Read more about Nov. 16, 1922, in the SunJournal.com archives.

100 Years Ago: 1922

One of F. P. Fuller’s cows in West Auburn recently gave birth to a calf with two heads. It was born dead.

50 Years Ago: 1972

(photo from Journal) The architect’s drawing of what the new Lewiston Mall Shopping Center will look like when completed. The all-enclosed very large building will house a Bradlee outlet as indicated by the sign on the left side of the building, with a Shaw’s supermarket on the right. In-between will be the numerous smaller stores and also included in the mall will be a twin cinema. There will be an extra-large parking area in front of the store toward Lisbon Street. The property has Lisbon Street on the east side, Vine Street and Essex streets on the northerly side and Summit Avenue on the southerly side.

25 Years Ago: 1997

It turns out Friday’s snowstorm was not the record breaker it was reported to be by the National Weather Service. The weather agency said Friday night that the storm, which hit the Lewiston-Auburn area with 6.7 inches of snow, came earlier in the season than any other in nearly 100 years. Records showed the earliest storm that brought three or more inches of snow dated back to Nov. 10, 1968, according to the Weather Service.

But Don Hamlin, 56, knows differently. His first child, Dale, was born Nov. 5, 1968 in Farmington. And Hamlin distinctly remembers driving through a raging snowstorm  to get to the hospital a few days after the birth. At least 10 inches fell that week, Hamlin said during a telephone interview. Hamlin was right. According to a front-page story in the Nov. 9, 1968, edition of the Lewiston Daily Sun, the first snowfall of the season that year left up to a foot of snow in many areas in Maine. Greenville saw more than 13 inches of snow. Six to seven inches were reported at Augusta, Millinocket and H6ulton, according to the story. Tony Lacroix, a meteorological technician for the National Weather Service confirmed the mistake. After checking carefully, he sald the first of two consecutive storms in 1968 began Nov. 8, leaving Portland with 6.3 inches by Nov. 12. He blamed the error on his agency’s records. “You ought to see these records,” Lacroix sald. “We’re in the process of loading it up on a disc. It’s not all there yet. Things do fall through the cracks.

Hamlin, who lives in Wilton, said his son was born at the Franklin Memorial Hospital the day Richard M. Nixon was first elected president.

“On Thursday the seventh we started to have a snowstorm,” Hamlin said. “It snowed all night.” Hamlin said he had to go to work at International Paper in Jay on Friday. “Cars were all over the road that morning,” Hamlin said. “We ourselves did not go off the road, but we were hung up. Hamlin said the trip to his office, which should have taken only 15 minutes, took an hour-and-a-half that morning. “The power was off when I came home Friday evening,” Hamlin remembered. “I had no phone.” His wife, Ann, was still in the hospital.

“In those days, they kept them for a few more days than they do now,” Hamlin said. Ann was scheduled to come home Saturday, but her return was delayed because of the power outage. Without power, there was no heat, Hamlin said. Hamlin said the story doesn’t stop there. “If you went on, You’d find that we had another storm Monday the tenth,” Hamlin said. How does he remember that one? “My mother-in-law was here for the weekend,” Hamlin said. She was a teacher in Monmouth and had to be back at work by Monday. “She didn’t make it to work that day.”

The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.