The Time the Snow Split - Family Lore & Facts

Family Lore & Facts is a series where I will take the family stories we heard as kids and adults but were never sure of all the details, research the facts of the time, and put together a full picture. 

I remember standing in the kitchen, probably around the time of the Northridge earthquake in Southern California in 1994, when Nana, my mom's mother, came downstairs for breakfast and told us the story about the time she saw the snow split straight down to the ground. 

Flora Sturtevant grew up in many places in central New Hampshire and at this time they were in Ossipee, where the snow was deep that year and it was around Christmas. They had an earthquake and she recalled going out to break the ice in the water for the animals in the barn and seeing a giant crack that went all the way down into the ground in the solid snow across the field.

Nana would have been about 12 years old, the 3rd child, 3rd daughter, in a family of 5 kids. In this photo from the prior winter, she's the girl on the right in the striped hat. 

Photo in the inherited collection of the author of this post. Please give credit when used elsewhere. 

Twenty something years later I looked up New Hampshire earthquake and lo & behold, there were not one but TWO earthquakes centered near Lake Ossipee, NH in December of 1940, (Dec 20 & Dec 24). 

The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) · 24 Dec 1940, Tue · Page 3

On The 1940 US Census the Sturtevant family is enumerated on Rt. 28, Ossipee Town, Carroll County, New Hampshire. Their home is listed as rented for $10. Also of note that it is not enumerated as a farm, which doesn't match Nana's story, but also her father at this point is 73 and enumerated as unable to work. They moved a lot, and its possible she meant the fields around her. I do have photos of when the older kids in this photo were younger with farm animals so maybe she got her memories mixed up. Mom says they kept a cow & some chickens but that they probably belonged to the people they rented from. 

The news stories of the day indicate the earthquake was centered around Lake Ossipee. I have not located a city directory or other more specific address for them at this time. By Feb 1942 when her father died they were living in Tamworth for at least 9 months (per his death certificate) so it is possible that this photo is the last view of there Ossipee home. I checked the USGS earthquake map fault lines view to see if I could tell where the fault was but wasn't able to bring up a fault line in New England. 

So there you have it, another family story confirmed with facts from the news and records of the day. What else could I add to this story? If I could go to Ossipee would there be additional records for their address or a more local newspaper of the day? Does the house pictured still exist today? Who rented it to my great grandparents? Is this fault line still active?