← Before Today: A History of Holt County, Nebraska
The Blizzard of 49 Chapter Forty-Seven The blizzard of ’49 has been referred to in so many second and third generation histories previously told in this work that a fairly complete resume of that winter-long storm should be recounted here.
November 18, 1948 marked the beginning of a ghastly winter that will live to the end of their days in the memories of those who experienced it— a winter that began early and died hard. O’Neill and northwest Holt County were in the direct path of the unseasonal two-day November storm that disrupted communications and blocked all roads a storm that was only the forerunner of a succession of blizzards more devastating, severe and terrible than even the oldest weather-beaten old-timers had ever known.
It was a winter so terrible that finally, when the people of northern and western Nebraska and vast herds of livestock were faced with actual starvation, the mighty power of the U. S. Fifty Army was called in to rescue the sufferers— and even that great power was all but beaten by the elemental forces thrown against it. The November storm, followed by others, less severe, made roads difficult to travel, kept power and telephone lines down and covered winter grazing lands with” ice and snow, causing livestockmen to begin feeding winter stocks of hay and grain more than two months early. Then another storm, far fiercer than the first, rode in with the New Year a three-day blizzard of such proportions that it literally paralyzed most of Nebraska and surrounding states. All roads were blocked, trains and busses couldn’t move, telephone and power lines were down everywhere. For Holt County there was one bright spot. The Frontier’s long planned installation of a radio studio, linked principally with the parent station WJAG at Norfolk, had gone into operation shortly after the first storm. Throughout the coming dark months of January and February “The Voice of The Frontier” told the story of a despairing, beleagured people to the world, and was often their only connection with what was going on outside their ice-bound domain. The Frontier’s daily accounts were broadcast throughout the nation, painting almost unbelievable word pictures of conditions in the storm swept region.
As soon as the first blizzard of 1949 let up, highway and railroad snow plows moved into action, but the snow, riding the tornadic winds, had piled to such heights, or depths, that the plows were but puny instruments in the face of the twenty foot drifts. And the winds never let up. Where a plow DID get through, opening a stretch of highway or railroad, the wind filled them in again, almost behind the plow. Cars or trains, trying to follow the plows, were soon immobilized again. Often the snow plows, too, stuck fast in the moun- 469 tainous drifts.
Train crews and railway cars full of passengers were without food or heat for many hours. Eleven Union Pacific trains were held up in Nebraska towns and sixteen were bogged down in Wyoming with some 2,000 people aboard them. Highway 275 from O’Neill north was completely blocked. Travelers had taken refuge in every town, village and roadside farmhouse along the way— and all were soon running low on food, especially bread, meat and milk. Newspapers were late in publishing because their staffs could not get through the snow-blocked streets to their printing shops.
When the winds subsided enough small planes took to the air to take food and medicines, even doctors, to those in most urgent need. Larger planes stood ready to take off when airports could be cleared of snow. Skis had been ordered for small planes. On Wednesday, January 6, the Burlington announced that its track to O’Neill was still blocked but officials hoped to start opening the road on Thursday, providing the “ground blizzard” (blowing snow) let up.
State Maintenance Road Engineer John McMeekin reported that the few highways that had been opened were already filled in again. Seventeen rotary plows, 120 heavy duty plows and about 80 heavy type road graders were trying to open roads in the northwest portions of the state, but making almost no headway. The Atkinson Graphic was late because the truck that regularly delivered its newsprint from Omaha could not get through. Neither could the trains. When it was eventually printed on January 7 it reported, “With a snow plow running ahead to clear the track, a train, many hours late, reached Atkinson Wednesday afternoon.
A man on the plow crew said that “drifts between Atkinson and O’Neill were deeper than at any other point east and that the train almost stalled in a drift just west of Emmet.” On January 5 an attempt had been made to reach the home of a sick man three and a half miles north or town on Highway 11. The county snow plow bulldozed its way for a mile, then had to give up. The next afternoon fifteen men with shovels got the plow through, with Dr. McKee following. On his return, after ministering to the sick man, the doctor said the drifts were piled four feet higher than the top of his car. That same afternoon two north country ranchers, stranded in town, hired a plane from O’Neill to take them home.
