The Valentines Day Blizzard (episode 242)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to hub history, where we go far beyond the freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe. This is episode 2 42 The valentine’s Day blizzard.
Hi, I’m jake! This week. I’m talking about a legendary new England storm here in boston trains and trolleys ground to a halt, stranding commuters at South and north station.
Thousands of drivers were forced to abandon their cars in the middle of traffic and just walk away in search of shelter. The storm killed dozens of people.
It may sound like I’m describing the Great Blizzard of 1978 or even a typical Monday in February 2015, But I’m actually talking about the Valentine’s day blizzard of 1940 that hit Boston without warning and left chaos in its wake.

[0:54] But before we talk about the valentine’s day blizzard, I just want to pause and say thank you to our Patreon sponsors.
These are the folks who commit to supporting hub history with $2.05 dollars or even $10 every month offsetting our operating expenses, february marks, the third anniversary of our Patreon.
So I thought I’d give a few supporters a special shout out Matt F, Derrick, L and Michelle s, our longest running Patreon sponsors who signed up during that first month and have kept up their support ever since.
Plus another very special thank you to Georgia B who has contributed more money toward our expenses than any other sponsor over the past three years.
We’re grateful for their continued support and to everyone who signed up to sponsor the show in the last three years.
If you’re not yet a sponsor and you’d like to be just go to patreon dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the support us link and thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.
Now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[2:00] My parents always got a kick out of telling me about the day they brought me home from the hospital.
I was born on valentine’s day. My parents brought me home in a blizzard a few days later, my dad was excited to be a father and he wanted to get the whole parenting thing off on the right foot.
So he took their ancient Volvo to the car wash to have it looking fresh when he picked up mom and me at the hospital.
But what happens when you wash your car in the middle of a winter storm?
Yeah, the door’s freeze shut, which is exactly what happened to my dad and why he had to kick his way back out of the car when he arrived at the hospital,
Not exactly that model parent image he was trying to project, But at least he got the family home that day, which is more than we can say for thousands of people who found themselves trapped by the Valentine’s Blizzard of 1940,
February 14 fell on a Wednesday that year.
And it seemed at first like any other work day.
People went to work in factories, shops and offices around boston as they always would only to be surprised by a blizzard that started right in the evening rush hour time.

[3:04] A series of photos by the masterful boston herald, traveler, photographer Leslie jones show snow swirling dramatically around a group of women in evening wear, helping another woman do her feed as they all struggle to keep from getting blown over by the wind.
Another one probably from the next morning shows a group of women who might have been secretaries walking single file through snow up over their knees in skirts, high heels and open toed shoes,
showing how unexpectedly violent that afternoon storm was.
This is the most interesting thing about the Valentine’s day Blizzard. To me, it dumped only about 14″ of snow on Boston.
Now that’s not an amount that I want to be stuck shoveling after all. As of this recording, my back is still pretty sore from digging out after last month’s blizzard.
The difference between then and now the thing that makes this storm significant is that it completely blindsided boston.
Think about how excited the TV weather forecasters were before our January storm of 2022 with one apocalyptic prediction bleeding into another.
Here’s what Channel five was saying the night before the storm.

Clips:
[4:14] It is building at this point, and we are expecting still 1-2 ft of snow widespread across the area, with localized amounts here in eastern most Massachusetts, where we exceed two ft of snow.
So this is not just about the snow, as we’ve been telling you, it’s about the wind, and that’s why that blizzard warning is up here.

Jake:
[4:32] Now imagine what weather forecasting was like before satellites and Doppler radar.
Before the advent of the Telegraph. News about weather conditions in other areas could only reach you as fast as someone could travel from Point A to point B.
After the telegraph became widespread in the first half of the 19th century, it was a lot easier to know what the weather was doing in other places and people started trying to predict what it would do at home.
However, until the eniac supercomputer allowed the creation of mathematical weather models. Starting in the early 1950s, weather forecasting was a guessing game at best.

