Good day to remember Beulah Marie

With the season’s first bitter cold snap wrapping up, today is a good day to remember Gladys Dancy, her daughter Beulah Marie, L. E. Owles, the Centrell children and three Grady children whose names have been lost to time.

About a foot of snow fell on the region Dec. 9-10, 1923, accompanied by high winds that produced zero visibility and drifts taller than people.

Not even the Santa Fe Railway was a match for that storm.

A passenger train was stalled for six hours by 5-foot drifts south of Elida.

In Clovis, some businesses began making deliveries by sled.

But what makes the storm memorable, even 93 years later, was its death toll.

The century’s first snowpocalypse killed eight people between Friona and De Baca County.

Selecting the greatest tragedy in this area’s history would be a difficult task, but all of the deaths in those 48 hours would be in the discussion.

From newspaper accounts:

• Joe Centrell and his wife were not at home when the blizzard hit; their children were alone when a stove door popped open, and burning coals were scattered across the wood floor.

Their boys, ages 4, 6 and 9, were afraid the house would burn down and ran into the storm in search of help.

They stumbled into a nearby empty school house, where two of the boys froze to death. The 6-year-old, the only one wearing a coat, survived.

• Owles, 25, was reportedly sick when the storm hit. He was found frozen to death in the bed of his tiny shack where he lived alone.

One newspaper reported there was “scant bed clothing and no fire in the house.”

• Near Grady, a school bus was unable to travel a dirt road because of drifts. So three students got off, planning to walk home.

On the way, they apparently became disoriented in the blowing snow and froze to death before they were found.

• Dancy was traveling with her 3-year-old daughter when they were caught by the storm.

They were in a horse-drawn buggy, somewhere between Hassell and Taiban west of Clovis.

They were found about a week after the blizzard, not far from their overturned buggy.

Beulah Marie was nestled in her mother’s arms.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]