On January 10 a new mass of polar air moved down on the snow-bound region from Canada, dropping temperatures well below zero. High winds continued to refill the few miles of roads, opened by crews working day and night. McMeekin reported that Highway 20, opened from Plainview through O’Neill to Atkinson, was redrifting. The Burlington had brought in every available snow plow, even one from Santa Fe, to try to open its lines.
Two locomotives, stalled in a drift east of O’Neill the previous Friday, were abandoned on Tuesday. Both had derailed while pushing a plow in an attempt to blast a way through a deep drift. A wrecker-train sent out to help was stalled at Page and could not reach the derailed locomotives. From Atkinson, still encircled by twenty-foot high snow drifts, came the story on Sunday of an eighteen hours long mercy mission in sub-zero temperatures. At ten o’clock Saturday night Dr. McKee had an urgent call from a home twenty-five miles northeast of Atkinson. Soliciting the use of a snow plow, the doctor set out. Six hours later he arrived at the home, making the last part of the trip in a lumber wagon. After caring for his patient the doctor headed back for Atkinson, arriving home at four Sunday afternoon.
On January 11 a new snow storm harrassed the weary state, grounding twenty-five light planes and an air-force helicopter that had been flying relief missions. On Monday night Engineer McMeekin reported that roads were drifting full again behind the snow plows, especially in the area east of O’Neill. The Burlington was starting a wedge plow from Ferry, on the west bank of the Missouri, toward O’Neill.
January 14. Warmer weather was moving over the state with but little effect on the mountainous drifts. Planes could fly and horses and sleds could move, easing the most serious situations, but there was still no rail service, and no indication when there would be. Railroad snow plow crews were resorting to dynamite to speed “the cracking of the big drifts” that were by now ice hard.
January 18. Nebraskans were warned Monday night to brace themselves for another storm. It came— with high winds, bitter cold and new snow. McMeekin reported all roads impassable again. The Burlington line to O’neill, unopened since the first January storm, was completely closed once more.
By January 26 the counties were at the end of their resources. The whole region was still practically helpless, roads blocked, people running out of food, livestock starving. Even where there was plenty of hay the stacks were buried under ice and snow and the owners had no way of getting the feed to the weakening animals. At this point Senator Frank Nelson, aware of the seriousness of the situation in his district, persuaded Governor Peterson and some senators to fly over the region in a National Guard plane. The Governor quickly declared a state of emergency for the area and the Senate voted a half million in funds to aid in opening roads and transporting supplies to the twenty- two affected counties.
As soon as the news of state aid got abroad, calls for food, fuel and snow removal equipment poured into the Lincoln headquarters of “Operation Snowbound.” The national Guard was called out to help and all available state equipment moved in to undertake the gigantic task. At the same time Governor Peterson made urgent requests to Washington, asking for army equipment to help, as the need was now of the utmost urgency. The wheels of big government moved slowly, but they moved.
On January 27 came an appeal from Inman, stating that that section had been snowed in for two months. “We need the (snow removal) equipment now,” said the message, “Next week will be too late.” At this point President Truman designated General Lewis Pick and his Fifth Army to work with Nebraska’s Brig. Gen. Guy Henninger to handle the arrangements to get on with digging out the snow buried plains. On January 28 Governor Peterson was on the line to Washington again, urging speed because this “storm disaster is beyond the resources of this state to meet and your immediate assistance to prevent great human suffering and loss of life is needed.” The Fifth Army agreed to make twenty “weasels” and an undetermined number of bulldozers available, but the problem now was how to get adequate rail transportation to move the machines into Nebraska. With commendable speed, however, ever increasing numbers of weasels and bulldozers were moved in. The Red Cross was readying emergency food and medical supplies to be flown into isolated areas and a hay corps was being set up to rush urgently needed feed to starving cattle. Agricultural Director, Rufus Howard of Lincoln, had sent men to adjoining states to procure hay for shipment to Nebraska, with one request alone for 1,500 tons of hay on the books.