[5:09] The Telegraph and the later telephone told forecasters what the weather was like upwind, perhaps hundreds of miles upwind.
The forecasters knew what the prevailing winds usually did, what happened when warm and cold fronts met and they knew what the local weather had been like in the past.
By 1940, the math describing atmospheric physics and complex fluid dynamics existed.
Thanks to calculations that an English ambulance driver worked out during his spare time during the Great War.
Unfortunately without electronic computers, it would have taken armies of human computers to perform the calculations.
Without that technology, the forecasters were still basically reading tea leaves the night before the storm hit.
The local forecast in the globe was mostly calling for rain, cloudy, slightly colder with light rain or snow.
In the north portion colder, Tuesday night, Wednesday fair, Even in the late edition of the globe on the 14th, which would have been hitting the newsstands.
After the storm had already started, the forecast lowballed the severity of the storm boston and vicinity snow this afternoon and tonight probably mixed with rain on the coast.

[6:23] The reality of the storm surprised everyone. Instead of some light snow mixed with rain, Boston was hit with 14″ of wet and heavy snow.
In addition, the stormfront brought driving winds with sustained wind speeds of up to 60 mph, Much like the blizzard that hit the city a couple of weeks ago, in January 2020.
To these high winds led to widespread drifting, So there’s 14″ of snow could turn into five ft drifts, blocking railroad tracks, stopping traffic and stranding people all over the city,
other than commuters who are stuck in their shops and offices.
One of the biggest groups of people who were affected by the storm were figure skating fans.

[7:07] February 14 was opening night for the Hollywood ice revue at Boston Garden, led by 28 year old Norwegian skating legend Sonja Henie Now, I’m not much of a figure skating person.
So I texted my friend Rachel skating super fan and host of the town council, that dr Quinn medicine woman podcast, I asked what she thought of Henny Rachel texted back a legend.
I don’t personally consider the greatest of all time in ladies skating because it’s too hard to compare cross generationally,
The skills she won with is what seven year olds do now, But three Olympic gold medals, certainly keeps her in that conversation, but she had Hitler’s autograph hanging on her wall.

[7:52] Yes, Sonja Henie was and remains the winningest ladies figure skater of all time.
She won her first Norwegian National Championship at age 10 and went on to win a total of seven back to back Starting when she was 14, she won 10 back to back world championships and six back to back European championships starting at age 18.
She also won Olympic Gold in 1928, and 1936.
It was that last one that got her in trouble held in the german town of Garmisch Partenkirchen.
They were the winter companion to the Nazi olympics held in Berlin that summer, where Jesse Owens earned his reputation at the games.
Sonja Henie greeted Hitler with a Nazi salute, so the opposite of jesse Owens and she later dined with him at his private retreat in breakfast garden.
Hitler gave the skater or personally inscribed an autographed photo of himself which she displayed in her home for many years.
However, Nazi sympathies were far from disqualifying in Boston in 1940, as we learned in episode 215 about a coup plot by Nazi sympathizers in Boston calling themselves the Christian front.
Indeed, at a time when most americans thought the U. S. Should stay out of World War Two and if we did get dragged into it we should ally with Nazi Germany against the Soviets.
Sonja Henie is picture of Hitler was no barrier to becoming a star.

[9:20] She was a pretty blonde, known for a cute button nose athletic physique and revealing skating outfits.
She’s known as the first figure skater to popularize the now standard outfit of white boots in a short skirt, which leads us to a favorite exclamation from boston’s second most popular podcast.

Clips:
[9:39] Sonja Henie student too.

Jake:
[9:43] TOm and Ray Magliozzi, better known to NPR listeners as click and clack the tap It brothers hosted Car Talkin W Bur for 35 years and Sonja Henie is tutu was one of their favorite exclamations the whole time.
Many years in they gave this explanation.

Clips:
[9:59] Sonja Henie tutto. Now what is that?
Something? I have to admit that some of these have been lost to antiquity.
You know they get the origin just like words the origin gets lost and it’s still funny but no one knows why. I remember some years ago seeing Pat Harrington who was a comedian.
I was on television and radio, stage screen, everything. Yeah, I remember him doing a little bit about Lawrence Welk having two brothers, okay. And they sang together the three of them.
Of course not. He had made it up and it was it was a little known that that they had a singing trio and he was pretending to be Lawrence Welk during the Lawrence Welk accent.
And I remember him saying so you found out about the trio Sonja Henie tutto and it just stuck in it.

