I’ve previously written about the Blizzard of ’58, about how the snow was piled up at least to my eight year old shoulders and the roads into Richland were impassable for a week.

What I didn’t mention is that the Salvation Army flew in a helicopter with supplies to help out the town while we were isolated.

At least that was the story that I remember being repeated during my youth. In fact I repeated it a few times myself.

The trouble is, I didn’t specifically remember seeing the helicopter. I mean, it’s one of those things that got repeated so often that there were times I thought I remembered seeing the helicopter, but when I really thought about it, no, I really didn’t remember seeing it.

Plus, there was another problem with the story.

Where did those supplies go? Who were they for? Did they go to a grocery store? If so, which one? Or did Krugers and Werners share them?

Or perhaps they were for the needy people in Richland. OK, fine. So how were the needy people selected? By the churches?

I mean there were just so many unanswered questions. And the more I thought about the idea of the Salvation Army dropping off supplies into Richland by helicopter, the less likely it seemed.

So I just didn’t bother mentioning it. It’s not so much that I doubted the story, it’s that I felt I didn’t have enough information.

And then yesterday happened.

I had done a search in the newspaper archive for all the articles that mentioned a friend of a friend and emailed them on their way, thinking I was finished.

But not so fast.

I had done the search starting with the year 1956, and when Mary (the target of the search) received the bundle of articles, she was thrilled but she wondered if perhaps I could find an article with her picture that she recalled from when she was five years old. Which would have been 1954. I didn’t realize she had been a media star at such an early age.

But sure enough, I found the article and sent it off.

And then another request came in. This time for a story about a helicopter that came to pick up Dr. Carl Miller during a blizzard so he could deliver a baby.

Well, I searched, but the only story that involved Dr. Miller, a helicopter, a blizzard, and an infant wasn’t about him delivering the baby. But it did provide at least a partial resolution to the Salvation Army delivering supplies to Richland via helicopter during the Blizzard of ’58.

So here it is.

First Dr. Miller.

About 2:00 PM on February 19, 1958, Dr. Carl Miller was picked up in Myerstown and flown to the Reistville home of Albert Snoke where two children, ages 11 months and two years, were suffering from blisters over the fronts of their bodies from having crawled into a spilled puddle of kerosene. The Salvation Army also provided the family with food.

After treating the boys, Dr. Miller was returned to Myerstown and the helicopter picked up bottled gas, which it took to Schaefferstown. There it picked up 18 cases of milk to take to Richland.

So there it is in black and white in the Lebanon Daily News. Although there is no byline, I suspect the story is by James Shelhamer.

It at least answers the question, did the Salvation Army really deliver milk to Richland via helicopter?

Yes!

But I’m still left wondering: how was that milk distributed? Who was in charge? Perhaps the mayor?

(Note: the relevant portion is on the second page of the article.)

Addendum: So why didn’t I ever do a search of the newspaper archive on terms like “Salvation Army”, “helicopter”, “Richland”?  Clearly such a search would have found this article. I don’t have a good answer for that.