I was 9 months old in July, 1936, which was the hottest month of the 1936 North American heat wave . In the midst of the decade of the depression and dust bowl, it was the hottest summer of the 20th century. Notably, it came immediately after one of the 1936 North American cold wave which set records in the upper mid-west and resulted then in record Spring flooding. If all of this sounds familiar, it should, but the summer of 2011 cannot match the summer of 1936. A recent article in the Indianapolis Star, Aug. 5th, entitled Hard Times in Raging Heat describes the 1936 summer as follows: “That summer residents withstood temperatures of at least 100 degrees a record 12 times, including a 9 day streak. There was a separate 14 day 90-and-above heat wave earlier in the summer — the fourth-longest on record. And Collegeville hit 116 degrees on July 14 of that year, the highest temperature ever recorded in the state.The summer of 1936 is the benchmark for heat waves in Indiana, said Ken Scheeringa, an associate state climatologist from the Indiana State Climate Office.”
Yesterday we broke the record 19 day streak of 90 or above temperatures set in Indianapolis also that summer of 1936. Now the record is 20 days, since we had a cooler 87 degrees today, but 90’s are promised again tomorrow. This July set a record as the driest ever officially in Indianapolis; only .47 inches of precipitation for the month.
That summer of 1936 I lived with my parents in a little house on my grandparent Page’s farm, often referred to as the “weaning pen”, because each of my grandfather’s three children “set up housekeeping” there when they married. I never heard my parents complain about that hot summer of 1936, but it must have been unbearable as my father and grandfather worked in the hay and wheat fields that July. In 1937, my dad rented a nearby farm and we moved to what we often referred to as “the Hicks Place “. We lived there until 1946 and my two younger brothers were born there.
Two weeks ago we spent 3 days visiting friends near Baldwin City, Kansas, and needless to say it wasn’t any cooler there. They took us to the National WW I museum in Kansas City, which exhibits many pieces of equipment including tanks, mortars, artillery guns, rifles, gas masks, uniforms and planes as well as facsimiles of trenches and other graphics showing the tremendous loss of lives during that stalemate. It is one of the best historical museums I know of and is a must see if you are in the Kansas City area. Due to the heat we spent a lot of time indoors and saw a couple of great movies I also recommend; Get Low and True Grit (2010) . These are the kind of movies I really enjoy, no stupid car chases and ridiculous action sequences.
I finally watered the flower beds today, figuring that may be the only way to get it to rain. This year we truly can say “It don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime”.
thehicksplace 