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Buffalo Couple Has Jar of Snow from Blizzard of '77

By Eileen Buckley

 

Buffalo, NY – In the quest by the Buffalo Museum of Science to gather memorabilia from the infamous Blizzard of '77, a Buffalo woman called up to say she saved a jar of snow. WBFO'S Eileen Buckley visited the home of Maureen and Bill Wilke to check out the jar of snow that is almost 30 years old.

Maureen Wilke and her husband of 49 years, Bill, were very accommodating when I stepped into their Perry Street home in Buffalo to get a glimpse of the jar of snow. On January 28th, Buffalo will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Blizzard of '77. And for this retired couple, they have a piece of history, frozen in their refrigerator. Inside the freezer door, next to neatly stored frozen foods, sits a small jar with frosty ice inside.

Wilke says she remembers taking an empty Gerber baby food jar and scooping up the snow right outside her the back door of her Perry Street home where some of those huge blizzard snow drifts were piled high. Then she took a label maker, very popular in the 70s, to mark the jar. Bill Wilke says he never thought it was a crazy of his wife to save the jar of snow, but did wonder how long they were going to keep it.

The snow has melted over the years due to past power outages. It refroze, so it now looks more like ice than snow. But Wilke says they never lost power during the October surprise storm.