by jphilo | Apr 13, 2022 | Reflections on the Past
Spring blizzards on the South Dakota prairie are uncommon, but they do happen. This week’s weather reports and pictures posted by friends who live west of the Missouri River attest to that fact. Their pictures inspired me to locate snapshots my husband and I took when we lived in Camp Crook. In the top one, a much younger me is holding our son Allen. The one below shows my husband Hiram doing the same.
Now for a few fun facts to accompany the photos:
- Our son was born in 1982. Judging from his size, these photos are from 1984 or 1985. My gut says 1985, the last year we lived there.
- This snowstorm was in early May. That’s right. May. I believe a week after our school’s spring field trip, which took place on a beautiful day.
- Hiram’s mother was visiting at the time. She was tired of arriving or departing during raging snowstorms and expressly chose to come in May to avoid bad weather. Instead, she watched 18 inches of snow, fall, then melt and create 18 inches of mud.
- The top photo shows the Methodist Church furthest to the left and the Catholic Church to the right. We lived in the yellow gold house. It is still there, but the building behind us is gone.
- Hiram and Allen are standing to the south of our house. The log buildings are a hunting cabin and its outhouse. Hiram made good use of the outhouse when our electricity was out. We had the presence of mind to fill the bathtub with water when the storm began. Hiram’s mom and I used bathtub water to flush the toilet until we had power again.
- I am not making any of this up.
- The Methodist and Catholic churches in See Jane Run! are similar in appearance to the ones pictured above. Since art imitates life, it is safe to assume that spring blizzards on the South Dakota will appear in future books in the series.
- It is not safe to assume the same for the outhouse. Neither Jane nor Jolene consider outhouses artistic. Not at all.
by jphilo | Jan 27, 2014 | Reflections on the Past
Thanks to the cold, snowy weather this month, residents of the northern two thirds of the US are fighting the winter blues. From the sounds of things, the light at the end of the winter blues tunnel won’t be shining any too soon. So on to Plan B, which is a couple stories from the Harding County History Book erased my winter blues and inscribed a couple mental notes upon my brain for easy access when that blue feeling creeps up again.
Here’s an excerpt about the winter of 1897, the first year the Finnish immigrants Andrew and Alina Peterson lived in northwest Harding County.
Andrew dug into the hillside and made a one-room accommodation for Alina and the two small children, Blanche and Sulo. The first winter Alina lived there without Andrew as he went back to the Lead gold mine to work. Alina baked bread and traded it for meat with the passing cowboys who had a camp three or four miles away. One remembered story told of a time when a cow wandered away from the herd and suddenily fell through the sod roof and into the middle of the one room home. No one was hurt, though there was quite a mess to clean up as well as roof repairs.*
The second excerpt comes from the Elliot family, about a March snowstorm. The exact year isn’t given, but must have been before 1910 based on other dates mentioned elsewhere in the account.
The snow drifted clear over the door that night. Dad had to dig his way out with the coal shovel to get to the pump. The storm lasted three days and then a thaw came. The creeks were full of slush and another blizzard came, which lasted three more days. We ran out of coal, all but the slack (the tiny particles and dust left after the larger pieces are gone). Dad went to the shed and found some old beef bones, he put them in the big heating stove on top of the slack while it was burning. It didn’t smell too good, but kept us warm. He finally pulled a bobsled into the big kitchen and sawed it up for kindling.**
*Note to self: Stop feeling blue about how the lack of a mud room entrance in our NINE room house (not counting the basement) means mopping the tracked in melted snow and gravel off the kitchen floor. Store the complaining in a safe place and let it rip when a cow falls through the roof.
**Note to self: Instead of feeling blue about how high your heating bill is this winter, inhale deeply and enjoy the lack of burning bone odor in your house. Stand in the kitchen and enjoy the quiet created by the lack of a bobsled being chopped into kindling.
What helps you beat the winter blues? Leave a comment!
