I am dreaming of a white Christmas; it is defined as having an inch or more of snow on the ground on Christmas morning. My research underpins that on Thursday, Dec. 25, 1890, roughly 3 inches of snow was on the ground in the Upper Ohio Valley on Christmas Day.

A photo of the Wheeling Market House confirms this 19th century White Christmas, which was preceded by a snow storm from Dec. 16 through Dec. 18, with heavy snow, unrelenting high winds, and 20 or more inches of snow on Dec. 17 alone.

My grandmother Maggie recalled in her memories as a girl “where the treetops glisten and children listen.” Having just turned 10 — being born during the hard winter of 1880-81 — she recalled the flames from the stone hearth with stocking dancing in the air awaiting Santa Claus to fill them with fruit, nuts, a piece of candy or two while providing warmth against the howling winds and snow drifts that were higher than her head.

She reaches back in her thoughts to hear the sleigh bells in the snow; “The old Magee Cabin” as the late Frank Chapman of Wellsburg described it was home to her parents Charlie & Kate, four elder siblings Mary, Rosetta, Thomas and Stella. Maggie was the granddaughter of Thomas Bannan who was born 1838 County West May, (Meath) Ireland, who married in Wellsburg, Virginia Jan. 6, 1858 to Anne O’Brien born 1840 Ireland.

Among their earliest days in a new country, the winter of 1855-56 was one for the record books. Multiple source including Beaver County, Pennsylvania, history records recorded deep snow and bitter cold on Christmas Day, while Ohio Agriculture records state that it was the most devastating weather to affect fruit trees killing all of the peach and causing long term damage to Apple and Cherry trees. Thomas W. Schmidlin and Jeanne A. Schmidlin, in their book “Thunder in the Heartland,” wrote that the extreme cold of 1855 disrupted railroad schedules because engines would not run and rails snapped in the cold.

“The snow commenced falling on Christmas Eve, and it snowed some, more or less, all through the month of January 1856,” John S. Morton of Freeport recalled in an article published in the Freeport Press in 1910. “It was the coldest winter that I ever experienced; the thermometer frequently registered as low as 36 degrees below zero. There were terrible drifts along the ridges all over the county, so high that the fences were covered several feet deep and the snow packed so solid that people drove over the top of them with their sleds. And it was not for a day or two but the entire winter.”

The Magee backwoods cabin had seen snow in the 1870s with deep snowfall & freezing colds spells. Then again when Grandma Traubert was 4 years old in 1884 an old-fashioned whiteout in early January 1885, with more than 18 inches falling on Monday Jan. 8. Her Pa would run a rope to the barn from the house then to the chicken coop.

My Grandmother would see a White Noel again in 1892 at age 12 with 1.5 inches. Before she left to marry William A. Traubert in 1919, the Yule of the 25th would include snow in 1902, 1909, 1917 and Will & she enjoyed their first Christmas together that included 2 inches of snow. It was not until 1935 she would wake to another holiday 3.5-inch plus snow fall on the 25th in the middle of the Great Depression. Her now 13-year-old son Billy would feed the livestock on Traubert’s Dairy Farm amid the drifting snow swept fields.

The winds of war would carry the farm boy Billy Traubert far from the Little House in the Hollow to the battlefields of Europe. Fighting in the winter, tromping through the snow across enemy territory. Will & Maggie Traubert listening on Old Cathedral Radio on Dec. 24, 1944 as FDR said, “the teachings of Christ are fundamental in our lives; the Christmas spirit lives tonight in the bitter cold of the front lines in Europe …”

The blizzard-like conditions that existed saved countless lives on both sides.

These are some memories for those who have been longing for winter from olden days, with a fleecy Snow and a Northbound Wind for the holidays.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Michael Traubert is a resident of Wellsburg.