Then, with state and national forces mobilized and ready, winter struck again on Thursday, January 27, flinging masses of snow, driven by high 470 winds, on the helpless region and blocking all roads for the umpteenth time. On January 28 the Lincoln Journal stated, “The Government meanwhile is pouring more money, men, machines and planes into the fight to save as many as possible of the 2,000,000 head of livestock starving on snow-covered western ranges.” By now reports of extreme hardship cases were pouring in. From Ewing came the message that the Jack Schindler family (four small children) south of town had been without fuel for ten days. “Everything from the piano stool to fence posts had gone into the stove,” Schindler said. His brother Earl and the John Pagel family were in similar trouble and all three families were running out of food. A like report came in from a family (ten children) north of Atkinson. A snow plow trying to reach the Ewing families had averaged a half mile an hour in a day’s work— and reported that night that snow was closing the road behind it.
On Friday Governor Peterson begged President Truman to hurry more equipment and men. New reports of loss of human life were coming in, he said, and the potential livestock losses were staggering, “Only the Fifth Army can save us now.” Said Andy Clark of the Holt County Board of Supervisors, “We don’t face a crisis today or tomorrow. Our crisis began a month ago. The farmers and ranchers of Holt County haven’t seen the ground since November 18. Hundreds of families are completely isolated— haven’t been heard from for weeks. Christmas mail is piled high in post offices. Within a short distance of O’Neill four people have perished in the snow the past nine days.” “Because of the new storm,” the Frontier reported, “it can’t even be determined if the airport, a mile and a half from town, has been socked in again.” By Friday night the skies had cleared but high winds had blown the new twelve-inch snowfall into ever deeper drifts and “bitter cold took over where the snow left off.” McMeekin said little progress was being made, even by the giant twenty-two ton army bulldozers. One crew reported it had been able to clear only two miles of highway all day— and by night the storm had drifted the cut full again. A few telephone and power lines, repaired at great effort, had been whipped down again in a few hours. A report came in that a country home was on fire. A National Guard truck, with the help of fifteen farmers with shovels, reached the house three hours later. The owner of the destroyed house was not only burned but suffering from severe frost bite.
The Tenth Air Force, using C-82 “flying hay barns” was finally flying hay lift missions when the weather permitted, dropping baled hay to stranded, starving cattle. Operation Snowbound, too, was finally under way and roads were being opened to one-way traffic. Behind the laboring plows trailed long lines of cars, en route to the nearest towns to pick up supplies and hurry home before the roads drifted shut again.
A National Guard team from the Burwell sector said that tales of snow drifts eighteen to thirty feet deep were not exaggerated. The Chicago and Northwestern, useless on its O’Neill line since the first January blizzard, reported that a double-header, driving a snow plow, was trapped in a cut, stalled when it tried Main Street in O’Neill, winter of ’48-’49. Courtesy Edith Davidson. Road near O’Neill, west of the Country Club February 1949. Courtesy Bob Tomlinson.
to plow through the long drift. Governor Peterson was begging the company to try to get the line opened, as towns along its route were out of food and fuel.
On Friday, February 4, the Atkinson Graphic reported on affairs there. The Service Club had set up relief headquarters for its area on the previous Friday, as soon as it was learned the Army was coming in. By that evening the Farley – Tushla Legion Post had established a local distress office at the legion Club, with the Auxiliary helping to man the phones on a round-the-clock basis. Calls for help began coming in immediately.
Stated the Graphic, “It was apparent that the series of blizzards striking the area in November and continuing through January at the rate of about two a week had whipped all county and state efforts 471 tai nous drifts.
Train crews and railway cars full of passengers were without food or heat for many hours. Eleven Union Pacific trains were held up in Nebraska towns and sixteen were bogged down in Wyoming with some 2,000 people aboard them. Highway 275 from O’Neill north was completely blocked. Travelers had taken refuge in every town, village and roadside farmhouse along the way— and all were soon running low on food, especially bread, meat and milk. Newspapers were late in publishing because their staffs could not get through the snow-blocked streets to their printing shops.
When the winds subsided enough small planes took to the air to take food and medicines, even doctors, to those in most urgent need. Larger planes stood ready to take off when airports could be cleared of snow. Skis had been ordered for small planes. On Wednesday, January 6, the Burlington announced that its track to O’Neill was still blocked but officials hoped to start opening the road on Thursday, providing the “ground blizzard” (blowing snow) let up.
