The view of Market Street from Fifth toward the train trestle in the aftermath of 1950 storm, the 75th anniversary of which was this week. Almost 35 inches of snow fell, an unbroken record as yet. (Photo courtesy of the Paul Borelli Collection)

PARKERSBURG – A Williamstown native doesn’t remember the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950, but he was born in the middle of it.

The snow storm from Nov. 24-29 just before Thanksgiving 1950 set records that remain to this day for Marietta, Parkersburg and the region. Nearly 35 inches of snow was recorded in Parkersburg and nearly 27 in Marietta, paralyzing the region and causing weeks of recovery.

Residents dug out of the snow as best they could, including Randy DeBona’s father and mother, Norma, who was going into labor on Nov. 26. His father, Eugene, made repeated calls for help for more than three hours that morning to get his wife from their home on Highland Avenue in Williamstown to Marietta Memorial Hospital.

None was available, according to the front page article in The Marietta Daily Times on Nov. 27, 1950.

“My father contacted the fire department,” said DeBona, who now lives in Manning, S.C.

A man walks on the sidewalk near the former Bernie’s Beauty Salon on Market Street during the recovery from the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950. (Photo courtesy of the Paul Borelli Collection)

Because of the depth of the snow, his parents were unable to get across the Williamstown Bridge and to Marietta Memorial where he was eventually born.

Finally, two cars cleared a path for his dad to follow and drive across the bridge.

“A Marietta Fire Department jeep, which was waiting at the Ohio end of the bridge, hustled Mrs. DeBona to the hospital with Mr. DeBona and Allen G. Hamilton, a neighbor, clinging precariously to the rear,” the brief article said. “The jeep was the first vehicle following the city snow plow to approach the hospital. The result of the trip, a son born at 4:26 p.m.”

DeBona didn’t know he was born during the storm until years later. The family didn’t talk about it much, he said.

“I never found out about it until I was 10 years old,” DeBona said.

A grader moves snow on Parkersburg’s Market Street in front of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the Great Appalachian Snow Storm of 1950. (Photo courtesy of the Paul Borelli Collection)

Norma, an avid golfer, passed away this year on March 3 at the age of 95. DeBona’s father passed away nine years earlier. His younger sister, Kriss Bodnar, still lives in Williamstown.

According to the National Weather Service, the storm is among the most damaging and meteorologically unique storms to strike the eastern United States. At its conclusion, up to 57 inches of snow fell in the central Appalachians, 62 inches at Coburn Creek, W.Va.

Linda Moncrief of Parkersburg was 7 years old when the snow came. Never has she forgotten about it.

Being short, she had a difficult time playing in the deep snow.

“Where it was the deepest, I couldn’t walk,” she said.

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Her father, Clare Wade, was a line foreman for the Monongahela Power Co. and had to go to work, she said. He was working 60-80 hours a week restoring electrical service.

“That went on for a couple of weeks,” Moncrief said.

The family lived in Cedar Grove near where present-day West Virginia 47 and Interstate 77 meet, which was rural Wood County at that time. Most neighbors didn’t have contact with others, she said.

“We had a telephone, but most of the neighbors didn’t. They came to our house to see what was happening,” Moncrief said.

Her husband, Ronald, was a 10-year-old boy and lived near Pee Wee. He would walk atop the snow after the rain froze when the temperatures dropped.

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“I could walk over the fence,” he said. “Sometimes I would fall through.”

His father, Roscoe “Bill” Moncrief, was an oil field worker and couldn’t get to work. His grandfather, Ethel Frank, who lived with the family, made a plow to clear Cranes Nest Road, Ronald said.

The plow was hitched to a team of horses his grandfather used on the farm, Ronald said. Cars couldn’t make it through the snow, he said.

“There were places where the drifts were so deep even the horses couldn’t get through,” Ronald said.

The storm in 1950 impacted 22 states and killed nearly 400 people.

Linda and Ronald Moncrief were kids when the Great Appalachian Storm brought about 35 inches of snow to the Parkersburg area. With them is Ella, a rescue dog. (Photo by Jess Mancini)

Jim Dawson, a rock and roll historian and Parkersburg native, said his friend, the late trombonist Milt Bernhart with Stan Kenton’s band, told him the band was stuck in Parkersburg during the big snow. Kenton was a pianist and a big band leader.

“Milt played with many of the greats, including Sinatra,” Dawson said. “When I knew him in the 1980s and ’90s, he was a travel agent for musicians.”

Snowfall in Parkersburg was measured at 34.6 inches, more than a foot higher than the next record setting storm, 20.3 inches from March 12-14, 1993, according to records from the National Weather Service.

“It was quite deep,” Polly Remple of Parkersburg said. She was a little girl of 7.

Her father couldn’t make it to work, but went to the grocery store for neighbors unable to, she said. Few cars could travel the snow-covered and icy roads, she said.

“We were from Kentucky,” Remple said. “We were used to roads not being as good.”

School was canceled and Rempel and her sisters would play in the snow, although the temperatures rapidly dropped and it was too cold to go outside, she said.

“Anytime school was canceled was wonderful,” Rempel said. “Then after a while you wanted to go back.”

Jess Mancini can be reached at jmancini@newsandsentinel.com.

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The Area’s Worst Snow Storms

1. 34.6 inches – Nov. 24-29, 1950

2. 20.3 inches – March 12-14, 1993

3. 18.0 inches – Jan. 17-18, 1994

4. 17.5 inches – Feb. 15-18, 2003

5. 17.0 inches – April 2-5, 1987

6. 15.4 inches – Jan. 3-5, 1994

7. 14.0 inches – Jan. 22-23, 1966

8. 13.0 inches – Jan. 21-24, 2016

9. 12.4 inches – Jan. 12-16, 1968

10. 11.8 inches – Jan. 19-22, 1978

This is a photo of a young child in Parkersburg in the 1950 record snow storm from the Early Parkersburg WV and Surrounding Area Facebook page. (Photo from the Early Parkersburg WV and Surrounding Area web page)

The plowed street in front of the Trinity Episcopal Church on Juliana Street in Parkersburg in a photo taken by the late photographer Harry Barnett of Parkersburg. (Photo from the Early Parkersburg WV and Surrounding Area web page)

Hupp and Wharton Used Cars on Seventh Street after the big snow storm in 1950. (Photo from the Early Parkersburg WV and Surrounding Area webpage)

This photo at electricearl.com, a website with numerous historical photos run by Jim Dawson, a Parkersburg native, is looking toward Quincy Hill from 13th Street during the big snow of 1950. The photo was taken by Dawson’s father, John. (Photo Provided)