It was the largest snow dump in more than two years Monday night and Tuesday morning in this area, closing Hopkins, Martin and Wayland schools. Wayland had just spent its first day Monday of having all students in the classroom since mid-March because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Shown at left is a measuring stick of some sort provided by Shelly Sulser-Kehrle, a photojournalist of Kalamazoo. It indicates that much of West Michigan now has just under a foot of snow on the ground. Susan Rigotti-Craig reported on Facebook that Dorr had the most snow accumulation with 7.7 inches, according to WZZM-TV. The cover photo was provided by Wayland High School graduate Marie Whittemore of Kentucky, who was attempting to depict the drudgery of removing snow from streets a century ago.
I do not want to sound like an old fogey “walking to school four miles in a foot of snow up hill both ways,” but our winters were much worse in the ’60s and ’70s. Snow banks so high you could not see around an intersection. U.S.-131 closed for a week at a time. waiting for big snow blowers to clean out the under passes from 140th Street to 100th Street. Tim Bala and I delivered medicine for Nickels Drugs on snowmobiles, sometimes all the way to Gun Lake. Nowhere near the equipment we have now for cleaning up snow. We survived back then and we will now.