SUNDAY, MARCH ELEVENTH 1888, was a mild and rainy day. There had been a stretch of mild weather, and the optimists predicted an early spring. Already the advertisements of spring tonics-those tonics that were to the nineteenth century what vitamins have become to the twentieth-were being prominently displayed in the newspapers; and the confident feeling that spring was about to burst upon the world in all its glory was still further strengthened by the fact that the circus had just come to town. At breakfast my father, with the New York Herald spread out beside his plate, had read aloud, as was his' wont, the weather prediction for the following day, "Tomorrow colder and generally fair." We would have rather had it warmer than colder, but, after all, it was still ten days until the actual beginning of spring, so we were quite contented with the promise of "generally fair."

Personally I recall that Sunday as an unusually dull and dismal one. Several members of the gang, including myself, had just got over an attack of the mumps. So we were not playing out in the rain nor were we visiting at each other's homes. I spent the afternoon reading and, out of sheer boredom, practicing my piano lessons; and early in the evening I retired without my mother finding it necessary to admonish me that tomorrow was a school day. Before going to bed I stood at the window for a few minutes and looked out into Stuyvesant Park. The familiar scene was veiled by mist and rain, a mournful sight. So I pulled down the shade and settled down for a long night's rest.

When I opened my eyes early next morning, still drowsy, still half asleep, I became dimly aware of something unusual, something strange. The day had not yet dawned, but my little hall bedroom was diffused with a white, unearthly brightness. Deep, unbroken silence seemed to envelop me, a heavy silence, until presently, now wide awake, with my senses alert, I became aware of a constant swishing and purring, like the hum of a machine heard at a distance. "Is it still raining?" I wondered. But that was not the sound of rain. "Or could it be snowing?" But gusts of wind, blowing snow against the window pane, had never sounded like a machine purring constantly, steadily. I dozed on for a while, and when I next opened my eyes the unearthly brightness that had filled my room had melted into daylight.

Jumping from my bed, I went to the window and pulled up the shade, and then I stood, motionless, speechless, for the sight I beheld was so different from anything my eyes had ever seen that it seemed to belong to another world. Stuyvesant Park was buried under mountains of snow. The trees no longer looked like trees; they looked like ghostly, white giants bending under a crushing burden. The iron enclosure, with its gates unopened for the first time, seemed to be only half its actual height, and of the long row of benches that lined the outside walks only a narrow dark line, their topmost boards, were still visible. The sidewalks, the areas leading to the basements, the front stoops, had simply disappeared. But the snow did not remain where it had fallen. It constantly swirled around and around, drawing away here, piling up there, until it seemed as if it were blowing out of the ground as well as falling in dense masses from the sky. No vehicle was in sight. There was no sound but the swirling and the swishing of the snow. Life seemed to have come to a standstill. "Like the North Pole," I gasped. Then I rushed into my parents' bedroom and shouted, "Father, mother, we are having a blizzard!" Later, when "blizzard" became the term by which this, the greatest snowstorm New York had ever known, was definitely and permanently identified, my father often recalled that he had first heard it so named by me. I had read descriptions of blizzards in the West, so the name naturally suggested itself. To call what I beheld from my window a snowstorm would have seemed as absurd as calling the ocean a swimming pool.

For a while my parents and I continued to stand by the window looking out upon the awesome spectacle. Then we dressed with utmost alacrity and hurried downstairs. Out of sheer force of habit my father went into his office, but he soon realized that no patient would appear. My mother, at the same time, realized that there would be no milkman, no baker's boy, no butcher or grocer to deliver the essential Monday morning supplies. So she immediately turned to the practical task of checking up what supplies were on hand. Personally I was not thinking of food. The adventure of the blizzard made everything else seem unimportant. I had tried to see it at close range from the windows of our basement dining room, but they had ceased to function as windows, for a solid wall of snow encased them. The same wall of snow was piled up in front of the basement entrance and extended to the parlor floor, completely obliterated the balcony, and more than half covered the high French parlor windows. If you wanted to look out into the street, you had to go to the second floor. With the view into the yard it was different. Here, on the south side, the snow had blown away from the house, but it had piled up against the fence that separated my yard from Elena's and Polly's yard. In fact there no longer was a fence. There only was a mountain of snow, higher than the fence had been.

