100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN
Sunday, March 10, 1918. Spring can’t come soon enough for Saratoga County residents suffering through the 25th snowstorm of the winter, according to The Saratogian’s count.
“Since Saturday afternoon several different kinds of weather have been experienced,” a reporter writes for Monday’s paper, “Starting slightly after dark Saturday evening a snow storm that shortly developed blizzard proportions came up from the northeast.
“During the evening the temperature rose, the snow turned to sleet and finally to a misty rain, forming a heavy crust upon the several inches of snow that had fallen.”
Today starts “cloudy but fairly warm,” but at noon “a small black cloud came up from the northwest and there started a second fall of snow that amounted to about seven inches. This storm passed before dark and was succeeded by clear skies and low temperatures. At dark the mercury had dropped to fourteen above zero.”
Winter’s resurgence leaves Saratogians wondering “what had become of the robins and bluebirds – not to mention the caterpillars – which have been seen recently and which were characterized as true harbingers of spring.”
Bishop Delayed By Snow Storm
“Country roads are badly drifted and the crust on top of the first snow that fell makes traveling very difficult,” a reporter notes.
Trolley traffic makes Sunday commutes “uncertain,” including that of Bishop R. H. Nelson, who takes a streetcar from Albany to Ballston Spa to administer the Apostolic Rite of Confirmation on six candidates at Christ Church this afternoon. He arrives several hours late, at 5 p.m.
“The almost blizzard intensity of the storm that had prevailed all day caused a decided drop in the attendance and the bishop was not greeted by the large congregation that usually awaits him on these annual visitation,” The Saratogian’s Ballston Spa correspondent reports.
“Those who did attend were treated to a very scholarly and intensely interesting sermon on what constitutes the greatness of nations.” Nelson’s text is Matthew 4:8, “Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the earth and the world, and the glory of them.”
In wartime it’s inevitable that such a topic heads in a patriotic direction. Nelson “spoke of what constituted the real glory of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, Russians and nations of more modern days,” the reporter notes.
In conclusion, Nelson describes “the spirit of self-sacrifice that is being brought out for Democracy as shown by the nations now at war on the side of the Entente [i.e. America’ s allies ]…. Individual glory is buried in this war by the larger glory of what the people are doing as a nation.”
— Kevin Gilbert