Jake:
[10:52] Thanks no doubt in part to those appealing physical characteristics in her trademark to to sonja-henie found success in Hollywood after retiring from competition in 1936,
she mostly appeared in musical comedies that showed off her skating prowess, but at the same time that her ice review was debuting in boston, her movie, everything happens at night was playing in Cambridge, Coolidge corner in Charlestown.
This dramatic title was Headcheese, one attempt at a serious role between her athletic career, her movie roles, International tour, Sonja Henie was one of the most famous women of the era.
Her name was even featured in a globe column, instructing readers how to pronounce unfamiliar names and words hint it rhymes with penny not shiny.
So on the night of February 14, thousands of people turned out to watch an international superstars Boston debut with the globe reporting the next day,
MS Sonja Henie was carried to the end of an imaginary rainbow and the subsequent pot of gold via her enchanted silver skates at the boston garden last night,
as the Hollywood ice revue of 1940 opened a six night engagement before a gathering of some 13,000 Spectators who braved the blizzard and gale to pay personal lo mas to the 28 year old,
stunts use, who is definitely one of the greatest drawing cards of the entertainment world.

[12:16] The story also notes that the garden was providing snow checks instead of rain checks for anyone who couldn’t make it to opening night because of the blizzard.
It also reports that the start of the show had to be held for 20 minutes because so many people have been delayed by the storm snow couldn’t dampen enthusiasm for the skaters.
So the show went on more or less as planned though a few minutes late when the lights came up. However, so did the snow totals.
What had been an inconvenience for the audience earlier in the night, now became a real problem.
According to the globe, a special train had been scheduled to take Henny fans home that night, similar to the extra trains that run from Foxboro after concerts at Gillette.
These days, an extra train will be operated weekdays to Beverly stopping at Lynn swampscott and Salem to accommodate patrons of the boston garden attending the Sonja Henie Ice Carnival february 14th through the 19th.
In addition, several of the late evening trains will be held 10 or 15 minutes to accommodate passengers returning to Lowell behavioral reading in Pittsburgh.

[13:24] Now, not only was the extra train not coming, but all trains were running behind and the trolleys were stuck in the snow,
for the railroads and for Sonja Henie fans, frozen switches proved to be a worse problem than the drifting snow as reported in the february 15th globe.
Although the trains were nearing boston nearly on time, they were set behind by jammed switches in terminal yards.
The new Haven Railroad put off passengers on inbound trains at the back Bay station because the switches could not be operated outbound trains were about an hour late due to difficulty in backing up the engines.
The Boston and Maine Railroad was operating on schedule up to 9:30, but later freezing and jammed switches caused trouble.
100 men were making efforts to sweep them free of obstructions, adding to the railroads burden were 2000 extra passengers,
who came to boston by train early in the evening to attend the Sonja Henie skating show at the boston Garden elsewhere.
In the same edition, the globe coverage continued.
The largest single group of stranded travelers were several 1000 Sonja Henie fans who attended the ice show at the boston Garden last night, and we’re left without transportation by cessation of service on the boston.
Elevated in boston and Maine Railroad and snowbound automobiles.

[14:46] 2000 were waiting at North Station for Boston and Maine Railroad workers to clear frozen and jam switches in the yards,
un dismayed, They thronged North Station, hotel manger lobby and restaurant and nearby eating establishments making merry while they waited.

[15:03] By nine p.m.
All the regular hotel rooms were full and hotels were making a killing by renting out their special sweets or maybe they were just price gouging on the normal rooms. It’s hard to tell.
Before the night was over. They were dragging cuts into their hallways and ballrooms.
Other skating Spectators waited at North Station for trains that never came eventually bedding down in the station the best they could.

