Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1919-03-01
WINNING TINE WILDERNESS"

Mrs Thinkers story Published in Fri
days issue Of pioneer blizzards in Iowa
will stir recolIections amcng the elder
people all over northern and north
western Iowa. Such days as Friday
bring up half forgotten days of life
in a land that would be utterly strange
to this generation of Iowans when such
storms ragged for two or three da, 5
across country unmarked by fences
or other guides, where the only shell
tiers were clumps OF trees planted as
windbreaks on the west and north Of
the cheap houses and straw stables IF
the pioneer settler. Down from the
north and out Of the west the blizzard
sprung like 4 tiger unannounced. The
day might be pleasantly reckoning 70
travel TO iowa. Then. perhaps. in an
hour the wind came tearing across the
miles upon miles Of open country bring
ing with it nlinding sheets of fine
snow, whirling from every direction.
To be caught out in blizzard was as
dangerous as TO be lost in trackl-.a
forest. The driven snow filed the
world. 1t hid the horses from their
driver and its impalpable character
made even breathing hard. In an in
slant tracks were obliterated and the
victim was is one lost in a dense fog.
Perhaps he trusted to his horses and
their sense Of direction and finally
found shelter. Sometimes he turned
over the wagon box Of his bobsled.
tied his horses to the bobs and crept
under the box to wrap himself in such
robes and ola lkets as he had and wait
out thru the long hours of cold ard
darkenss the course of the storm. And
often, very often, searchers behind the
storm found men and families and
horses stark and frozen perhaps sew
eral days after the blizzard had spent
its force
The early settlers were wise IN
weather and most OF them cautiously
prepared for the emergencies of the
blizzard by stretching wires from their
stables to the house. Without those
life lines the householder must let his
animals go without feeding perhaps
FOR three days or take his chance of
missing his path ana wandering of
into the desert of snow to ris fate.
Once out in the blizzard the world
was blotted out. He could scarcely
see his hand before his face
Northern ToHa then was crossed
and crisis crossed by deep, wide sloug.s
where muskrats built their towns and
the highways or trails rar here and
there along the higher ground to AVOID
the impossible low ground. This ad
ded to the danger of being "out in a
blizzard" 1t was hard TO keep direc-
ton. The family Of those outside
when the blizzard came IN force waited
as anxiously as the wife OF a sailor at
sea in a storm.
Friday morning tho childrnn and
grandchildren OF those pioneers arose
to dress over the welcome zephyrs tina,
arose thrusthe register from hot al,
furnace; they looked ou- from comfort
| able homes on big red barns; from
home to town and everywhere else
stretched roads thru fenced fields; the
sloughs had disappeared; the prairies
had gone; they turned tap inside the
sheds and harms to water the catlIe
| instead OF grabbing an axe and .driv
ing the animals half a mile to the
creek to drink thru hole chopped in
the ice; and they sat at breakfast
| looking out upon the maddened Wilir
| Of snow and the driving wind behind
it, warm and content and unworried
| where their grandmother had gathered
her little children at her knee in a
| shack and with a lamp In the window
| ga. thru the night praying that the
husband and father had found shelter
from the blizzard.
We are promo in our pleasant aud
| comfortable days to forget how tho
wilderness was won and how and by
whom. Perhaps day on wide
prairie in an old fashioned blizzard
would be good for our souls.