By: Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County TimesWe’re all tired of the ice and snow at this point. We’re ready for things to thaw out, for roads to be clear, for electricity to be back on, and for water to flow from our faucets.
This is hardly Carter County’s first bout of inclement winter weather, though. Reader Deanna Dunaway called us last week, just before we lost electricity to our home office, to reminisce about the winter storms of 1993. Dunaway remembered gathering in with her sister, who had wood heat, to stay warm when the electric was out because of ice storms that year. While it isn’t easy to deal with while it’s going on, I know we’ve made priceless memories during this recent storm watching our children play together – especially the little one who was thrilled with all the singing, ukulele playing, and the undivided attention he was receiving from his big brother.
And, while we may be done with the cold, hopefully the freezing weather won’t last as late as April. It did in 1907, when the Olive Hill Times reported that a hard freeze lasting two weeks had wiped out the buds on most of the fruit trees and done great damage to vegetable gardens as well.
What’s interesting is that while we couldn’t find the piece about the freezing weather in the original Olive Hill Times clippings in Uncle Jack’s scrapbooks, it was there in the 1922 Carter County Herald when they looked back on what was going on in Olive Hill 15 years before. Some of the other items listed in the article, such as Mr. Fred Fultz sending his dollar from Kansas for a subscription, were among Uncle Jack’s clippings from that week and year, so we believe the freeze happened. But it goes to show that you never know what you might find digging through old newspapers, and that nostalgia columns like this one can be just as valuable as the original source material when researching an era.
Editor’s Note: This is the 32nd in a series of articles drawn from historical newspaper clippings.