[15:28] Even two days after the storm refugees remain in boston’s hotels with the Globe reporting.
Last evening, the hotel managements were again forced to place cuts in the hotel lobbies and halls in order to accommodate the homeless hotel clerks and bellhops again spent a sleepless night catering to the wants of the overflow throng,
hotel bars and dining rooms did a rushing business throughout the day and night.
In fact, the hotel manager’s candidly admitted that they were doing the most profitable business in years.
Non paying hotel guests that is, those who were put up in the lobbies were agreeably surprised yesterday morning when they were awakened by smiling bellhops and invited to partake of coffee and donuts much after the fashion of Salvation Army lassies and a big fire,
despite their enforced stay at the hotels, the guests were a good humored, but for the most part although the spirit of bacchus might have had something to do with their good nature,
there was no rare sight to see women in evening gowns and men in tuxedos sipping cocktails at the fashionable lounge bars at the swanky hotels in mid afternoon.

[16:36] While the railroads had problems on the evening of the blizzards, trolley service was in the process of crashing and burning the globe reports.
Every surface line of the boston, Elevated railway was crippled by the storm.
Last midnight, officials were sending out cars and busses accompanied by prayers when executives stated,
five ft snow drifts and a fall, which jams switches within a few seconds after they were cleared made it impossible for the roads, entire maintenance crew to keep a single line open.
Reliably the greatest handicap Transportation Superintendent Hall said, was the number of stalled cars which had been abandoned on Elevated rights of way,
plows could not push these vehicles aside without doing damage, and manpower was unavailing against the huge drifts,
unaffected by such obstacles.
The rapid transit lines were kept running on limited schedules.
Trains were infrequent, and every station platform was crowded, discouraged after waiting for long periods more than three hours. In some cases, many persons took refuge in the entrances of the trolley car tunnels.

[17:44] Another brief piece on the front page of the same issue of the globe, added hundreds of boston Elevated patrons found that with no cars running, they made the best time about downtown boston last night by walking the underground trolley car tracks from station to station.
They remained good humored, apparently satisfied that they were able at least to find shelter from the blizzard.

[18:06] The transit system would remain gridlock for about 12 hours, but the next morning the tracks were slowly dug out and the signals got fixed.
It would take days for car traffic to begin clearing, but the day after the storm, train and trolley passengers began finding their way home with the Globe reporting.
By late afternoon commuters were able to get a train to any outlying community trains were running to and from new york and maine, and the boston, Elevated was gradually re establishing contact with all the sections of metropolitan boston,
refugees who spent last night in the railroad stations will be home this evening.
At 10 a.m. the boston and Maine announced that the last of the Sonja Henie fans who spent the night in North Station had been packed into emergency trains and shipped home.

[18:53] The situation gradually improved over the next few days, until the globe could report on February 17 that 98% of elevated service would run as normal between the shoveling plows, melting,
and an effort by police to tow any abandoned cars that were blocking the tracks.

[19:12] Railroad service to surrounding communities equivalent to today’s commuter rail reported a spike in service, as many people who usually drove to work turned to the train instead.

[19:26] In a clear parallel with the blizzard of 1978. The worst of the storm came in the middle of the evening rush hour, hitting with such intensity that car travel quickly became impossible.
The next morning, the globe reported on the challenge drifts, mocked the ingenuity of man last night and rendered transportation experts helpless as thousands of motorcars on boston streets and on highways approaching the city,
stalled and died in their tracks.
In the evening rush hours, the storm was at its consistent worst and traffic officers perspired despite their rather chilly blast.
Traffic circles became bottlenecks of the worst sword. Minor accidents were numerous, but major crashes were avoided, Perhaps because no motorist, no matter how speed loving dare to do much better than 15 or 20 mph,
the rescuers had to be rescued.
Police cars going to the aid of stranded motorists, stalled trucks on their way to sand the streets, broke down.

[20:29] The globe reported that a pair of enterprising entrepreneurs went out on skis in the back bay in the middle of the storm selling stranded motorists tire chains, but it wasn’t enough,
traffic ground to a halt, with some drivers staying in their cars for up to two days and others abandoning their cars in the middle of the street and going in search of shelter.
Before long, any hope of clearing the roads are getting traffic moving again had to be abandoned due simply to the thousands of empty cars blocking the roads and preventing snowplows from getting through,
the abandoned cars, also blocked streetcar tracks, compounding the problems in public transportation.

