Home * January 1, 1949 * Cattle * Interviews
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Wednesday all were happy when we could see a clear sky overhead. The wind was still blowing and very difficult to be out long however, we began to dig out from the storm. My car being about half protruding past the building on the east side was just half covered with snow. The car directly behind mine was was under four feet of snow. I spent about two hours digging around my car. Then I raised the hood and found that snow had blown in solid full. After much brushing and cleaning out I finally had the tires free and was ready to start the engine. To my surprise it started right off and so I drove it out free of the snow. This was the first car we got started so I used it in pulling several others to get them started.
It was about ten a.m. when we heard another motor and certain enough it was a snow plow from Pine Bluffs followed by a greyhound bus. This plow spent about three hours getting through the now ten foot drift by the station before continuing to Cheyenne. No one was allowed to follow the plow for fear they might not make it to Cheyenne before night. So we spent another night at the station.In the evening several men came the two miles from Burns to get the names of all marooned there.Also a plane flew over looking for the Monger car. Two men came in about 4:00 o'clock-They had walked the 25 miles from Cheyenne with the wind.
We had a change of diet after we got our car out of the drift for we used some of our frozen meat that we were moving from Holyoke. We spent another night on the floors all with high hopes of getting home the following day.
Thursday about ten a.m. a four wheel drive truck came from Cheyenne the night before. Shortly some cars came in groups that had pushed each other through so we packed up and our car and the Logsdons who took Mrs. Surrett and children left for Cheyenne. After about five miles we found the highway blocked by some commercial trucker who must have felt his life depended on getting through for all highways were ordered close to traffic so marooned people could get in first. He didn't even have on chains and when a Greyhound bus driver approached him he was really told off. This bus was going to get people stranded on the train at Hillsdale and Sevaur. Here we learned of the family of three frozen to death in their car about 6 miles from where we were stranded.
Since we had our radio on during this trip to Cheyenne we heard the first announcement of the death of the Phillip Roman family. We were certain that this was our friend Don Roman's brother which we verified as soon as we got to town. When informed that the Horton's tried to help them and when they finally got home frozen so that their arms where extended they could not even get them down we thought of how Bills coat was frozen on the few short trips he made on Tuesday during the height of the storm.
We saw at least 25 cars stalled along the highway most of them blown almost full of snow. When we got home we found drifts in front of the house at least 12 ft. high. The electric heater failed to keep the water pipes from freezing. About $5.00 worth of fittings and a half days work and I got the water system working again. The garage was blown clear full of snow that I scooped out Saturday.
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