State Maintenance Road Engineer John McMeekin reported that the few highways that had been opened were already filled in again. Seventeen rotary plows, 120 heavy duty plows and about 80 heavy type road graders were trying to open roads in the northwest portions of the state, but making almost no headway. The Atkinson Graphic was late because the truck that regularly delivered its newsprint from Omaha could not get through. Neither could the trains. When it was eventually printed on January 7 it reported, “With a snow plow running ahead to clear the track, a train, many hours late, reached Atkinson Wednesday afternoon.
A man on the plow crew said that “drifts between Atkinson and O’Neill were deeper than at any other point east and that the train almost stalled in a drift just west of Emmet.” On January 5 an attempt had been made to reach the home of a sick man three and a half miles north or town on Highway 11. The county snow plow bulldozed its way for a mile, then had to give up. The next afternoon fifteen men with shovels got the plow through, with Dr. McKee following. On his return, after ministering to the sick man, the doctor said the drifts were piled four feet higher than the top of his car. That same afternoon two north country ranchers, stranded in town, hired a plane from O’Neill to take them home.
On January 10 a new mass of polar air moved down on the snow-bound region from Canada, dropping temperatures well below zero. High winds continued to refill the few miles of roads, opened by crews working day and night. McMeekin reported that Highway 20, opened from Plainview through O’Neill to Atkinson, was redrifting. The Burlington had brought in every available snow plow, even one from Santa Fe, to try to open its lines.
Two locomotives, stalled in a drift east of O’Neill the previous Friday, were abandoned on Tuesday. Both had derailed while pushing a plow in an attempt to blast a way through a deep drift. A wrecker-train sent out to help was stalled at Page and could not reach the derailed locomotives. From Atkinson, still encircled by twenty-foot high snow drifts, came the story on Sunday of an eighteen hours long mercy mission in sub-zero temperatures. At ten o’clock Saturday night Dr. McKee had an urgent call from a home twenty-five miles northeast of Atkinson. Soliciting the use of a snow plow, the doctor set out. Six hours later he arrived at the home, making the last part of the trip in a lumber wagon. After caring for his patient the doctor headed back for Atkinson, arriving home at four Sunday afternoon.
On January 11 a new snow storm harrassed the weary state, grounding twenty-five light planes and an air-force helicopter that had been flying relief missions. On Monday night Engineer McMeekin reported that roads were drifting full again behind the snow plows, especially in the area east of O’Neill. The Burlington was starting a wedge plow from Ferry, on the west bank of the Missouri, toward O’Neill.
January 14. Warmer weather was moving over the state with but little effect on the mountainous drifts. Planes could fly and horses and sleds could move, easing the most serious situations, but there was still no rail service, and no indication when there would be. Railroad snow plow crews were resorting to dynamite to speed “the cracking of the big drifts” that were by now ice hard.
January 18. Nebraskans were warned Monday night to brace themselves for another storm. It came— with high winds, bitter cold and new snow. McMeekin reported all roads impassable again. The Burlington line to O’neill, unopened since the first January storm, was completely closed once more.
By January 26 the counties were at the end of their resources. The whole region was still practically helpless, roads blocked, people running out of food, livestock starving. Even where there was plenty of hay the stacks were buried under ice and snow and the owners had no way of getting the feed to the weakening animals. At this point Senator Frank Nelson, aware of the seriousness of the situation in his district, persuaded Governor Peterson and some senators to fly over the region in a National Guard plane. The Governor quickly declared a state of emergency for the area and the Senate voted a half million in funds to aid in opening roads and transporting supplies to the twenty- two affected counties.
As soon as the news of state aid got abroad, calls for food, fuel and snow removal equipment poured into the Lincoln headquarters of “Operation Snowbound.” The national Guard was called out to help and all available state equipment moved in to undertake the gigantic task. At the same time Governor Peterson made urgent requests to Washington, asking for army equipment to help, as the need was now of the utmost urgency. The wheels of big government moved slowly, but they moved.
