Reference no: EM133246209

Analyze the document below by providing its HIPP: Historical context, Intended audience, author's Purpose, and author's Point of view.

Recalling the Schoolchildren's Blizzard of 1888, ca 1930

The winter of 1887-1888 was one of the worst on record for the Midwest. Extremely cold temperatures were common, and settlers experienced devastating ice storms and record snowfalls. On January 12, however, residents across the region awoke to unseasonably mild temperatures. Many people left home without any protective clothing like coats, hats, or mittens, thinking that the weather was going to be fine. Later that day, however, a destructive winter storm rolled in across the Great Plains. One weather station in Minnesota recorded a temperature drop of more than 100 degrees; it was 44°F at 2 p.m., and the overnight low reached -42°F. In addition to dangerously low temperatures, the storm brought high winds and heavy snows. Hundreds of people who were caught out in the storm perished, including at least 213 children who were unable to make it home from school. As a result of the loss of life, the storm became known as the Schoolchildren's Blizzard. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the WPA Federal Writers' Project was created by the US government to provide work to writers and to record Americans' testimonies of various events in US history. As part of the project, members of the department interviewed survivors of the Schoolchildren's Blizzard. O. W. Meier was a 15-year-old living in Nebraska in 1888. In this excerpt, he describes his experience of trying to lead his friends and two younger brothers safely home. Document: "The two Strelow boys, Robert and George, with John Conrad, my two brothers, and I, put out into the storm for our homes. We had not gone a rod when we found ourselves in a heap, in a heavy drift of snow. We took hold of each other's hands, pulled ourselves out, got into the road, and the cold north wind blew us down the road a half mile south, where the Strelow boys and John Conrad had to go west a mile or more. When they reached a bridge in a ravine, the little fellows sheltered a while under the bridge, a wooden culvert, but Robert, the oldest, insisted that they push on thru the blinding storm for their homes. In the darkness they stumbled in, and by degrees their parents thawed them out, bathed their frozen hands, noses, ears and cheeks, while the boys cried in pain. "My brothers and I could not walk thru the deep snow in the road, so we took down the rows of corn stalks to keep from losing ourselves 'till we reached our pasture fence. Walter was too short to wade the deep snow in the field, so Henry and I dragged him over the top. For nearly a mile we followed the fence 'till we reached the corral and pens. In the howling storm, we could hear the pigs squeal as they were freezing in the mud and snow. Sister Ida had opened the gate and let the cows in from the field to the sheds, just as the cold wind struck and froze her skirts stiff around her like hoops. The barn and stables were drifted over when we reached there. The roaring wind and stifling snow blinded us so that we had to feel thru the yard to the door of our house. "The lamp was lighted. Mother was walking the floor, wringing her hands and calling for her boys. Pa was shaking the ice and snow from his coat and boots. He had gone out to meet us but was forced back by the storm. We stayed in the house all that night. It was so cold that many people froze.