We had a jolly breakfast, not caring that the rolls were stale and that there was no milk for the coffee. Mother was already worrying about probable casualties and food shortages; but my ever-merry father and I were getting all the fun we could out of our blizzard. "Generally fair, eh?" said my father mockingly, recalling yesterday's weather prediction; and then we realized, that there would be no newspaper. Presently another thought struck me: would the children be going to school? I went to the second floor and again looked out into the street. Except for two or three straggling figures of brave men trying to fight their way through the storm–I saw one give up the fight and retrace his steps–the streets were deserted. The streets, the park, the city belonged to the blizzard. In vain I looked for the familiar horsecars on Second Avenue. In vain I listened for the familiar rumble of the elevated trains On' First Avenue. Nobody was going anywhere. Of course the children would not be going to school. Then there came to me the most pleasant realization of that unforgettable morning. If the children could not go to school, neither could my school come to me. The blizzard would keep away every one of my five teachers.

My father's restlessness grew every minute, and finally he decided to brave the elements and to walk over to Broadway, where he hoped that the cable car might still be running. It was the only cable car in New York at the time; all others were still drawn by horses. My mother argued and pleaded with him, and I chimed in, begging him not to go (though I secretly wished that I might go with him). But my father remained adamant. His patients needed him. I remember his dressing for the venture: high arctics into which he stuffed his trousers, a fur-lined coat buttoned up to the neck with the fur collar turned up, and a sealskin cap that he pulled down over his ears. Then he took off his eyeglasses and put them into his pocket. They would be useless, he said, for they would instantly be covered by snow. Then he took a hurried leave and tried to set out. He tried; but it took a long time until he succeeded. The wall of snow that covered the front of our house was growing higher and higher. It proved impossible to open the front door, so he tried the basement door. That, too, was snowed under, but since it led out sideways, not facing the storm directly, it was possible to dig oneself out of it. So my father got the snow shovel, and Margaret, swathed in coats and shawls, fetched the coal shovel from the cellar, and together they bravely began to dig. They repeatedly stopped for breath, and two or three times they retreated into the hallway to rub their stiff hands and freezing cheeks and noses. But eventually they managed to dig a narrow path from the door through the area out of the small gate that led out into the street. Then my father thanked Margaret, handed her his shovel, and began his solitary, unequal battle against the blizzard.

Mother and Margaret and I, from an upper window, watched him struggle and stagger, step by step, until he had reached Second Avenue and had disappeared from our sight. Then we turned away wordlessly. Mother's face was set and pale. Margaret was crying. My high spirits had deserted me. An hour later my father came struggling back in a state of utter exhaustion. He had won his battle; he had reached Broadway. But the cable car, too, had stopped running. That night, before retiring, we summed up the situation. All day long no one had crossed our threshold, no food had been brought to us, we had seen no newspaper nor received any mail. We had not been able to exchange a word or a greeting with any of the neighbors; no vehicle had passed our door; no news of the outside world had reached us. Living in the heart of America's greatest city, we were yet entirely isolated as, indeed, the city itself was isolated from the rest of the country; and the snow continued to drift and pile up around us higher and higher.

The following morning the snow was still falling in dense, heavy masses and it had grown bitterly cold, the temperature having dropped to just a few degrees above the zero mark. But there was less drifting and whirling, and the snow that had fallen on the previous day was by now so closely packed and solidly frozen that it had become possible to walk on it instead of battling one's way through it. Some enterprising tradesmen came to bring us food, and in the late morning Meister's sturdiest young driver a eared before our house with a sleigh appeared and a team of strong horses. My father breathed a sigh of relief and hurried out to visit his patients. But even that day he did not succeed in reaching those who lived some distance uptown. Twice his sleigh turned over and he and the driver were hurled out into the snow; and once horses, sleigh and all became stuck in a snowdrift, and a gang of men who were trying to clear an entrance to a public building near by, came to their rescue and shoveled them out. After a few hours of such driving the horses were exhausted, and my father and the driver were happy to get back to warmth and shelter. I remember my mother serving a hot punch to them both as they warmed their feet before the kitchen stove.