On January 27 came an appeal from Inman, stating that that section had been snowed in for two months. “We need the (snow removal) equipment now,” said the message, “Next week will be too late.” At this point President Truman designated General Lewis Pick and his Fifth Army to work with Nebraska’s Brig. Gen. Guy Henninger to handle the arrangements to get on with digging out the snow buried plains. On January 28 Governor Peterson was on the line to Washington again, urging speed because this “storm disaster is beyond the resources of this state to meet and your immediate assistance to prevent great human suffering and loss of life is needed.” The Fifth Army agreed to make twenty “weasels” and an undetermined number of bulldozers available, but the problem now was how to get adequate rail transportation to move the machines into Nebraska. With commendable speed, however, ever increasing numbers of weasels and bulldozers were moved in. The Red Cross was readying emergency food and medical supplies to be flown into isolated areas and a hay corps was being set up to rush urgently needed feed to starving cattle. Agricultural Director, Rufus Howard of Lincoln, had sent men to adjoining states to procure hay for shipment to Nebraska, with one request alone for 1,500 tons of hay on the books.
Then, with state and national forces mobilized and ready, winter struck again on Thursday, January 27, flinging masses of snow, driven by high 470 winds, on the helpless region and blocking all roads for the umpteenth time. On January 28 the Lincoln Journal stated, “The Government meanwhile is pouring more money, men, machines and planes into the fight to save as many as possible of the 2,000,000 head of livestock starving on snow-covered western ranges.” By now reports of extreme hardship cases were pouring in. From Ewing came the message that the Jack Schindler family (four small children) south of town had been without fuel for ten days. “Everything from the piano stool to fence posts had gone into the stove,” Schindler said. His brother Earl and the John Pagel family were in similar trouble and all three families were running out of food. A like report came in from a family (ten children) north of Atkinson. A snow plow trying to reach the Ewing families had averaged a half mile an hour in a day’s work— and reported that night that snow was closing the road behind it.
On Friday Governor Peterson begged President Truman to hurry more equipment and men. New reports of loss of human life were coming in, he said, and the potential livestock losses were staggering, “Only the Fifth Army can save us now.” Said Andy Clark of the Holt County Board of Supervisors, “We don’t face a crisis today or tomorrow. Our crisis began a month ago. The farmers and ranchers of Holt County haven’t seen the ground since November 18. Hundreds of families are completely isolated— haven’t been heard from for weeks. Christmas mail is piled high in post offices. Within a short distance of O’Neill four people have perished in the snow the past nine days.” “Because of the new storm,” the Frontier reported, “it can’t even be determined if the airport, a mile and a half from town, has been socked in again.” By Friday night the skies had cleared but high winds had blown the new twelve-inch snowfall into ever deeper drifts and “bitter cold took over where the snow left off.” McMeekin said little progress was being made, even by the giant twenty-two ton army bulldozers. One crew reported it had been able to clear only two miles of highway all day— and by night the storm had drifted the cut full again. A few telephone and power lines, repaired at great effort, had been whipped down again in a few hours. A report came in that a country home was on fire. A National Guard truck, with the help of fifteen farmers with shovels, reached the house three hours later. The owner of the destroyed house was not only burned but suffering from severe frost bite.
The Tenth Air Force, using C-82 “flying hay barns” was finally flying hay lift missions when the weather permitted, dropping baled hay to stranded, starving cattle. Operation Snowbound, too, was finally under way and roads were being opened to one-way traffic. Behind the laboring plows trailed long lines of cars, en route to the nearest towns to pick up supplies and hurry home before the roads drifted shut again.
A National Guard team from the Burwell sector said that tales of snow drifts eighteen to thirty feet deep were not exaggerated. The Chicago and Northwestern, useless on its O’Neill line since the first January blizzard, reported that a double-header, driving a snow plow, was trapped in a cut, stalled when it tried Main Street in O’Neill, winter of 48- 49. Courtesy Edith Davidson. Road near O Neill, west of the Country Club. February 1949. Courtesy Bob Tomlinson. to plow through the long drift. Governor Peterson was begging the company to try to get the line opened, as towns along its route were out of food and fuel.
On Friday, February 4, the Atkinson Graphic reported on affairs there. The Service Club had set up relief headquarters for its area on the previous Friday, as soon as it was learned the Army was coming in. By that evening the Farley – Tushla Legion Post had established a local distress office at the legion Club, with the Auxiliary helping to man the phones on a round-the-clock basis. Calls for help began coming in immediately.
