Sunday, February 15, 2009

An Iowa Winter




Oh, it was so cold that morning. I was just a little girl about five or six. My family lived in a farm house which was very old, and had had very little attention to the calking and insulation. The only heat in the house was a space heater in the dining room and the cob burner in the kitchen.
I could hear my mother calling me to get up because breakfast was ready. Getting out of bed was almost impossible. I slept under three quilts which my grandmother had made out of winter coats. They were not a bit pretty They were so heavy a little girl like me could hardly move. They kept me very warm. I can remember sticking my toes out from under the covers and quickly putting them right back under. I looked at the quilts, they were black and brown with little other color, but this morning there was something new. A skiff of snow had settled on top of my quilts. There was a window right by my bed. I turned to look outside and couldn’t see the trees that surrounded our house. It was snowing and the wind was blowing and howling around the house. I smiled to myself, I wonder if there will be school today. Our driveway was a quarter of a mile long. It was a long ways for me to walk. Sometimes on a very cold day, my daddy would take me to the highway to meet the bus. I hoped today that would not be the case. Staying home and playing in the snow would be much better. After much persuasion I got up and hurried to the kitchen where my mother was fixing breakfast. It was cold everywhere. I was told to stand next to the space heater to get warm. It was fueled by coal and it didn’t smell nice, but the heat was wonderful. I kept turning round and round like meat on a spit to get my whole body warm.
My dad announced to us that he would not take me to the bus that morning the weather was too bad. In those days parents made the decision whether to send their children to school, my wish had been granted.
I remember my mother telling me a story that morning about her first teaching job. She was only sixteen years old and taught in a country school. She stayed at the school where she taught because it was several miles from my grandparent’s home. That day the weather was beautiful, but cold. She made a fire to get the school warmer for the children. School started like it did on any normal day. In the afternoon, the skies started to get cloudy and dark. Parents started to arrive at the school to pick up their children before the storm hit. Soon the school was empty and my mother was scared, there was very little wood or food in the school for her to use. Blizzards in those days sometimes would last for days on end.
Soon there was a banging on the door. It was her oldest brother, Verne. He had come with the buggy and a team of horses to take her home. He had canvas to cover the window like openings of the buggy. He had heated bricks and hot baked potatoes and plenty of heavy quilts to keep them warm for the long trip home. My mother said she finished the term of teaching at that little school, but decided she would rather go to college and not teach any more. Sometimes I think that her fear that day had a lot to do with it.

1 comment:

  1. Brrr!! It was so cold in that house we had to pre-warm our pajamas on that space heater so we wouldn't freeze during the trip upstairs to our bedrooms. Then in the morning we would leave foot prints on the frosty floor on our way down to breakfast. Brrr! Think I'll go home now and have some cocoa!! :) --Keith

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