RonnieAdventures: RonnieAdventure #0422, Winter of 1952, Hughes County, South Dakota

BONUS HISTORICAL PICTURES & STORIES

Winter of 1952 - Hughes County, South Dakota

Kolohe is an elementary school teacher, so I hear a lot about the shortened 2019-2020 school year and proposed plans for the 2020-2021 school year. However, everyone should not panic because it is not the end of the world. People need to remember that back in the early 1900s not all children were able to attend school nine months a year. Kids in rural areas often had to work on the farm during spring planting and fall harvest seasons, so they could only attend school during the winter months. And, kids in urban areas often had to work in factories, stores, or at home and sometimes could not attend school at all. Many children, if they graduated from 8th Grade, did not even have the opportunity to attend high school. Those that did attend high school often required more than four years to graduate, so it was not uncommon for young people to graduate from high school when they were in their 20's. Yet, many of these young people went on to prosper and do well in life. As history has shown, things will work out and the COVID-19 pandemic will come to pass!

Which brings me to this blog about the 1952 Winter in South Dakota when we also had a shortened school year.

Although I was able to complete elementary school in eight years, I remember the school year of 1951-1952 when we only attended our country school about half of the required number of days. It started snowing early in the fall and did not quit snowing until spring. The weather was so bad that cattle, wildlife, and people froze to death. In some areas airplanes were used to feed livestock and deliver emergency supplies to people in rural areas. On days when there was a bad blizzard, farmers could not check on their livestock because if they went too far from the buildings, or if the buildings were spaced too far apart, the farmers could not see anything and they may not able to find their way back to the house.

In some places the snow was so deep that people could walk along the tops of the REA power lines. The power lines near our house did not ever get that covered with snow, but when it was really cold the power lines would get so tight that they would "sing." It is hard to describe the sound, but if you have ever lived in South Dakota during a really cold winter day you will know the sound that I am describing.

When the snowplows could open the roads we would attend school for a few days and then another blizzard would arrive and block the roads again. As the winter went on it became harder to open the roads because each time the snowplows opened the roads they made piles of snow along the sides of the roads that were higher-and-higher; thus, the depth of snow covering the road continued to increase with each blizzard as the areas between the sides of the roads filled in with snow again.

At first the County mounted "V" shaped plows to the front of road graders to plow the snow, but the road graders soon became ineffective as the depth of the snow drifts increased. The County then started mounting "V" shaped plows to the front of WW II troop carrier trucks that were filled with gravel to give them extra weight. The 6X6 trucks had two real axles with dual tires on each axle. For extra traction, tire chains were installed on all of the dive wheels. The only problem with the trucks was that the gear ratios were very low because the truck engines produced less than 100 horsepower, so the top speed of the trucks was very slow.

I remember just east of our house there was a low spot in the road that often filled with snow. As the snow got deeper it was exciting and entertaining to watch the snowplow truck attempt to open the road. At top speed (maybe 35 miles/hour) the truck would hit the snow bank, bounce up and down, and then stop. The driver would back up and try numerous times until he finally made it through the drift. Then one time when the snow was really deep, the snowplow truck kept hitting the snowdrift and stopping without making any progress. The driver was determined to make it through the snow drift, so he kept backing up to get a longer run and then hitting the snowbank going as fast as the truck would go. But, to his frustration, he could never make it through the drift. He finally gave up and just closed the road for the rest of the winter.

When we did go to school, the roads were so bad that the hired man hooked a small trailer to the back of our International I-9 tractor so that all of the kids could ride in the trailer while he pulled it to school with the tractor. (There were three from our family and three from his family.) There were canvas panels along the sides of the tractor and a plastic windshield to help keep the driver warm and the trailer was filled with hay to help keep the kids warm.

Once at school, the parents watched the weather closely in case they had to make a quick trip to school to get their children. Then one time, a blizzard came in so quickly that some parents did not have time to make it to school. The Jensen family only lived about 1/4 mile from the school, so Melvin Jensen came over to the school and he brought along a long rope. The students that had been trapped at school held on to the rope as he led everyone over to his house. I do not remember how many days we stayed at the Jensen house, but we somehow managed to make it until the storm passed. As I recall, the Jensen house was not even very large, so it must have been crowded. I think all of the kids just slept on the floor in their clothes.

When we were not in school, it got really boring around the house. Fortunately, the telephone worked most of the winter. We had an eight-party line, so for something to do we would listen in on other peoples' phone calls. Everyone on the party-line had a different ring, so you knew when the call was for your phone. Even if the call was not for your phone, you could still pick up the phone and listen to the conversation. Our ring was one long and two shorts.

