Looking back at the Blizzard of ’78
Although January is behind us, this midwinter interval may just as well be “Janbruary” — there are many days which could be notched as January 37th, say, or January 45th. Those days are usually the third day of clouds, and gun-metal gray skies. Days of dry skin, pinched nostrils, and yet another lost glove.
Now that February has truly launched, the community invariably looks back on another memorable February — back in 1978.
Snow began falling in the early afternoon on Monday, February 6, 1978 and continued through Tuesday evening. The snow fell fast and thick, until all of New England was blanketed with an unprecedented snowfall, and subsequently paralyzed with hundreds of cars marooned on state highways. Thus began a generational marker: the Blizzard of ’ 78.
People who were kids during that time had a lot of fun, but for those who were of working age, circumstances were more serious.
Bruce Gallant of Leominster had a harrowing tale: “I crashed my car on route 2, drove a few miles further and had to abandon it on the entrance ramp to 128, got picked up by a stranger and stuck in the snow 2 times on before getting dropped off at a nearby fire station where I spent the night. Next day I was brought to a school cafeteria where other people were supposed to be (they weren’t). Finally I was brought back to my college dorm (Bentley) by the National Guard.”
Gallant retrieved his car two weeks later. “The towing company remembered my car because they were located on route 2 and had to tow my car first so they could get to the hundreds of cars stuck on 128.”
Fitchburg Art Museum director Nick Capasso was in his college dorm at Clark University — but needed to be dug out. For the next few weeks, “we had some weirdly creative meals in the dining hall.”
Fitchburg’s former
Ward 3 Councilor Joel Kaddy was newly married with two kids. “I bought a 1976 Scout Terra with a plow,” he says. “I worked and worked and worked! By the end of the Blizzard paid my Scout off!”
Amy Lantry-jue was a senior at Lunenburg High School. “There were snow drifts so high . . . it drifted over the Math/language wing of the school. The snow banks along the side of the roads were piled so high, you had to drive half way into the intersection to see if another car was approaching.”
Lantry-jue also noted that while the broadcast news focused on the floods and abandoned cars, north central Mass. had the highest snow totals. “Back then, the TV news portrayed the Bostonian attitude about the map of the state of Mass. This consisted of Boston ( I- 495 east to the Big City) ,Cape Cod, and rest of state was called Western Mass! Central Mass never existed!”
Some districts made the decision to make up the classroom time, and Carolann Fredenberg, formerly of Hudson notes, “I remember that storm like it was last week. I was 11, and in the 6th grade. We were home for two weeks but then had to go to school one hour early, and stay later for the rest of the school year to make up the time!”
Mary Catherine Barclay of Royalston explains that “my family was always prepared for emergencies. Dad always kept the vehicles gassed up, plenty of wood set by for the little, terribly inefficient Franklin wood stove in our sitting room off of the kitchen, the ugly but efficient wood stove in the living room, and for Grammy Croft’s Glenwood Homegrand wood cook stove in our basement.” The family also filled bottles of water to fill empty space in the freezer, and have the family shower and wash hair if a storm was coming, in case of a power outage. Then she filled the tub with toilet-flushing water.
But her family loved storms, as her father was a carpenter and with seasonal work, “Dad had more free time in the winter, and we really enjoyed a weather event of any magnitude. We would play board games and cards, read together, play music — it was a party! A storm of the magnitude predicted would mean cocoa from water on the wood stove, and the best meals ever, cooked on or baked in Grammy’s Glenwood Homegrand.”
Edward Jeffrey, formerly of Fitchburg, got to be part of the solution, and the photograph of him in a tank comes up in Google searches to this day. He reports, “My army reserve unit got called into Revere in Winthrop. We were out of Fort Devens doing search and rescue.”
Jeffrey wasn’t the only person working through the storm. Lisa Marie Rivard, whose mom was the first female police officer in Fitchburg had to tough it out for the job she held as a sophomore at Fitchburg High: “I delivered the Sentinel in waist deep snow to 200 customers after I dug the pile out of the snow bank with a shovel. My jeans were frozen solid. I quit right after.”