BLIZZARD STRETCHED INTO “LONGEST DAY”
~By Mrs. Theo. (Anna) Huber
It was January, either in 1948 or 1949, and time for school to start after the Christmas holidays. The teacher was living at our house, and on the morning school was to start there was a strong wind and steady snow, the beginnings of a good blizzard.
Theo started the truck early so it would be warm when he took the teacher and our three children to school. He told me he would go on to my sister Emma’s place to get one of her boys to help with our chores and that he would be back in an hour or so, depending on the roads. He then took the teacher and our children to school and then went on the four miles to my sister’s place.
Later I learned that when he got there, an airplane from Hazen was at the farm waiting to pick up a woman who was ready to deliver a baby. There wasn’t room for the woman’s husband to go along, so she refused to get on the plane which was supposed to take her to Hazen where they had cleared part of Main Street for the plane to land.
The woman got into a car. Theo loaded the truck with available men who could shovel, and the group headed for Riverdale which had a hospital at that time.
The men shoveled and pushed on their way through the hills around Pick City, through fields and pastures, picked up more shovelers and some gas at Pick City, and finally got to Riverdale before the baby arrived. There was no time to rest. It was getting dark and the blizzard made it even darker.
All this time I waited. When Theo didn’t come back that morning, I left our four-year-old son alone in the house while I fed the cattle, pigs, and chickens. At noon I let the cows out for water and then put them back in the barn. We lived in a low spot, so we couldn’t see very far, but still I walked to the window many times, even though the blizzard was so severe I sometimes couldn’t see the barn.
It came time for school to be out. I hoped and prayed the kids and teacher wouldn’t venture out. In the school house they could at least stay warm, and I found out later that they did wait in the school, got hungry and kept right on waiting.
I was waiting, too, still waiting at 7 o’clock when I finally took an empty cream can and headed for the barn, again leaving our four-year-old son alone in the house.
As I walked toward the barn with our collie beside me, he suddenly ran a few steps and stopped, perked up his ears and started to wag his tail. Then I knew he had heard the truck. My heart leaped for joy, and I started to cry, thanking the Lord that my family had arrived home safely.
From 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. was a long day.