Stated the Graphic, “It was apparent that the series of blizzards striking the area in November and continuing through January at the rate of about two a week had whipped all county and state efforts 471 to keep roads open. Continuous operation of snow moving equipment, most of it not heavy enough to cope with the deep, ice-crusted drifts, ended in break-downs everywhere and operations were practically at a standstill. The situation was the same at O’Neill, Stuart, Emmet and Bassett. By the time last week’s blizzard subsided Friday evening traffic was again halted at Atkinson’s city limits— not a single road or highway passable.” The local organization, however, headed by Frank Brady, by Saturday had planes in the air. And heavy sleds, made of bridge planks and pulled by caterpillars, were hauling huge loads of food, fuel and feed over the snow to those in most urgent need. By Sunday evening the sleds had covered 130 miles, aiding 36 stranded families. Another outfit had opened the road to the airport so supplies and pilots could be transported there. By February 3 the Graphic was reporting victory in sight for Holt County, one of the hardest hit in the entire emergency area— but much still depended on the weather. Roads opened on Monday were drifted full again on Tuesday. Even so, by Thursday 200 farm and ranch families had been “liberated,” but vital State Highway 11, north to Butte, was still tightly blocked. A rotary plow, leaving Burwell on Tuesday had broken down fourteen miles south of Atkinson and there was no other equipment to take its place until Sunday. On Friday bulldozers were expected to clear the final eight miles.
On February 9 the snow fighters got a break when temperatures rose above the freezing mark. But, with hundreds of miles of roads still to be opened, hopes were dashed by forecasts of more snow, high winds and deeper cold. On that date three and a half miles of Highway 93 between Chambers and Amelia, not once opened since the first storm, was still blocked. The Burlington was reporting its line open from Ferry to Randolph, just east of Pierce County, and a rotary moving on toward O’Neill. On Sunday, February 13, Operation Snowbound again started digging itself out of the snow, facing its worst twenty-four hours since the second day of the month. General Pick, from his Omaha headquarters, reported the cold winds and deep snows of the latest storm had all but stopped his Fifth Army. The Burlington plow had left Ferry for O’Neill every morning for three days, but each time had to retreat to Ferry for fear of being stalled by redrifting.
On February 17 Editor Cal Stewart published his “Weekend in a Weasel” in the Frontier, and broadcast the same report from Radio Station WJAG of Norfolk. His story is a graphic eyewitness classic beginning: “I took a two-day whirl through snowland by weasel and airplane to find out how a dozen snowlocked Nebraska families were enduring the worst Winter in the history of the West.
“I got an idea of how the Fifth Army and American Red Cross came with men and machines to relieve human suffering and livestock starvation, and how, together with a strong- willed people, man was winning the struggle with nature. Layers of snow and ice measured 35 inches in depth on the level. Thousands of families had not been heard from for weeks. “Food and fuel supplies had long since been depleted and, in numerous instances, exhausted livestock on short rations for many weeks were weakened and dying. Many families used fence posts, furniture and an occasional brooder house for fuel. Hundreds of caterpillar tractors with bulldozer attachments were rushed out of army storage depots to join the battle. Weasels— a species of vehicle that is a weird cross between an oversized jeep and a light tank were flown in. That’s when Operation Snowbound got under way.
“Our weasel departure was scheduled from the Red Cross distress headquarters in O’Neill at 2 p.m. on Saturday. The mission was to transport fuel oil and medicine to distressed persons, to take grease to a waiting bulldozer along the way, to drop off at his home a farmer who had been marooned in town for several days and to deliver to an Army supply point two ‘refreshed’ dozer operators. “Our distinction was the Gibson school— a country classroom transformed into a supply center, a billet for fatigued ‘dozer and weasel crewmen and a message and refuge center for storm-stranded residents. The school is 24 miles northeast of O’Neill and about the same distance from a highway or a railroad.
“Northeast Holt County is sparcely settled, flat and table-like— utterly defenseless against the icy winds that sweep across it from the north and west. All we could see was an ocean of glacier-like ice and snow. Everlasting snow. Tufts of brush on top of the snow were actually the tops of small trees.
