Did 1934 snow events in Monroeville influence 'To Kill a Mockingbird'?

Monroeville native Harper Lee.

It’s no secret that we’ve experienced some unusually cold weather this week, and the weatherman says we should expect more to come. As I rode to work Monday morning, I thought about previous cold snaps, some of which included snow.

Thinking so reminded me of the section in “To Kill a Mockingbird” in which the fictional town of Maycomb experiences two weeks of the coldest weather since 1885. A close reading of the book tells us that this two-week cold snap occurred in late 1934, sometime between Tom Robinson’s arrest on Nov. 21 and Christmas.

Fans of the book will remember that the cold-weather episode is described in Chapter 8. The book tells us that the light snowfall in Maycomb was so rare that school was closed, and the Finch children tried to build a snowman. Late that night, Miss Maudie’s house catches fire across the street, and the children watch as neighbors and firefighters work to save her furniture and fight the fire.

It’s also during this incident that Boo Radley makes a rare appearance. In the confusion of the housefire, Boo walks up behind Scout Finch in the dark and drapes a blanket over her shoulders to keep her warm. Only later do the children realize that they’d been so close to their mysterious neighbor.

I couldn’t help but wonder if “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee based this fictional cold spell on a real weather event from her childhood. She would have been eight years old in late 1934, which is how old Scout was at the end of the novel.

Looking back through old 1934 editions of The Monroe Journal, I found that it snowed not once, but twice, in Monroe County in 1934. However, those snows came in early 1934, not near the end of the year. The first snow fell on Feb. 10 and the second snowfall was on March 19.

In a front-page story in the Feb. 15, 1934 edition of The Journal, under the headline “Severe Weather Is Felt In County,” it was reported that during “the latter part of last week, Monroe County experienced some of the coldest weather of the present winter season. A hard rain which lasted practically all day Sunday broke the below-freezing temperature which prevailed Saturday. During the day Saturday, a heavy sleet fell in nearly all sections of the county. In some areas a light snow was seen during that afternoon. Reports from other portions of the state were to the effect that heavy snow fell as near as 90 miles north of here.”

A few weeks later, in the March 22, 1934 edition of the newspaper, under the headline “Light Snow Falls Here On Monday,” it was reported that the “sudden drop in the temperature following the rain Sunday night brought a light snow to Monroeville on Monday morning. The snow fell lightly at intervals during the morning but was never hard enough to collect in any quantity. This is the second time during the present season that snow has been seen in the county.”

In the end, one is left to wonder if these two 1934 snow events made such an impression on young Harper Lee that memories of them were the inspiration for the events she described in Chapter 8 of her famous novel.