Blizzard (February 1988 | Volume: 39, Issue: 1)

Blizzard

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Authors: E. N. Coons

Historic Era: Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)

Historic Theme:

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February 1988 | Volume 39, Issue 1

This is a true story of a boy and his family living on the high prairie in a dobe house in eastern Colorado and the tragic experience that occurred in March 1931.

A good adobe house was something to be proud of, warm in winter and cool in summer, with walls sixteen inches thick. We had just built ours. We plowed up a strip of prairie soil about fifty feet wide by 200 feet long and twelve inches deep. Then we put in water enough to make a mudhole and rode horses back and forth until the dirt was sloppy. We added to that slop two or three wagonloads of wheat straw, then took six or eight horses and walked them back and forth until the straw and mud were mixed real good. Then we built molds of boards and shoveled the mud straw mix in, and when the mud dried we had big dobe blocks two feet long, sixteen inches wide, and six inches thick. The wind and hot sun baked them hard as bricks. Then we laid the big blocks of dobe in place with more mud, and after the house had settled and dried out, we plastered the walls with lime and sand, making a smooth surface inside, then painted it with lime, water, and color mix. Now this was our home where this story all began.

The family consisted of Dad, born 1885, who was a pioneer of the Old West and very rugged; Mama; and three children: Edna, twenty; Ethel, fourteen; and myself, Elbern, eighteen.

On the morning of March 28, about 6:00 A.M. in 1931, Mama got up early as usual and told us all to get up. We didn’t want to because we had worked hard the day before getting some ground ready for the garden and cutting out the milk cows from the range cattle so we could turn them out onto the range, for feed was running short; but we all climbed out of bed. It had been cold, but now it was like spring; there was a soft breeze from the south with a fine mist. You could stand out in that mist, throw your chest out, and say, “Boy, at last winter is over.” You could hear birds singing. It was about sixty-five degrees, and what a beautiful morning!

 

Ethel, Dad, and I went out to the barn and did all the chores. We were milking about 15 cows by hand, but it didn’t take too long, about an hour. We brought the milk to the house and ran it through the cream separator. By that time Mama had breakfast ready.

Mama was a good cook, if I do say it. We had rabbit sausage, whole-wheat pancakes, and homemade syrup. Mama was talking in the Czech language—her folks came from Czechoslovakia—saying, “You better get down to the table and fill your gut, for we