There were as yet no newspaper and no mail, but gradually ,news from the outside came drifting in to us. People had been stalled in elevated trains and had been obliged to climb down on fire ladders. Suburban residents had been snowbound on commuters' trains early Monday morning, and had spent the day without heat or food. Residents of Brooklyn had been cut off from New York all day Monday. By Tuesday the East River was frozen over, and some enterprising persons had walked across. Many who had readied their places of business early Monday morning had been unable to return home and had spent the night in overcrowded hotels, sleeping on floors and in hallways. Trains carrying provisions to the metropolis were snowbound in up-state New York and in New Jersey, and a food shortage was threatened. To forestall the worst, the city administration had commandeered stocks of milk and bread for hospitals. The property damage was enormous. According to a later description in one of the newspapers) the city had looked like a wreck-strewn battlefield. There had been casualties, too. Some people had died from exhaustion, and one man was found frozen within a few blocks from his home. But New Yorkers had not lost their good nature nor their sense, of humor. A spirit of mutual helpfulness had been in evidence everywhere, and people laughed and poked fun at one another even while they were battling against the raging storm. In various places, stuck into the snowdrifts, signs like the following appeared: "Keep off the grass." "Do not pick any flowers." "Important notice: this is Twenty-third Street."

My most vivid memory of that second day of the blizzard is my tearful, resentful, rebellious disappointment because my mother would not let me go out of doors. What was the use of having experienced a blizzard if you could see it only through window panes? So I quite logically argued. But my mother merely exclaimed, "I wouldn't think of it, with you just having had the mumps!" How I hated those mumps! To this day, when I hear of a child having the mumps I remember the blizzard. That I saw none of my playmates on the street somewhat consoled me. But my joyous excitement had cooled off considerably. The second day of the blizzard was definitely spoilt for me. On the third day, with the snow still falling but less heavily, I used different tactics. I did not ask my mother at all but went straight to my father before breakfast, and said in a tone that must have sounded something like an ultimatum, "Papa, I simply must get out today." My father looked at me. He felt the glands around my neck and behind my ears, to assure himself and mother that no trace of the mumps remained, and then he shouted, as if he were commanding instead of consenting, "Get on your things and get out!"

I made a beeline for the ten-foot snowdrift in the back yard. For two days I had pictured myself going to Elena's and Pauline's house across the fence, and now I was going to do it. The climb was more difficult than I had imagined. The surface of the snow was frozen hard, and each time I had struggled up two or three feet, I found myself sliding down again. But finally, with considerable effort, digging my fingers and the toes of my boots into the snow, I managed to reach the top of the fence and stood there looking proudly about me, experiencing a sensation similar to one I had experienced in the Catskills when, for the first time, I had climbed a mountain. For a few moments I reveled in the feeling of freedom and achievement; then I spread out my arms as a young eagle spreads his wings, and leaped into the deep snow in the neighboring yard. It was not necessary for me to knock at the window nor call out to the girls that I was here. The whole family had watched my unusual approach from one of the upper windows, and now they were all at the kitchen door to pull me in.

I remember that we all talked at once, and that their tame parrot, who occupied a perch in the kitchen, chimed in excitedly. Then the two girls began to beg their mother frantically to let them go out also. Their mother, a sweet, gentle woman, always making a brave display of being strict with her daughters but invariably ending by yielding to their every wish, turned to me and plied me with questions. Was it very cold outside? Was the wind still strong? Wouldn't the girls catch cold? I said everything that Elena and Pauline wanted to hear. No, it wasn't a bit cold anymore. The wind had died down. They would not catch cold with their warm coats and leggings on. My father believed that it was good for children to be out ,of doors. My father had told me to put on my things and get out. In a whirlwind of garments they dressed. In fact, under the solicitous supervision of their mother and aunt, they put on so many coats and wraps that they looked like fat little gnomes. When finally they were pronounced ready to go forth, we rushed through their basement door into the street. We were not the first of the gang to appear. Peter and Willie already were there, and presently more boys came, and finally two or three of the other girls on the block, having seen us from their windows, came to join us. We were going to have a share in the great blizzard at last.

