A Snowy Funeral

The Saturday night after Anna Gernenz died, snow began to fall. As Easter Sunday dawned, the snow was falling heavily and a northeast wind piling up drifts. With a blizzard between the faithful and their churches, morning services were sparsely attended.

Around noon the streetcars became mired in snow.

The afternoon went on and so did the storm. The churches got the word out — evening services were cancelled. By nightfall a passenger train on the Pennsy line was stuck in snow near Wisconsin Street.

Sometime after midnight on Sunday, the snow tapered off. When Monday came, the air was clear, and town and countryside were white. Snowdrifts lay everywhere; at the center of Hobart, at Main and Third, the drifts were four or five feet high. Roads were dotted with stuck cars. The town snowplow had cleared a path along the major streets, but still they were not passable by automobile — people walked, or got out their sleighs and bobsleds and hitched up their horses.

The family and friends of Anna Gernenz had to brave these conditions to attend her funeral on Monday afternoon. She was laid to rest amidst the snowdrifts in Hobart Cemetery.


(Click on image to enlarge)

This blizzard reminded locals of the one that hit in 1918, but this time there was no local militia volunteering to dig out the stalled streetcars; hired men, probably, got the streetcars moving again by Tuesday afternoon. And this time it was April, not January; the cold was not so bitter, and though the snowdrifts were tall, they would be short-lived. A week and a half later, the News commented that the Easter snowstorm had melted away without any flooding.

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We can guess how some of the snowbound people amused themselves — the same way they amused themselves when they weren't snowbound; the same way people have amused themselves since the dawn of time. As the Gazette remarked:

There seem to be more drunks in Hobart these days than there were before the saloons closed. It is quite common to see young men under the influence of liquor.

Sources:
♦ "Funeral of Mrs. Fred Gernenz Held Monday Afternoon." Hobart News 8 Apr. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 15 Apr. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 9 Apr. 1920.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 9 Apr. 1920.
♦ "The Worst Storm of the Season." Hobart Gazette 9 Apr. 1920.
♦ "Worst Storm in Two Years Visits Hobart Sunday." Hobart News 8 Apr. 1920.