We asked for the Halloween blizzard stories you have been telling (and retelling) for 30 years, and received a flurry of them. We heard about costumes replaced by sheets with hastily cut eyeholes (the only thing that would fit over a snowsuit), snowed-in slumber parties, harrowing car rides and neighbors coming to the rescue.
Here are some of the many tales worth sharing, edited for clarity and brevity:
Snow babies
Diane Syverson watched with anxiety as the snow piled up outside her Plymouth home. Syverson was not only pregnant, but nearly two weeks past her due date. Her husband and a neighbor spent hours shoveling the driveway, but when Syverson went into labor Friday night, they knew that driving to the hospital was out of the question.
Their 911 call yielded a snowplow, a fire engine, police and an ambulance. "The neighbors were all waving as I was placed in the back of the ambulance," she said.
The 20-minute trip to the hospital took an hour and a half. Six hours later Syverson was blessed with a baby girl — and the new family spent the next two days together, stranded in the hospital.
Tricks and treats
Linda Berglund and her two children wore Wizard of Oz costumes that Halloween. She was the Wicked Witch of the West to her sixth-grade daughter's Dorothy and fourth-grade son's Tin Man. He wore a get-up made from aluminum cans tied together.
"We were a great trio," she said — until the Tin Man fell in a snow pile and couldn't get up because of his costume. Dad had to come to the rescue. Berglund recalls it as "a wonderful night, and one I hope I will remember always."
Community and clearing
In northeast Minneapolis, Harrison Deckard and his boyfriend learned a welcome lesson about their community when they ventured out after the snow finally stopped falling.
"Every neighbor on our little block was out, digging their cars out from a mountain of snow, clearing paths through the middle of the street, all dressed as I was, in complete Minnesota gear," he recalled. "What was so different about this scene was, every neighbor — and I do mean, every neighbor — was taking turns at digging out each individual's snow-trapped car from the drifts so early in the morning. We all each took turns."
"For a two-man couple in a very religious neighborhood in the mid-'90s, this broke boundaries," he wrote.
For Ron Anderson, who drove a snowplow for the city of Edina, things weren't so rosy.
"The boss said a big one is coming. Stand by your phone," he recalled. Normally, he could clear his route in less than 10 hours. Not this time.
"I would push snow 10 feet, lift the plow up, back up, drop the plow, and push the snow another 10 feet. Then repeat — for three days," he said. "Because so much snow was put into driveways, people got mad. I had snow shovels thrown at my truck door, and one guy threw a cup of hot coffee in my face. The police came on that one."
He spent four days clearing Edina streets before he could tackle his own Richfield driveway.
Highway to Hades
Bonita Hill had a day off from her job as a family physician and was planning to attend a school Halloween party with her three children. She dressed her youngest in a pumpkin suit and headed to the event "dressed in a devil's cape, sparkly red horns, and a matching tail," she said.
By the time they headed home, the roads were icy and the snow was falling fast. At one red light, she slid through the intersection, down into the ditch and into someone's front yard.
"With no time to think, I instinctively drove through the yard, and onto the homeowners' driveway," she said. From there, they made the trip home.
"I will never know if the homeowners saw the devil visit them that Halloween day," she said.
Stuck in place
Paul Dooley, who was 18 at the time, was working at a Perkins restaurant when the storm hit.
"We closed at 2 a.m. The news said the highways were shut down and that troopers were even patrolling on snowmobiles to help stranded motorists," he recalled. "A couple of us ended up sleeping in booths until the morning crew came in."
"For a teenager," said Dooley, "this sucked."
R.T. Franta ended up hosting a never-ending party after his daughter's friends' car got stuck in the driveway of his Fridley home.
"It turned into a weekend party for six giggling girls, watching movies in my family room while I kept the fireplace going, made grilled cheese sandwiches, and supplied them with every sweatshirt, blanket and pillow we had to offer," recalled Franta, who even snowshoed to the grocery store for supplies.
Minneapolis nurse anesthetist Mary Dow Ryerse was working in the operating room at North Memorial hospital Halloween night.
"Night nurses began calling in to say that driving was unsafe, and they wouldn't be able to come in. I knew that my little VW would never get me home," she recalled. "We all simply stayed on and kept working. The ambulances continued to keep us busy all night with car crashes and broken bones. In the morning, the daytime crew finally managed to make it in; those of us who had stayed all night were dumbfounded at the huge piles of snow."
Snowy exit
Patrick Redmond of St. Paul braved the blizzard for a date. Perhaps he shouldn't have.
"We met at a restaurant in Uptown, the only customers there," he said. "She unceremoniously informed me she was breaking up with me and left into the swirling snow."
