The Blizzard of 1888 and its Effect on Immigrants Essay

The Blizzard of 1888 tested how much the human spirit could take. Stacking problems on problems, it was unforgiving to everybody in the area. Though the immigrants who came to the US all took different paths and ended up settling in different places of the Great Plains, in the end they both went through the same cold, unpredictable blizzard. The Rollag family, originating from Norway, came to the US because her husband, Ole, was assigned five years of military service, their farms were being reduced in size every generation, and for a better life for their children. In Norway, the firstborn son has a much easier life because he is granted a bonde gaard, allowing him to be given the valley parcels. Gro and Ole chose to settle at Decorah in†¦show more content†¦Eventually they chose to move to Yankton, which was in Dakota Territory, because letters from previous Schweizer families would talk about the vast and healthy land and how they would help newcomers get settled. Both the Norwegians and Schweizers dealt with the same three common problems, which were prairie fires, grasshoppers, and terrible weather. The Schweizers were victims of devastating fires that caused a good amount of immigrated folk to lose their homes and the entire luggage they had dragged with them from Ukraine. Unfortunately what the fires didn t destroy the now extinct species of locust, Melanoplus spretus, would, and their eyes were mainly targeting the crops that took all summer long to grow. The Rollags were in the same boat witnessing grasshoppers go for more than just crops; after they were done feeding on the crops they would attempt to go after fences, wooden material, furniture, and even clothing. It was the weather that was the root of all the problems that caused the fires and infestation, but it did more than that. The strong winds, disruptive lightning storms, and the merciless droughts were things the European immigrants werent prepared for. The difference between the blizzards and the other disasters was the amount of utilities and services that became useless from the blizzard along with the surprising longevity of the storms. The blizzards would last