Our neighbor at Gilbert called the other day. He said he had driven into our place that afternoon with just a little trouble at the last steep pitch. He assured me that we could drive in if we wanted to. I appreciated his call, but we have already fully winterized and don't need to go. "We might not get more snow, but we'll have more winter weather," he predicted. "'Course," he went on, "as my dad used to say, a fellow who'll predict the weather is a fool."Someone asked if Ina ever wrote about the weather. Indeed she did and also Bertha and other family members. Mankind has watched the weather forever and I'll leave it to someone else to wax profound about that. I hardly consider myself an expert. But I can tell you about a few winters at the Gilbert farm where dry land farming is still practiced. "Thank the good man for the snow and rain, the farmer's best friend," wrote my Aunt Lynn (Myrtle Dobson).
"Well, we all have our troubles, don't we?" – wrote Bertha to her sisters in Drain, Oregon, on November 26, 1933. "Here you are dreading the winter, too. Let's go to California. The flowers bloom all winter and they have so much good fruit. I heartily wish the Dicksons and Patchens had gone to California instead of to Idaho. I like California next to Illinois," she adds, as though she knows much about either, I'm thinking.
On December 17, 1933, Bertha wrote again to the Drain sisters: "Today we are having sort of a blizzard from the southeast; wind blew all night. We have had lots of rain, too, and the ground all bare. June said Ina had a rose blooming on the lawn when he was down last. She sent Ruth a bouquet of chrysanthemums for her birthday [Nov. 10]. They were just budded but came out in full bloom. I still have them and they are so pretty."
Before Bertha mailed that letter she added a postscript: "Thermometer 40 above this a.m. and June says if it storms it will be rain. The ground is showing in spots. Have let the chickens out nearly every day and can probably let them out this P.M. The mail man still runs his car."
My dad (Vance) was expected home for Christmas in 1933, but in the end he didn't come. Here's what Ina had to say about that in a letter dated December 31, 1933:
"Yes, the weather has been terrible. And we are greatly disappointed, but we are trying to forget it; in fact, we hardly let ourselves plan too much, for I told Shirley it didn't seem you'd really come, and so many things could happen to prevent, yet toward the last we did believe in it. . . . We were afraid we'd have a black Christmas but Sunday it began snowing and Christmas morning we had nearly 6 inches and a lovely snow falling."
So, they had a lovely white Christmas, but then Ina adds in this New Year's Eve letter: "The snow is all gone off in a rain and dreadful reports from California over the radio last night – 12 inches of rain in 30 hours, lives lost, damage to houses, bridges, roads, etc. We never had such work before at this time of year."
The disappointment that Vance didn't make it home was perhaps felt more deeply since daughter Myrtle did make it home from Portland. Myrtle wrote to Vance as follows on December 29, 1933: "I got through in good time, the train was 5 hours late into Lewiston and we used all the tracks north and south bank, but still I got in in plenty of time to catch the stage to Orofino. Ed Ingram came for me and we had a hard time making it in from the highway. Six inches of snow on top of soft roads. There was a heavy mantle of snow over all the trees."
In a letter to Vance dated January. 14, 1934, Ina again wrote about the weather:
"No one here can recall such rain and floods at this time of year ever and we had such high winds for a week or more. June's old bean house blew down onto the grass separator damaging it a good deal. One big branch of my "Corot tree" was broken out. It was the big olivet cherry, if you remember. Dad cut the tall pine just back of the house. It had become dangerous, but there are still others back of it to shelter the house. He also cut the group of small pines just northwest of the hog house. Some were dead and now it gives us a beautiful view of trees and mountains to the north and east. We hated to cut them but are glad to be so we can see out and we have such lovely changing pictures."
To conclude, in a brief note dated February 8, 1934, Ina commented as follows: "Almost mail time and I'm very busy today canning meat and otherwise caring for it. Weather like spring – fields and hills are greening." And of course, as pleasant as warm February days are, lightening the morale, the danger is that a frost can still occur. KW
5 comments:
I've been wondering if your grandfather ever wrote any letters? Do you suppose that letters from him just weren't saved or do you think that he was too busy/tired to do much of the writing?
It made me shiver just to read about the snow and cold weather so long ago in Idaho. I'll bet quilts were a necessity at Ina's house.
I remember staying overnight at my grandparents house in the 1940's. They didn't have central heat. At night, my grandmother took a piece of metal, which might have been a grate from their wood cookstove. The metal was very hot. She wrapped it in a heavy cloth covering and put it under the covers of my bed. My bed was warm and toasty when I went to sleep at night.
Yes, Grandpa Jack did write a few notes that were included in the envelope with Ina's. His grammar and spelling are not as good as hers, but his handwriting is more legible.
I also have a brief life history he wrote which I intend to post -- am afraid I left it on the farm, though. For several years his family passed a "round robin" letter, and while I don't have any of those, I appreciate that it encouraged Jack to at least write his own history.
Besides Ina's letters, I have a few written by Myrtle, Earle, Ethel,Shirley (Ina's children), Lafe and Lucy Dickson (her parents), Ida Jane Patchen (her sister). Then about ten years ago a second cousin sent me letters written by Aunt Bertha (Ina's sister at the adjoining homestead), and that batch included a few written by Ina as well. As Leah observes, it is precious.
You are fortunate indeed to have those letters and a life history. Getting these all in one place, recorded, compiled, dated, and identified is a real project and one that will be appreciated by descendants. I recently did this for my grandmothers back to great great grandma.
Winters are always strange. Weather changes, cold, bitter cold, and then rain. As Dan says, you can always count on twenty-four hours of continuous weather. Whatever it happens to be. Sounds like it was the same "back then." Love the bottom picture especially.
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