For about an hour we braved the elements, pretending that we were having a wonderful time, but actually just refusing to admit, even to ourselves, that we were cold and miserable. The wind was still bitter and blew masses of snow and ice into our faces and down our necks. We tried to organize a snowball fight, but the snow was too icy to be formed into balls. Some of the children brought out their sleds, but there were far too many snowdrifts piled across the sidewalk to make, sledding possible. Finally, with profound relief, we all drifted into the hospitable home of the B. family, where Mother B. made us remove our wet coats and boots, had us warm our hands and feet before the kitchen stove, and treated us to hot chocolate.

The next morning it had stopped snowing and the wind had died down completely. By noon the sun came out, dim and watery at first, but growing in strength and brightness until Stuyvesant Park, still deep in snow, was dipped in golden radiance, making the scene one of never to be forgotten beauty. The park policeman was back on his beat; people were walking through the park again; all the children of the neighborhood were out with their sleds, and droves of sparrows were chirping and fighting over bread crumbs that had been thrown out to them by the handful. The horse cars were plodding along Second Avenue, and the rumble of the elevated trains could again be heard. Life was resuming its normal course. On the fifth day it began to thaw, and the awesome grandeur that had been the great blizzard melted away in pools of mud and rivers of slush.

For a week there had been no garbage collection anywhere in the city, and New Yorkers, especially in the poorer and congested neighborhoods, had simply dumped their garbage into the streets. High piles of snow had lined every sidewalk, and the piles were gaily topped with the contents of garbage cans. As the snow melted, the garbage simply sank down, until at last streams of dirty water carried bones and scraps of meat and vegetables, potato peelings and banana skins down into the sewer. The city administration made a gallant effort to dig the city out and clean it up. But there were no machines in those days, no motor-driven vehicles, to speed the work. It had all to be done laboriously by hand, gangs of men shoveling the snow into carts, and horses drawing the carts away to docks on the Hudson and East Rivers, where other gangs of men dumped their contents into the water. Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Broadway, Twenty-third Street, were gradually cleared. But in the residential sections., in the streets where there was no business and little traffic, the snow, turned black and a revolting sight to behold, remained undisturbed until it was finally carried away by the warm sun of spring.

The great blizzard has passed into history. To old New Yorkers it has become a cherished memory, something to be treasured like a family heirloom. As the years passed and those who remembered the blizzard grew older and became fewer, blizzard veterans felt a desire to get together, "for old times' sake," as war veterans do. So a club known as the Blizzard Men Of 1888 was formed. Each year, on March twelfth, the aging gentlemen have a reunion, eat and drink together, and exchange their memories. It is characteristic of the era to which the blizzard belonged that there are no Blizzard Women. To my best knowledge, the Blizzard Men have never asked the ladies to join them. But there are thousands of New York women living today who remember the blizzard, who treasure its memory no less fondly than it is treasured in any male bosom, and who, on every twelfth of March, pour an account of their personal remembrances of that great event into the more or less willing ears of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The young generation are apt to scoff at our memories. They claim that our blizzard is largely a matter of fiction, that it grows with the telling each year, that there have been equally big snowstorms, since, only now one knows how to handle them better and does not make such a fuss over them. They are wrong. The great blizzard of 1888 was unique. Young New Yorkers have never seen anything like it and probably never will. So let them scoff! They have many things that we never dreamed of in our youth: radios and talking pictures, a great bridge over the Hudson and tunnels under it, subways and automobiles and airplanes. But they do not have our memories of the blizzard. You old gentlemen and you white-haired ladies who were young in 1888, the blizzard is eternally yours and mine. Until the last of, us has passed into the Great Beyond, it belongs to our generation.