At night we could listen to the Hopalong Cassidy western radio program as Hopalong had to fight the bad guys; however, the radio programs that were on during the day were not of interest to kids. I remember "Old Lady Pierre," as we called her, would report all of the town gossip (e.g. who was visiting from out-of-town, who was in the hospital, etc), so we often begged our Mother to let us go outside to play in the daytime - even during a blizzard. Mother was reluctant to let us go outside during a blizzard because there was a group of young school children (not from our school) that had gotten lost in a blizzard and froze to death. However, she apparently got tired of listening to our whining, so she took some ropes and tied one end of each rope around us and the other end of the rope to something attached to the house. That way we would not get lost if visibility dropped to zero while we were out in a blizzard. I don't recall ever using the rope to find my way back because I did not get far enough away from the house to get lost in a "white out."

There were large snow drifts close to the house, so we would make tunnels through the drifts and sometimes we would make large caves to sit in. However, after we were in the cave someone would get on top of the cave and jump up-and-down until the roof collapsed and the snow fell on everyone inside of the cave. We would be covered with snow and it usually got in our coat and boots, so we would go in the house and put our hands and feet by the warm air vent from the furnace to get "thawed out."

Wileta told us that when she was young she packed snow tightly in a container and then poured cream and sugar over the snow to make ice cream. We tried making ice cream that way; but we didn't like the taste, so we didn't make it too often.

The Metzinger family had a wooden ice cream maker, so sometimes they would make ice cream for us when we were at their house. The only problem was that the ice cream maker had a hand crank that needed to be turned continually until the ice cream was hard. Your arm would really get tired after turning the crank for a few minutes, so it required a lot of kids to take turns turning the crank. The older kids usually finished the last few minutes because the harder the ice cream got, the harder it was to turn the crank. (I still enjoy making ice cream, but we now use an electric motor to turn the crank.)

When the skies were clear, it was fun to go out exploring without the attached ropes. One time we were down by one of the cattle windbreaks that had a makeshift roof and the structure was almost completely filled with snow. There was a space between the snow and the roof, so we decided to crawl in the open space to the back wall of the windbreak. Much to our surprise, when we reached the back wall we found a number of cows that were trapped behind the snow. We went to get the hired man and he was able to shovel a path through the snow so that the cows could get out to eat and drink. We kept our cows in the barnyard that winter and fed them hay that had been stored from the fall, so we didn't loose too many cattle. However the people that kept their cattle on the open range that winter lost a lot of their animals.

There was also an Artesian well by our barn that always flowed hot water. The Artesian water was quite hot as it came out of the pipe, so the water did not ever freeze at the pipe head. From the pipe the water ran into a wooden tank and then into a pond that would freeze when the water cooled down, except in the area where the hot water entered the pond. The ice on the pond got thinner the closer you got to the hot water area, so we would see who could get the closest to the open water without falling through the thin ice. Fortunately, the pond was only about 12-18 inches deep, so when you did fall in you only got wet feet.

The pond was a great place to ice skate in the winter because every once in a while new water would flood the top of the ice and keep the ice fresh and smooth. About once a year we would have an ice-skating party on the pond for kids that went to our school. Sometimes we invited our friends that went to Buckeye School because they were also in our 4-H Club. (The Hunsley kids had also attended our country school before the school boundaries changed and they started going to Buckey School. Duane was in my class when he attended our school.)

At the ice skating parties we would build a fire by the edge of the pond to keep us warm and we also used the fire to roast, or burn, marshmallows. Sometimes we even roasted hot dogs on a stick. Wileta, or one of the other parents, would usually bring hot chocolate as a special treat.

We did not need any artificial lights to skate at night because the moon was so bright that you could see for at least one half-mile. When there was not a full moon, light from the Milky Way made the stars seem so close that you could almost touch them. And, on special occasions we could see the Northern Lights as they danced across the northern sky. Sometimes we would also have a hayride around the farm in one of the large hay wagons that had been filled with hay and pulled by a tractor. (We probably did not have a school ice-skating party during the Winter of 1952, but we did skated by ourselves.)

During the winter of 1952 when we were home-bound so much of the time we thought the winter would never end. We could only play so many games, or put together so many 1,000 piece puzzles, before we just had to get out of the house. Wileta always told us to be careful when we were outside playing because if anyone of ever got hurt there was no way to get them to the hospital. Just like mothers, they always worry too much!

That winter the snow drifts were often almost as high as the building roofs, but it was generally not possible to get on the buildings' roofs because the snow did not accumulate next to the buildings. When the wind circulated around the buildings it left about a three-to-five-foot space between the building and the snow drift.

There were several old train boxcars on our property that were used for storage and the ladders were still attached to the sides of the old boxcars, so unlike other buildings it was possible to climb the ladder to get on the boxcar's roof.