[21:10] That evening, a temporary ban was issued preventing new cars from entering downtown boston until some of the ones that were already there could get on stock with the next day’s Globe relating,
the ban against automobiles entering downtown boston, which was enforced by the police yesterday noon on all roads leading into that area will remain in effect until noon today, so that the snow fighters who are concentrating on downtown streets will not be hampered.

[21:37] As the roads became impassable to automobiles, boston turned to an old and reliable form of transportation, As reported in the February 16 globe, horses were in demand.
In East boston yesterday several mounted milkman carrying milk cans and saddlebags, made small deliveries on Bennington Street, where hundreds of automobiles were stalled.
Three enterprising youths hired a team of horses and offered their services to haul snowbound automobiles.
Two garages and Atlantic Avenue fish market dug up an old horse drawn sleigh and used that to make their deliveries and use that to make their deliveries.
While many boston firehouses, ordered ladders, hoses and other tools loaded into slaves preemptively.

[22:26] Meanwhile, the same edition of the Globe reported that in Newton, a champion musher, let his attention stray for a split second, as he was harnessing up his sled dogs and the team broke away and made a mad dash for freedom,
Dragging the Sledge six miles into Wellesley before anyone could stop them.

[22:44] In the days following the storm, it was clear that the biggest barrier to reopening the roads wasn’t snow, but the cars.
Finally, two days after the storm, the Police superintendent issued an ultimatum Either you moved your car or will move it for you.
The February 16, evening globe carried the details.
The superintendent ordered that all stalled vehicles interfering with snow removal or traffic in the city be towed to garages at the owner’s expense,
Persons failing to cooperate by speedy removal of the snowbound cars will be severely dealt with, he warned, here’s how to find your automobile.
If it isn’t in the snowbank where you left it, call police headquarters and give you a registration number, they’ll tell you in which garage it’s proposing.
Lieutenant Lawrence L. Wyatt in charge of the Bureau of Operations today ordered all stations to notify headquarters immediately. Every time a car is towed to a garage, giving registration number of the car and the name of the garage.
Here are the rates For an easy toe to a garage.
$3 For a hard toe. $5.
The usual daily rate for garage parking is said to be $1 more or less.
When was the last time you could park in a garage in Boston for $1, much less an impound lot.

[24:07] Over the next few days, a massive mobilization of machines and manpower allowed boston to dig out from under the snow blanketing the region For residents of one Austin Street. However, the snowplows were too slow to arrive.
On February 17th the globe visited Quint Avenue and watched the local residents band together to get their street open for business,
annoyed by the failure of a snowplow to open the street and extricate their automobiles, many of them in huge drifts.
40 apartment dwellers on Quint Avenue, Austin took matters into their own hands last night.
After two hours shoveling, they had opened the roadway to traffic.
They’re quite proud of their accomplishment, but just a bit apprehensive.
They’re afraid that perhaps somebody might get the idea that if it can be done once it can be done all the time everywhere.
When their patients finally reached an end, the group was mobilized by Fred Morley of 40 Quinn Av and the assault on the snow began.
Women and men in equal numbers volunteered. Women reported for work, gladden every sort of costume from conventional streetwear to riding habits to house coats.
Their tools were as varied as their apparel. So also was the equipment of the men, but in two hours they were the envy of the neighborhood, if not the dwellers of side streets all over the city.

[25:31] By thursday afternoon, boston had fielded a small army of snow shovelers to at least try to clear enough emergency arteries to let fire trucks navigate the streets in case of emergency.
The February 16 globe reported Boston officials directing the work of 17,000 shovelers and a huge mechanized force of snow removers,
looked hopefully for definite word from President Roosevelt for a special appropriation, which would release 9000 WP a workers for snow clearance work.
Other municipalities similarly handicapped by the shortage in ST W.
P. A, funds were equally anxious for speedy cooperation from federal authorities with telephone and telegraph operators unable to get to work across much of the region, officials at first tried to contact Washington, D.
C, by shortwave radio but were unsuccessful.
When reliable phone service was finally restored, the state’s congressional delegation asked FDR to send manpower from the Works Progress Administration to help the city dig out.
The president declined, saying that he could only offer monetary aid, and even that would be capped at $40,000 in relief for the entire state.

