The Great Storm: Minnesota's Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873

The Great Storm: Minnesota's Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873

NAHA 2023/008

2022

On January 7-9, 1873, Minnesota residents experienced a violent blizzard when dozens of people died primarily on the State’s flat, tree-less prairies. Minnesota native, Carolyn Mankell Sowinski takes the reader back 150 years and tells the stories of these victims using primary documents and secondary sources in her latest book, The Great Storm: Minnesota’s Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873. She has identified 84 people from 31 western and southern counties who died in this storm: men and women; children and babies; Civil War veterans and recent immigrants; homesteaders and villagers; state residents and visitors. Friends died together; neighbors died together; family members died together. Many died alone--suffering for one, two, or all three days. Sowinski also tells the stories of 25 people who suffered amputations and other life-changing injuries. The biography of each victim provides genealogical information, immigration story, place of residence, journey in the storm, and burial location. Each biography also includes a section titled “Adventures in Research” where Sowinski provides other information about the victim, local history, or her research process in identifying these victims. The reader will also learn about the State’s Native American population who were removed from their historic lands, making room for the homesteaders.

Carolyn Sowinski is a graduate of St. Olaf College (Class of 1980).

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