On one of our adventures we discovered that if we got on a boxcar roof it was possible to jump across the open space between the boxcar and the snow drift and land in the snow. That was great fun!

Then, we discovered that if you ran across the roof and dove head-first, it was possible to do a half-flip in the air and land in the snow on your back without getting hurt. This went well until the snow started getting packed down in the landing area, so I decided to jump off the other end of the boxcar. I ran as fast as I could across the roof toward the other end of the boxcar, but I did not realize that there was a wire stretched across the end of the roof. Before I could jump, I tripped on the wire and fell head first down to the frozen ground. I reached out with my arm to break the fall, but I still took a hard fall and hit my head. When I woke up, my arm hurt so bad I could not move it. The other kids helped me back to the house and Wileta called the hospital for first aid advice. Since my arm still appeared to be in the correct alignment, the doctor told Wileta to get a flat board about the width of my arm and then wrap my arm to the board, which she did. I had to stay in bed for the first day or so and then I felt well enough to get up and run around. So much for not listening to my Mother!

After about two weeks some of the country roads were partially open, and my arm was still tender, so the hired man put me in the back of our school hay-trailer and pulled it to the highway using the I-9 tractor. US Highway 14 was about three miles away, so Gilbert Pearson drove out from town and picked me up. He also brought along some groceries. We didn't need too many groceries because we had a full basement under our house and one part of the basement was a "dark room" that was filled with produce we had canned from our garden. We also had a large freezer in the basement that was filled with various meats.

After going to the hospital and having my arm X-rayed, the doctor decided that I had a greenstick fracture and Wileta had done an excellent job of wrapping my arm. The doctor said that I should just keep my arm wrapped and I didn't need a cast. After staying all night at Pearson's house, Gilbert drove me to the airport in the morning and Cecil Ice, from Ice Flying Service, loaded me, and a large bag full of mail, into a Piper Cub aircraft that was equipped with snow skis and flew me home. The plane landed in the pasture that was east of our house and with the help of my brothers I was able to walk home. That was my first airplane ride!

Then the snow starting melting, which was really a mess! The soil was so saturated with water that it would not support the weight of any type of vehicle or farm implement. The cars and tractors would just sink into the soft soil and make deep ruts that would not be filled until summer. To make matters worse, the hired man ran the I-9 tractor up on the side of a snow bank and tipped the tractor over onto its side right by our house. Mother had to hire someone that owned a Caterpillar to come and pull the I-9 back onto its wheels.

As more snow melted the water was so deep that the fields and roads were flooded and the only way to get to school was to walk. Yes! I can truthfully tell my kids that I had to walk three miles to school and three miles home each day. (When I tell the story I add that it was up-hill each way and the wind was blowing 50 mph in our face because it seemed that way when we were walking. Actually, the terrain was mostly flat and the wind was probably only blowing 35 mph.)

Even though we had on rubber overshoes that were about 8-10 inches tall, we somehow always managed to get our feet wet when we were outside. The black overshoes had metal buckles that went across the front to tighten the overshoes once you had your boots inside, but the South Dakota Gumbo soil is so sticky that sometimes the overshoe would stick in the Gumbo and we stepped out of an overshoe and into the mud with our boot. Other times we would just challenge someone to see who could get in the deepest water without getting their feet wet. Of course, the loser got a boot full of water. Other times, we would be just too lazy to fasten the buckles and when we tried to walk too fast, the buckles on opposite overshoes would catch on each other, causing you to trip and fall face forward into the mud.

Overshoes seldom lasted an entire season, and by late spring they almost always leaked so bad that it did not do a lot of good to even wear the overshoes.

Missouri River flood

Looking southwest at Pierre Power Plant

Southwest Aerial View of Pierre Power Plant - Photographer Unknown

The farmers were not the only ones that were affected by the Spring flood waters. The Missouri River was way out of its banks and any residence or business close to the river was damaged by the water. Stores tried to put sand bags around their properties, but in general the sand bags did not help because the water came up too fast and was too deep for the sand bags to do any good. The one exception was the Pierre Power Plant. It was decided that the power plant had to be kept operational at all cost. A call was put out that every available person needed to come and fill sand bags so that a wall could be constructed completely around the power plant facility. My Mother insisted that we go and help fill sand bags, so my brothers and I, along with a lot of other people, helped fill sand bags until the the wall of sand bags around the power plant was high enough to keep the water out. We actually had a vested interested in saving the power plant because this is where we obtained our drinking water that we hauled to the farm. (Although we tried several times, we could never find a water well site on our property, except the Artesian water well that we could not shut off.)