“Our first stop was at the Walter Young farm, 12 miles northwest. We stopped because our weasel’s electric system was acting up and we needed to get warm. Everything was fine at the Youngs but their nearby neighbors hadn’t been so fortunate. Marsh Van Dover, 78, had died in the snow following a heart attack. Lloyd Whaley broke his arm, Alfred Marsh was kicked by a horse. Another neighbor had to be taken to a hospital. Airplanes were used for transportation in all cases. The Army’s dozers hadn’t yet reached within two miles of the Youngs.
Our next stop was at the Ora Howard place— a mile and a half and an hour and a half on in blinding, swirling snow. The eldest of the Howard’s five children has been snowbound in O’Neill, where she attends highschool, since the day after Christmas. Their youngest, five months old, has not yet seen O’Neill. Twice the Howards, who live on the Opportunity highway, had run short of food and phoned in their orders from a neighbor’s place. Twice a mercy messenger responded, flying a light ski-equipped craft. Theirs, an important county road, had been opened twice— once for 12 hours during January. Most other roads had not been open since November 18.
“With six and a half cold miles remaining, we resumed in our two- ton war-born weasel. This snow is sugar fine and packs solid, otherwise we would not have been going OVER instead of through it. And when dozers open and reopen a road several times, throwing up chunks of snow almost as big as the weasel itself, the weasel was better off worming over the snow a yard above unpicked cornfields and meadows, or darting around trees, telephone poles, haystacks and windmills, than seesawing over the new hard drifts on the roads.
“Finally, at 11:20 p.m.— nine hours and 20 minutes after our departure— we rattled up to the Gibson school, nestled near a large grove of trees. Students’ desks had been pushed aside and Army cots and GI blankets moved in. The aroma from the coffee pot on the heating stove filled the room. Two civilians, both volunteer workers, who had lived for years in the neighborhood were in charge— Albert Sipes and Robert Tomlinson. Off-duty drivers, civilian and GI, were sleeping with their clothes on.
“The ‘dozers had been operating around the clock, but with the filling-in that accompanied Saturday night’s storm all ‘dozers had been pulled in to wait out the storm. In less than an hour we were abed, too. Morning dawned clear, bright and five degrees below zero. The wind had gone down and in the sun one could see the conglomeration Operation Snowbound had brought to Gibson school: Three caterpillars, three weasels, one fuel truck, several improvised sleds, one coal truck, 17 bales of hay, 12 blocks of salt, sacks of mail, oil, 472 grease and a marooned automobile. During the day several airplanes were there, too.
“Two telephones had been installed in the schoolhouse. Orders were phoned to O’Neill or to the schoolhouse. Food and medicines were flown out to snowbound farms, bulkier commodities were transported by caterpillar drawn sled or by weasel. The sleds, resembling mortar boxes, hauled up to 10 tons of supplies consisting of coal, fuel oil, bottled gas, baled hay, oil, cotton cake and salt.
“Al Sipes, a clean-cut fellow with a knack for winding up in a key spot, has throughout this winter’s activity carried a grudge against a railroad company. Several months ago he was driving his truck across a main line track on the outskirts of O’Neill when a freight train closed in on his machine, which had stalled on the tracks. Sipes and his wife got out and Sipes raced up the track, gesticulating with a red bandanna.
“The train stopped— after smashing the rear of Al’s truck to smithereens. The wreckage was strewn along the right of way for about a month while Sipes, the insurance company and the railroad wrangled. On the day Sipes was allowed to move his truck the depot agent assured him no train was coming. Just as the towed truck was astride the tracks again a freight train came lumbering around the bend. Again Sipes took off up the track. This time he stopped the train in time and the engineer and Sipes exchanged glances. They had met under similar circumstances a month before.
“During Sipes’ only visit to his home in O’Neill while engaged in his tour of duty at the Gibson school, he ran into plumbing troubles that made him mad. A double-header snow plow had gotten stuck in a snowbank a short distance from Sipes’ house, and the vibration set up by the two iron horses in breaking through the drift had shaken his kitchen sink off the wall.
“Sipes had a few weasel errands to run Sunday morning. The driver and I
← Chapter 46: Ranch Country | Table of Contents | Chapter 48: Roundup →
Recent Comments