Midwestern Blizzards

Our One-Room Country Schoolhouse

     The winters of 1948-49 and 1949-50 were absolutely brutal in the Midwest.  Some regions had over 100 inches of snow each winter.  The Great Blizzard of 1949 occurred the first week of January.  Much has been written about that record-breaking storm, but there were many blizzards those years and I cannot separate them in my mind.

     As one storm was followed by another with no melting in between, the snow packed solid, deeper and deeper.  The snowdrifts around our farm became so high that the cattle could literally walk across the fences.  The water tanks for the animals froze solid and tank heaters had to be used to make drinking water available for the livestock.  It was always a worry that we would lose electric power because then no water could be pumped from the well to the tanks.

     The snowdrift behind our house was higher than our clothesline and stayed that way for many, many weeks.  We kids enjoyed sliding down the snowdrift when the weather was pleasant enough for us to be outside.  We were frequently snowed in, unable to drive on the roads.  The county snowplows ran day and night during and after those storms.  If someone had a medical emergency, getting help was difficult, perhaps impossible.  Often the blizzards were preceded by ice storms which coated and broke many electric and phone lines, stopping all communication.  In general, it was a very miserable and dangerous time to be living on a farm in the country.  

     I was in grade school in our one-room country schoolhouse during the 1949-1950 school year.  The school board had switched the furnace the previous summer from coal to oil.  The oil furnace with an electric thermostat was a big help to our teacher who no longer had to go down into the basement and shovel dirty black coal into the fiery mouth of the huge furnace.  But progress sometimes comes with new risks.

     One of several blizzards that winter struck on a weekday afternoon in March during school hours.  The wind rose quickly, howling around the schoolhouse, rattling the big glass  windows.  The storm started with sleet and ice pellets beating loudly on the window.  Then thick, blinding snow began to fall.  Visibility was zero and we could not even see the outhouses less than 100 feet from the school building. Anyone caught outdoors would have quickly become disorientated, not knowing which direction to go.

     Having heard the bad weather forecasts, several fathers including Daddy came early to get us children from school.  But the storm came upon us so quickly that our car got stuck on the road near the school.  Daddy had to leave the car and walk the short distance to the school yard.  Other fathers who lived close by were afraid to leave the school with their children once they arrived for fear of getting stuck along the road in a snowdrift or of sliding into a ditch on the way back home.  Every year we heard of someone in the county who had become stranded in such a storm and froze to death or suffocated in the car from carbon monoxide fumes while trying to keep warm with the engine running.  Few people took such risks if they had a safe place to stay.

     In the end, our teacher, several fathers, and most of the children stayed all night at the school.  For us kids, it was an adventure.  Unknown to us, the adults were very worried that the thick ice on the power and telephone lines would snap the wires, leaving us without heat, lights, or phone communication.  We youngsters were concerned only about food and sleeping arrangements.  Most of us had empty lunch pails by mid-afternoon.

     Obviously, we could not go outside to the outhouses.  We had to make do with a couple of metal buckets in the basement.  Boys and girls periodically took turns going downstairs in separate groups.  It was a minor inconvenience because most of us still used chamber pots and outhouses at home anyway.

     The school house was on a different phone system from the one at home on the farm.  It was actually "long distance" to call between the school and home, something we did only in an emergency because those calls were expensive.  Phone lines then were party lines with six or more homes on each line.  Each home had a separate identifying ring. Frequently neighbors eavesdropped on each other's phone calls and then spread the gossip. That stormy night, however, the party line system worked to our advantage.

     The Engelhorn family owned the farmland across the road from the school.  They were Catholics and the children attended the Catholic parochial school in town.  Their farmyard was at the center of their farm, a common arrangement on large farms, down a straight but hilly lane at least a half mile long.

     The Engelhorns were on the party phone line with the school. They heard the rings for the many calls to and from the school that day.  Picking up their phone receiver on some of the school's calls, they learned from the conversations that all of us were stranded overnight at the school.

     Mr. Engelhorn had just returned from grocery shopping in town and picking up his children at the parochial school.  He had stocked up on food and supplies in preparation for the storm.  Midwestern blizzards often wore on for two or three days.  Deciding to help, Mr. Engelhorn generously loaded groceries, blankets, and other supplies into their farm wagon.  He put burlap feed sacks over the heads of his horses so that he could "convince" the horses to walk into the cold 60-70 mph wind.  He hitched his team to his farm wagon and slowly made his way up and down the rolling hills of his long lane to the schoolyard.

     Everyone was very happy to know that food was on the way.  We waited eagerly to see what he had brought us to eat.  I remember my keen disappointment when he pulled a big bunch of bananas from his grocery sacks.  Bananas in the middle of winter a long way from any banana tree should have been a treat, but I really disliked bananas.  I no longer remember what else was in the bag, only those disappointing bananas.

     No one slept very much that night.  The adults stayed up, praying the electricity would not fail.  We kids stretched out on desk seats, the furnace box, and the floor.  It was not very comfortable, the lights were on, and there was lots of whispering.  We listened to the radio.  None of the adults were particularly stern about enforcing quiet.  

     The phone rang a lot and surprisingly it continued to function although the lines were "crossed".  Mommy managed to get through accidentally during one of those mix ups, much relieved to learn then that Daddy and I were safe at school.  Our family on the farm was very worried that he had not reached the school or that we had tried to drive back home and were stranded somewhere along the way in a snow drift.

     The storm was actually a short one by Midwest standards.  The next morning, the sky was a clear bright blue.  The wind had gone done.  It was quiet and very, very cold. Towering snowdrifts were everywhere.  Daddy went outside to help shovel out the cars and trucks.  One of our impatient neighbors tried to start his truck before clearing away the snow. He burned out the truck engine because the tailpipe was encased in ice in a snowdrift.

     Another of our neighbors took Daddy and me home.  The  car was stuck on the road for a couple of days thereafter.  Our cows had not been milked in over 24 hrs and Daddy had many chores to do.  The snowplows had come through early and the primary roads were passable.  Everyone finally went home and we had no school that day.