Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes more about 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.
Today I continue covering the “snow babes,” or “blizzard babies,” as they came to be known, born during the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Blizzard of 14 February 1940, one of the most significant winter storms in New England’s history. This storm brought near-hurricane winds and well over two feet of white powder.
Although the cities were crippled by nature’s tempest – mail was stalled, businesses shut down, trains stopped running, crimes came to a halt – the stork was not at all hindered by the elements.
Here is a photo of Mrs. Helen (Whitney) DeGiacomo, wife of John DeGiacomo, 15A Norwell Street, Boston, with her baby boy Francis J. DeGiacomo. Francis was born at 6 a.m. at Boston City Hospital after police helped the mother reach the birthing unit in time over snow-clogged streets.
In the area surrounding Boston, Massachusetts, maternity cases became the biggest news. Scores of babies arrived under dramatic and most unorthodox circumstances while the storm still raged. Police, firemen, road crews, and volunteers collaborated to beat both the stork and the storm!
This newsclip reports that the stork brought 19 babies – including one set of triplets and one set of twins. There ended up being a total of over 30 babies born in just this area by the storm’s end.
Here are some newspaper photos about the storm’s aftermath.
The photo caption on the left reads:
Pleasant Street, near Park Avenue, as little more than half of the street was opened to traffic this morning, following the storm which drifted the snow deep at many points. Crews of workmen are clearing the trolley company right-of-way.
The photo caption on the right reads:
Although this scene is on Pleasant Street, it was typical of almost any Worcester thoroughfare today with snow piled deeply and pedestrians forced to take to the streets. The picture was taken near Richmond Avenue.
Here are more photos from the same newspaper, next day’s edition.
This photo caption reads:
Boston traffic slowed up by storm. Adams and Dock Squares in Boston looked like this yesterday after the gale-swept snowstorm clogged traffic throughout all New England. Drivers abandoned their cars where they were bogged in heavy drifts, and were still busy digging them out as the day waned.
This photo caption reads:
Snow piled high in Whitinsville. Just one of the mountainous piles of snow on Church Street, the principal business street in Whitinsville. Only top of car, one of many caught by the blizzard of Wednesday night [St. Valentine’s Day], can be seen.
In yesterday’s Part 1 article, I shared some of the snow baby arrivals as they were reported in the Boston Herald article “Snow Babies Arrive by Truck, Plow, Stretcher; Scores Born Under Most Dramatic Conditions.”
Here are more blizzard babe dramas from the same newsclip:
The Cambridge Fire Department’s new sedan pumper served as an ambulance of Mrs. Gertrude Assaida, 26, of 186 Elm Street, Cambridge, whose baby was born at Cambridge City Hospital.
Mrs. George [Margaret Louise] Ryan, 24, [wife of George Francis Ryan,] of 80 Chestnut Street, Cambridge, gave birth to a 7-pound girl [Anna Louise Ryan] at Cambridge City Hospital, where she had been carried by policemen after their ambulance had stalled in drifts.
Donald Duff and sympathetic neighbors carried 25-year-old Mrs. [Helen Krafton] Duff of 76 Sterling Road, Brockton, on a stretcher through early morning snow drifts to Brockton Hospital, where a few hours later she gave birth to a daughter [Lorraine Duff, who later became Mrs. John Stork.]
Patrolman Thomas E. McCarthy of the Taunton police not only got Dr. William C. Adams to the home of Mrs. Samuel [Hazel] Haskins at the height of the storm in the early morning but also assisted the doctor during the birth of a girl [Leora Mae Haskins].
The Concord police cruising car, taking a circuitous six-mile route to avoid snowdrifts, got Mrs. Ruth [Tompkins] Ellis [wife of Herbert Ellis] of Carlisle to Emerson Hospital, Concord, in time for the arrival of a girl [Elizabeth Gail Ellis, who later became Mrs. Lawrence Hampton Pittsley]. She was accompanied by her physician, Dr. Randolph Piper, whose car had broken down.
Winthrop police carried Mrs. Albert Weiner of Locust Street, Winthrop Beach, 600 feet over snowdrifts to get her to Winthrop Community Hospital where her baby was expected during the night.
Three “snow babies” were greeted by doctors at Weymouth Hospital early yesterday. They were born to: Mrs. Norma Palmieri of 705 Liberty Street, South Weymouth [a baby girl, Brenda Palmieri]; Mrs. Marion Irving of 195 Elm Street, Braintree; and Mrs. Hazel [Eveline Langelier] Bickford [wife of Harold W. Bickford] of Weymouth [a son, Roy Williams Bickford].
In Part 1 yesterday I gave this newsclip’s brief report of Mrs. Eva (Lucia) Leary, wife of Edwin Francis Leary of Lynn:
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.
To get the details of Mrs. Leary’s ordeal, I researched the Lynn Library archives and the Lynn Daily Item newspaper, which reported on how Mrs. Leary’s snow babe came into the world.
This maternity drama began when Dr. Nathan Specter found a note from Mrs. Leary on her kitchen table after she had summoned him to her home. Apparently, the good doctor had been delayed by the storm in answering her summons, and fearful of giving birth alone, the expectant mother braved the storm and walked a mile through the snow with her five-year-old daughter Joy in her arms to her mother’s house for assistance.
Dr. Specter asked the police for help, and they escorted him and his medical bag to her mother’s home.
Patrolmen William Raymond, William Gillespie, Carmelo Polo, Horace Hill, and William Stickel all were part of the team that dug through the snowdrifts to get the doctor to the expectant mother before the stork did.
Patrolman Stickel was asked to take a detour and fight his way to the home of Miss Marie Cusick, a nurse who lived on Essex Street. At 3 o’clock Miss Cusick heard a loud bang on the door, and after she heard the pleas of Officer Stickel got bundled up and the two headed over to help deliver the snow babe.
Here is a photo of that snow babe. Mrs. Edwin F. Leary, 15 Seymour Avenue, Lynn, gave birth to an eight-pound son, Roy Leary, at the home of her mother Mrs. Harry F. Lucia, 135 Chestnut Street.
Happy Valentine’s Day Peeps!
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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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