[26:44] Unfortunately, it was rapidly becoming clear that 40 grand would just be a drop in the snow removal bucket.
The boston globe reported on february 16th, an army of more than 50,000 state Municipal highway men labored to clear massachusetts highways last night, running up a staggering snow clearance bill estimated in the millions,
Using all equipment available, including nearly 20,000 plows, tractors and trucks.
The snow clearing forces were fighting an uphill battle, but state authorities announced last night that all state highways are now passable traveling conditions on the main roads remain dangerous with ice forming on the surfaces and snow continuing to drift.
The state police reported that many back roads were still untouched and impassable.

[27:33] It took four days, but Boston finally got the streets opened by the evening of February 18, with the next day’s globe giving a sense of how much effort it took,
with virtually every department had an able bodied subordinate cooperating in some capacity, official boston and its huge army of emergency help had succeeded in reopening every street in the storm struck city to traffic by midnight last night,
yesterday, four days after the crippling ST valentine’s day blizzard, approximately 16,000 men and 1500 pieces of motorized equipment continued their snow clearance operations,
directing the work of freeing the city from the paralyzing effects of the storm boston’s public works Commissioner George G.
Niland and William T morrissey Division Engineer of the Highways, announced that 90% of the streets have been reopened by mid afternoon and that this phase of the job would be completed by midnight.

[28:29] Still far from completed was the backbreaking task of cutting down the mountainous snowbanks lining virtually every street and impeding traffic movement.
With the reopening of the thoroughfares, workers and equipment were turned to this cleanup job.
Commissioner Highland said that there were 10,000 emergency workers on duty yesterday.
In addition to 3500 WP Amen, 350 welfare recipients and 1000 departmental employees.
10 contractors were supervising the work of an additional force of approximately 1000 diggers and shovelers.
The equipment operated yesterday under the Department of Public Works, included 400 hired trucks, 40 hired tractors, 20 big plows in the boston Elevated,
5, 10 ton snow fighting plows of the State Department of Public Works, 18 snow loaders and six crane trucks, such as are used in excavation work.
The contractors had 1000 trucks in operation, aided by 35 loaders and 20 crane trucks.

[29:30] Snow was hauled away and dumped in city owned lots playgrounds and into the sea with newspaper photos showing fireboats using seawater to hose down giant piles of snow along Fort Point Channel.

[29:44] Commerce in the city had been stalled since Valentine’s day. The first time in 14 years that all the major department stores have closed for weather.
Grocers were closed to, which became a real problem in a few days since that was the era when people made several trips to the store each week instead of a single weekly grocery run.
These were also the days of boston’s Blue laws, which tightly controlled what was allowed on Sundays.
So it was a relief when the police superintendent announced a suspension on Sunday restrictions as reported in the February 16 globe,
I am directed by the Police commissioner to notify commanding officers that due to the recent storm and impassable condition of many streets, this order will serve as a blanket permit for the transportation of coal,
oil and food, stuffs, and other necessary merchandise.
The sale of necessaries of life and necessary work of labor to alleviate suffering, lost damage or public inconvenience.
On Sunday, 18, 1940 While many people worried about their next meal after the storm, Winthrop residents were enjoying a feast after the storm tossed over 3000 fresh lobsters up on shore.

[30:57] However, the rest of the region was ready to go shopping. So when Sunday finally rolled around commerce resume with a bang with the February 19 globe reporting,
the market district was the scene of unaccustomed sunday activity as wholesale firms were kept busy supplying hotels and restaurants who stocks had run low during the blockade of snow.

