On Thursday, January 26, 1978, I was 9 years old. The Blizzard of ‘78 walloped Canfield, Ohio before dawn. Tomorrow will be 46 years since the Great Blizzard paralyzed the Ohio Valley. Who remembers?

In my lifetime, this was the largest amount of snow I remember watching fall, which people worried about, and eventually, playing in. My Dad stayed home from his office at the GM Lordstown plant that morning. That was strange enough because Dad always went to work. 

An all-call phone message certainly wasn’t how schools communicated with parents in the late 70s. We patiently waited for our school to show up on the crawl at the bottom of our family room TV. I recall Mom not waking us up for school that day. I assume the 3 local TV channels were tracking the storm with the rudimentary weather devices that were used back then, and school was called off during the night after we went to sleep.

We watched the storm all day. The winds were howling, apparently gusting up to 75 mph in some neighboring cities. Dad periodically watched the small section of woods in our backyard hoping no trees fell. Because our living room had the largest windows and street view, I remember being allowed to hang out there and sit on Mom’s special gold, swivel chairs to watch the snowfall. It seemed like it never stopped. Our gold, curly cord phone on the wall in our kitchen and a radio my Mom occasionally listened to while she did laundry, seemed like the only objects that tied us to civilization outside of our Dartmouth Avenue home for several days. Both Mom and Dad had the small transistor on constantly and the Sohio Standard Oil Weather Report sound will remind me forever of winters growing up in Ohio. (Click the link to see and hear this blast from the past!)

During the winter, Mom always filled our kitchen cupboards with Cup-A-Soup, Cream-of-Wheat (she always topped mine with brown sugar and a pat of butter!), and Nestle Quick to make hot chocolate. I’m sure my belly was consistently full and warm during the blizzard with our favorite staples. (Just for fun, click the links to see the retro TV commercials for these products!) Knowing my Mom, I’m sure she had ingredients bought for hearty meals for dinner in anticipation of the storm. She always made us feel cozy, especially through her cooking.

I don’t recall any families owning snowblowers so I don’t know how and when we were able to dig out. The storm dumped nearly a foot of snow on top of 16″ that fell a couple of days previous. What I do distinctly remember is when it was safe to go outside and explore, it was fabulous! A neighbor, whose family owned a snowmobile, took us for rides up and down the street. You couldn’t tell if we were riding on the street or the grass. It was a world of pure white. Since there were no cars on the road, it was really quiet. It felt like we were living on a different planet.

It’s been at least 2 years since we’ve had significant snowfall here in Canfield. It feels strange. When I think back, all my childhood winters revolved around making snow angels, forts, warm gloves, and plastic sleds. Even in the chaos of a major blizzard, what a peaceful and beautiful time it was….

We’re lucky and very blessed that everyone in our small city stayed safe during the storm, but we can’t forget about the 51 people who lost their lives in the state of Ohio during the Blizzard of ’78.