School Children Stranded in Naperville!

The Great Snow Storm of 1967

On Thursday, January 26, 1967, the school day started like any other.  It might have been snowing when my brother Kurt and I got on the bus in front of our house on Naperville-Plainfield Road, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  Once we piled off the school bus in the back parking lot of Naperville Community High School (our only high school at the time), that's the last I would see Kurt until later that night.  We didn't have any classes together and never seemed to pass each other in the hall.

After eating lunch in the school cafeteria, I hurried to my advanced sewing class.  My teacher, Mrs. Yundt, was a bit of a stickler for doing everything just right and when we didn't, she'd call us names, like Lady Jane or Lady Godiva.  Before class started, I'd visit with my friend Nancy Day.  But on this day, I didn't do any visiting with Nancy and I didn't do any sewing.  The intercom system interrupted us to announce we were experiencing a major snow storm.  "And the school buses won't be running this afternoon," the voice stated.  "Bus riders should try to go home with a friend who lives in town."

A snow storm?  When did that happen?  All of the girls rushed to look out the second-floor windows.  Yes, sure enough, it was a big snow storm!  Thinking fast, I grabbed Nancy's arm.  "Hey, can I come home with you?"

With her long, dark brown hair tightly curled at the ends bobbing up and down, Nancy said, "Sure, why not?"  We trudged to her house on South Main Street with our books in our arms as it wasn't cool to wear a backpack in those days.  When we got to Nancy's, there were two boys throwing snowballs in the front yard.  Hey!  I didn't know Kurt knew Donny Day!  We called Mom and she sent my Uncle Ray Ory to come pick us up.  

It was too late for our weekly newspaper, The Naperville Sun, to print anything about the snow storm that day, and by the next week, the snowstorm was old news.  However, the Aurora-Beacon reported in January 1972, "It was five years ago today that area residents were faced with the results of the worse snowfall in 35 years . . . 23 inches . . . The 'Great Blizzard of '67' is one of those events people always remember - and what they were doing at the time is just as vividly recalled."