Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry describes the 1940 St. Valentine’s Day Blizzard in New England, during which – in very difficult circumstances – more than 30 babies were born in the Boston area! Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
The St. Valentine’s Day Blizzard of 14-15 February 1940 was a whopper and dumped an average of 14-18 inches of snow across the New England area. Winds howling up to 60 miles per hour piled up snow drifts 10 feet high. Thousands of people were stranded, hundreds of cars abandoned, and all train traffic stopped in New England during the two-day storm. Thirty-one people died.
The “Blizzard of Lovers’ Day” raged for two whole days and was one of the most significant winter storms in the region’s history, causing widespread disruption and death. However, it also brought new life.
In the area surrounding Boston over 30 babies came safely into this world during the blizzard, though not without a little drama. But first the skinny on the storm from newspaper archives, and some images from special photograph collections.
“Wild Blizzard Cripples N. E. [New England]” was the Boston Herald’s front page headline.
Below is a better version of the photo that appeared on the Boston Herald’s front page that day. The newspaper’s photo caption reads:
Down They Went – A scene common at Tremont and Boylston streets last night as the wind, blowing at almost hurricane force, caused women to lose their footing and slip on the icy, snow-swept pavements into the arms of Patrolman Ernest Love, an appropriate name on Valentine’s Day.
Even as the storm was shutting things down, over 30 babies were born in the Boston area.
This article reports:
Scores of storm babies, including triplets in Revere and twins in Newton, arrived under dramatic and most unorthodox circumstances early yesterday while the storm still raged…
Mrs. Dorothy Harrie of Napier Park, Dorchester, was “rescued” by police who enlisted the help of two private contracting plows and two snow shovelers to reach her door. They carried her on a stretcher to a Boston City Hospital ambulance.
The fortitude of expectant mothers was illustrated in many sections of the state, but perhaps most dramatically by Mrs. Ruth Coughlin of West Andover and Mrs. [Eva] Leary of Lynn.
Mrs. Coughlin, a trained nurse, walked a quarter of a mile through drifting snow to Lawrence Hospital where less than an hour later she gave birth to a fine son.
Mrs. Leary, told by police it was impossible to send an ambulance to her home, walked a mile through the storm to her mother’s home where she gave birth to a son.
Below is a photo of a few fine fellows that came to the rescue to get a Mama to safety to deliver her babe.
A daughter and two sons were born to Mrs. Frank Gamble, 33, of Hutchinson Street, at General Hospital after a hectic and worried two-hour ride in fire snowplow trucks. The firemen who deserve the credit: Peter Hadley, John Behan, and Fred Menard. Dr. Daniel was the attending physician and said mother and children were “doing well.”
In the wee hours of the morning, Newton and Waltham Police battled the storm to take Mrs. Thedore Brown (born Agnes Elizabeth Howard) of 42 Falmouth Road, West Newton, to Anderson Memorial of Waltham Hospital. Fearing the race with the stork, they carried her in a stretcher over 100 yards. The mother gave birth to twin boys, David and Dennis Brown, 12 hours later.
One of the first automobiles to enter the highway from Framingham to Newton during the storm carried Mrs. Francis Cavanaugh (born Dorothy Knowlton) of Brooks Street, Framingham, to Newton Hospital. The car was escorted by a truckload of shovelers, most enthusiastic of whom was her husband. Early the next day she gave birth to a baby girl, Susanne Knowlton Cavanaugh.
Here is a photo from the news clip showing a nurse at Boston’s Lying-In Hospital holding a nine-pound baby boy named William M. Paris, born to Mrs. Charlotte Rosalind (Solomont) Paris, 29, of 150 Amory Street, Brookline, who was taken to the delivery unit by police and snowplow.
Another mother, Mrs. Rita (Elizabeth Donahue) McGovern, wife of Francis McGovern of 17 Oregon Avenue, Lawrence, was delivered of a boy by a nurse who received telephone instructions from a physician unable to reach the house. Mrs. McGovern gave birth to a boy, Terrence Francis McGovern.
Malden police carried Mrs. Donald (Dora Levine) Strasnick of Reading from a stalled ambulance to Malden Hospital, where her son Warren A. Strasnick was born.
A milk company pung sleigh lined with clean straw and blankets was commandeered by Malden Police to transport Mrs. Harry Mason (Pearl Herchenbaum) of 123 Franklin Street to the hospital. She gave birth to a boy, Marvin Mason.
Stay tuned for part 2!
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Note on the header image: an English Victorian-era Valentine card located in the Museum of London, c. 1870. Credit: rgEbfucR4wKBlg; Wikimedia Commons.
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