My story of The Chicago 1967 Blizzard.

 

wilson lasalle 67 blizzardWelcome, everyone. When The 1967 Blizzard hit Chicago on January 26, 1967, my mother told me of her memories of that day. She remembered it like it was yesterday. I was 3 years old at the time, my brother was 2, and my mother was four and a half months pregnant. We lived on South Colfax Ave in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago in a six flat apartment building. The only memory I had was, when I looked out the window in our living room, and it was total whiteness. My father worked at the Hilton Hotel downtown on 8 South Michigan Ave and had the evening shift. The IC train (presently called the Metra), was operating as usual. It was only a block away from the apartment. He was offered to stay at the hotel, but he was so worried about us, he declined. My mother didn’t leave the apartment for a week and a half. She couldn’t go to the laundry room in the basement, because the porches and stairs leading to it, were covered with heavy snow. That was the only way to go there. My Mom said, she washed our clothes and diapers in the bathtub and the sinks. Fortunately, she had plenty of soap on hand. As for food and other necessities, my Dad went to my uncle’s grocery store on the corner of East 75th St and S Colfax Ave. The High-Low Foods Grocery Store and Walgreens were also located on the same block at East 75th St. My Mom was terribly frightened at the time; she has only been in America for 5 years when she got married in Greece. Thank goodness, nobody got sick. We were extraordinarily lucky. I watched a lot of TV shows during that time, Bozo’s Circus, Ray Rayner, Garfield Goose, and other cartoons on WGN-TV Channel 9. I still remembered some of the shows that aired at the time. That blizzard was memorable, compared to the others. Everyone remembers where they were at that time. I hope everyone enjoyed my story. My mother tells me about that day all the time, and I am still fascinated by it. Thank you. Pete Kastanes-Admin for Vanished Chicagoland Facebook Page.

2 thoughts on “My story of The Chicago 1967 Blizzard.

  1. I have my own memories: my dad died on the 25th, the day before the snow hit. It was a week before we could get him out of the funeral home and down to the church, which was a block away…

    Incidentally, The Museum of Classic Chicago TV (http://fuzzymemories.tv) has video from channel 32 from that day. They were still a pretty new station, so it’s really primitive. I built a playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSyZ5mLbrD9N6wyh2MibOHkA3uDPojtUu) of the late news, if you’re interested…

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