waited out the storm at the garage with stranded travelers. We were fed from the restaurant right next door and I had a wonderful time unaware I nearly died.

By: CSimonds

CSimonds — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:15:28 +0000

I wasn’t even born in 1940, but I remember the blizzard. We moved to Minneapolis around 1948, and for years growing up I heard people talk about it: “You think this is a blizzard? Now, that Armistice Day storm back in ‘40, THAT was a blizzard!”–that sort of thing.

By: Thomas Loch

Thomas Loch — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:55:17 +0000

I have pictures of the train wreck at Watkins on 11/11/1940 If any one would like to get reprints

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:04:58 +0000

I was born in the early morning hours of Nov. 12, 1940 in a farmhouse in rural Anoka County. All my life I have heard family accounts of this event, but all of these articles and comments are a goldmine of info. for me! Thank you!!!

By: Jaime Palacios

Jaime Palacios — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:51:44 +0000

Does anybody know anything about a Deputy Coroner Dr. A.N. Russeth who was working for the county (not sure what county) coroner during the time period of the 1940 Armistance Day Blizzard?

I’m pretty sure he served in the Navy as a doctor during the War.

By: Tim McGannon

Tim McGannon — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:39:30 +0000

Note: I remember my dad telling this story years ago. Recently when I read about the “Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940”, I asked my parents to tell me what they remembered. The story is as relayed to me by my parents Dale and Beverly McGannon, and written by Tim McGannon.

The weather that morning was warm and sunny. Dale’s father (Ed McGannon) went to Sisseton for a cattle sale and his mother (Josie McGannon) along with cousins Jerry, Johnny and Mable Long packed up Josie’s three kids Bud, Dale and Loretta to go to Brown’s Valley, Minnesota for the day. They all travelled the 10 miles from the farm to Brown’s Valley in an “Overland” car.

On the way home, the weather had turned very cold and the snow began to fall. Jerry Long was driving the car and stopped along the way to help two women who were stalled. Before they were able to get the women going, Jerry had slid into the ditch with the car and stalled himself. Jerry got mad and threw the crank used to start the car into the windshield breaking the glass. The car was facing North in the ditch and the car began to fill with snow.

They estimate they were two to three miles from their farm at the time, which put them close to the Sanden farm. One of the other women decided to follow the fence line all the way to the Sanden’s house. Visibility was now about zero. The woman made it to Sanden’s and a short time later Sanden came out in his car to where the others were stalled. Sanden now got stalled making three cars (and nine persons) stranded in the roadway.

Mr. Sanden carried Dale (who was 12 years old), and the other adults and older children carried Loretta (the youngest) and walked back to the Sanden Farm where they waited out the storm. The Blizzard was by now raging and visibility was nearly zero. Once back at Sanden’s farm, they poured kerosene over Dales hands and feet in an attempt to thaw them out.

When they got back to the farm the next day, Edward was not back from Sisseton. As it turned out, he spent the night in Sisseton and did not attempt the trip back.

Dale remembers the wind forcing snow to come in through the window sills and remembers all huddling around the stove trying to get warm.

Dale suffered severe frostbite and for many years afterward his hands and feet would peel at the first sign of cold.

Today, in a time of cellular and wireless, it is good to remember that there was a time when not even telephones were common. Weather prediction was not 24/7 and even a ride to town could be life changing.

Posted by: Tim McGannon - Nov 30, 2007 10:58 AM

By: Armistice Day blizzard of 1940 - Locally Grown

Armistice Day blizzard of 1940 - Locally Grown — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:50:39 +0000

[…] The photos above are from the Minnesota Historical Society’s digital archives. See all 37 Armistice Day Blizzard photos here. MPR did a story on the storm back in 2000 titled The winds of hell. The Strib’s old news featured it in 2005. The storm is rated #2 by the Minnesota State Climatology Office Top five weather events of the 20th century. And Maggie Lee wrote about the storm in a Northfield News column 2004. […]

By: Russell C. Johnson

Russell C. Johnson — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 02:45:24 +0000

The day of the storm, I was living in Orr, Minnesota (50 miles south of Canada.) Even there the weather began warm, but soon changed. My dad was a St. Louis County deputy sheriff. He had to search for marooned hunters, some of whom were dead.

I was attending my last year of high school in Virginia, MN. I hitched a ride with the Troy Laundry truck from Virginia. We got as far as Cook, just 18 miles and could go no further. He holed up in a room above Ardin’s Cafe. I went to my Uncle Herman and Aunt Leona’s home to stay. It was late the next day before we could go on to Virginia, 29 miles away. He took me to the home where I lived. The next morning I was late for school because of the snow.

By: Gail Lofdahl

Gail Lofdahl — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 06:35:16 +0000

My father, Clifford Lofdahl, was working as a machinist on the ground floor of the Honeywell Fourth Avenue plant in Minneapolis. He said that first the sign on the Sears building on Lake Street was obscured by the snow; then he couldn’t see his car in the parking lot across (four-lane) Fourth Avenue; finally, he couldn’t see Fourth Avenue! He made it home successfully by following the streetcar tracks (evidently a plow had made some effort early in the blizzard to clear the streetcar tracks). When I asked him if he’d left work early, he said that the economy was still emerging from the Depression, and workers just didn’t leave work early for a trivial reason like a blizzard! (What a difference from today’s employees!)
My mother Leona managed a bar called “The Oaks” on Lake Street, and said that she only had to walk a block home to the house where she was renting a room, so she didn’t have a comparable “Armistice Day Blizzard” story.