[31:19] It seemed like anyone who wasn’t shopping that sunday was out. Snowshoeing, sledding or skiing.
Golf courses were thronged with letters of all ages. The forests were filled with people exploring on snowshoes and while the snow kept people from making it to the popular ski resorts in new Hampshire, they could find plenty of fun closer to home.
As reported in the globe.
Winter sports crowded into boston’s backyard and trespassed upon its front lawn yesterday.
As an estimated 15,000 persons on skis, toboggans and sleds skimmed over snow surfaces at 60 nearby golf and country clubs.
Big Blue Hill hasn’t had so many swift and silent winter. Woodsman slithering between the trees, bobbing up behind bushes, mushing over trails on snowshoes and popping out from behind boulders.
Since the days of the indian wars, The paper estimated that there were six or 700 skiers at the Blue Hills and continued in a reference to the Great Blizzard in 1888.
Deep snow pushed the clock back 42 years and today’s generation got a graphic idea of what grandpa and grandma mean about the fun they had hereabouts in the gay 90s.
There weren’t very many automobiles on park roads. Police prohibited parking in many places.
The best places to go. We’re near home and the best way to get. There was usually on foot.

[32:45] It wasn’t all fun and games In all, 31 people died in the aftermath of the storm from heart attacks, car accidents getting hit by snowplows and exposure.

[32:58] With the streets open and the trains running boston returned to normal just in time for the next snowstorm, Which hit the city on Tuesday February 20th.

[33:09] To learn more about the valentine’s Day, blizzard of 1940. Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 242.
I have pictures from the globe as well as from Leslie jones of the herald traveler plus a link to coverage in the boston globe showing the chaos caused by the storm.

[33:31] Before I let you go, I have listener feedback to share. First up is a new listener from new Hampshire named chris who says, hey guys, I love the show.
I just finished listening to episode 1 23. I thought it was time to write in since I heard about your podcast from Michael Troy’s american revolution podcast and thought it was fitting as that was your Book club recommendation of the week.
Keep up the great work. I love hearing about all these stories of our great city.

[34:00] Thanks chris, I’m also a big fan of Mike’s american Revolution podcast and it’s a great lesson for boston history fans.

[34:08] After listening to episode 2 38 about the hermit of Hyde Park, Lloyd tweeted, it would be nice to have him recognized somewhere at the golf club with a statue or plaque.
After hearing the same episode and learning about the hermit’s headstone that just says Hermit, Wayne of the 11 names project tweeted the pics you have of his gravestone had a wonderfully minimalist design, but the scope of the stone is impressive.
Thinking about the same thing for myself, but it just says Wayne, no dates, no middle or last names are here lies, I’m all about it, Bruce.
M listened to episode 2 26 about boston’s early Cold War missile defense system, then went in search of the ruins.
When he got back, he emailed, I really appreciate the detail in connection to verifiable sources of your podcast.
I looked up information on the Nike sites in the Blue Hills After walking through them again this week after previous visits over the years, being able to easily dig into this history is a valuable resource. Very much appreciated.

[35:17] Tristan hit us up on twitter after listening to episode 2 20 about the missionaries from Park Street Church to the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Excellent topic. It was the history of Hawaii that opened my eyes to the propaganda taught in american schools.

[35:34] And Deanna M e mailed with constructive criticism, just discovered this resource. So interesting.
But how are you doing your transcription? It’s awful. Is it automatic in a word? Yes.
The transcripts we published on hub history dot com along with each episode are created by an amazon speech recognition service. So I know it works things up sometimes.
Better that than no transcript, at least in my opinion. And the price is right.
Michelle took to twitter with this appreciation of our recent show about David walker with Old North just finished listening.
What an amazing human being he was. The speakers did an outstanding job with this talk and L. W wrote in with a suggestion for a future episode.
Hi, I’d love to hear an episode about Melania CASS. Most people associate the name with mass and CASS in our city’s humanitarian crisis.
It would be great to learn about her life and the positive impact she made.
First of all. Thank you. I actually love episode suggestions even if I don’t use them all.
And second Melania CASS is definitely on my topic backlog. I just need to find the right angle to be able to write a decent story.

[36:54] I love getting listener feedback, especially episode suggestions.
If you want to get in touch with us. You can email us at podcast at hub history dot com.
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If you do drop me a line and I’ll send you a hub history sticker as a token of appreciation.

Music

Jake:
[37:27] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.