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A Blanket of Snow

from childhood memories of the blizzard of 1949
on a farm near Bonesteel, South Dakota.

The world is all bound in a blanket of snow,
The kerosene lamps keep the windows aglow.
The fire from the hearth with the wood we laid in
Protects from a winter that whirled back again.

The food that is found in our humble abode
Keeps dad from traversing that treacherous road.
The cattle are sheltered to keep them from harm
In the barn with the hay where they huddle down warm.

In a mid-winter blizzard the wind can be stunning
While farmers survive by their wit and their cunning.
While Dad runs a rope from the house to the barn,
Our mother is knitting from bright skeins of yarn.

The snow has been piled all the way to the roof,
So dad dug a tunnel to our chicken coop.
With no plumbing inside, now a bucket’s the toilet.
The water we drink is from snow and we boil it.

The furnace of oil heats up the whole place,
But don’t get too close or you could burn your face.
The Grain Belt Beer Boys sponsor WELK on the radio;
A battery one, with the brand name of Philco.

I play with my toys on linoleum floors
And am thankful that dad winterized all our doors.
I ask my mom if I can have a nice treat.
She gives me two slices of red pickled beet.

I had to stay home. School was closed for the day.
And maybe is closed for the week, so I pray.
Fond memories remain with my mom and my dad.
I was thankful for blankets of snow that we had.

.

.

LTC Roy E. Peterson, US Army Military Intelligence and Russian Foreign Area Officer (Retired) has published more than 5,000 poems in 78 of his 101 books. He has been an Army Attaché in Moscow, Commander of INF Portal Monitoring in Votkinsk, first US Foreign Commercial Officer in Vladivostok, Russia and Regional Manager in the Russian Far East for IBM. He holds a BA, Hardin-Simmons University (Political Science); MA, University of Arizona (Political Science); MA, University of Southern California (Int. Relations) and MBA University of Phoenix. He taught at the University of Arizona, Western New Mexico University, University of Maryland, Travel University and the University of Phoenix.

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25 Responses

  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Thank you, Phil. There are some excellent photos of the effects of that blizzard that can be seen on internet images. Higher than a locomotive, covering all the farm buildings and car, and a man standing on snow about a foot from the top of a telephone pole.

    Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    This is a wonderful poem, Roy, about a historical event which is quite new to me. It must have been memorable — especially for a young child stuck in the house. It must have been extremely worrisome for the adults who had to attend to the chicken, cattle and keep food on the table. I especially love the small details you mention — Lawrence Welk, the red pickled beet, et al. It gives the poem a very cinematic sense of period.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      I can tell you felt it with me, Brian. We had no electricity on the farm until REA came in 1954, but it may have been just as well, since the power lines would have been down. We burned wood and corn cobs in the kitchen stove that not only was used for cooking, but for added heat for the small farmhouse, The rope to the barn was because of the white out and so that dad could find it in the intense snow. Some farmers would get lost in die under such circumstances. Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comments.

      Reply
  4. Paul A. Freeman

    Very Seuss-esque. Perfect form for the POV of a child. And vivid, too. Brrrrrrrrr!

    Thanks for the read, Roy.

    Reply
  5. Phil S. Rogers

    Roy;
    Very much like a hard winter in northern Vermont I knew as a child. Life was harder then, but so much more simple in many ways. Some can argue it was better. Most people today do not have a clue. Thank you for a great poem.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      I can identify with the similar conditions in northern Vermont. The simple life seemed much better then to me, as well.

      Reply
  6. Cheryl Corey

    What a wonderful poem, Roy. Your memories show the grit that people had back then. I’m curious – was that storm on par with the blizzard of 1888?

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Those two winters were among the worst recorded in the US. The blizzard of 1888 had winds up to 45 mph with up to 50 inches of snow in the northeast. The blizzard o 1949 had winds up to 90 mph with up to 30 inches of snow in the upper plains states. After the blizzard in South Dakota, airplanes were used to deliver food to towns and hay to livestock.

      Reply
  7. Russel Winick

    Roy – You’ve done a fine job of writing about a bitterly cold event in a manner that leaves readers with quite warm feelings!

    Reply
  8. Margaret Coats

    Russel has it right; this poem is a warm blanket covering details that sound quite pleasant when told with gratitude as a childhood memory. Your first line, Roy, with “bound,” had me look up the 1866 poem “Snowbound” by John Greenleaf Whittier. No kerosene lamps or oil furnace or Philco radio there! Entertainment was storytelling and memorized classics, or whatever lore might be worth talking about. Yet the poem of nearly 800 lines ends much as yours does, with the warmth of memory and love for the household made closer by the snowbound experience. Some things don’t change, and I’m grateful for your recording the 1949 saga with maybe only one day of school missed.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      My mother was an English and Latin teacher, so she would read children’s stories to me. The kitchen store burned wood and corn cobs. I liked your comparison with the Whittier poem which I had forgotten. We could get two radio stations, WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota, and one, as I recall, in Norfolk, Nebraska, from whence Johnny Carson came. I had to read by kerosene lights until 1954 and then we moved to Texas one year later. Since the extreme wind of up to 90 mph packed the snowbanks, some of them were dislodged by dynamite. It did take a week to get back to school. Love your comments.

      Reply
  9. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Wow, that was some blizzard, Roy, and you capture the essence of it in your matter-of-fact stanzas chock full of the strength and resilience of parents who knew how to cope in adverse conditions.

    I particularly like: “In a mid-winter blizzard the wind can be stunning/While farmers survive by their wit and their cunning.” – that’s just how humankind has always survived… until now. Let’s see how efficient those eco-friendly electric snow ploughs prove to be.

    Reply
  10. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Beautiful thought on surviving. I remember one winter that lasted a long time, dad drove his tractor over snowbanks eight miles to the town of Bonesteel and back to get supplies. Thank you for your choice of lines to accentuate. You are so right on modern vehicles that are electric powered.

    Reply
  11. Mike Bryant

    Roy, I just read an article about that ‘49 blizzard. It was much worse than I could have imagined. Many people died, and many more would have without the gasoline powered trucks and airplanes that came to the rescue of the thousands that were stranded without provisions. Millions of animals died, wild and farm animals.

    https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/notorious-blizzard-1949

    Maybe if we get rid of fossil fuel, let the government herd us into 15-minute future cities, start eating insects and stop breathing out so much CO2… we can get back to those simpler, colder times.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      I am thankful for the natural environment and intelligent methods we had to survive back then. Thank goodness we did not depend on electricity, but on wood, natural products like corn cobs, and fossil fuels to survive. That really was a blizzard to remember, but it was not just one blizzard, but a series of them from January 2 into late March. The article you posted provided a great description of the hardships endured in Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Our canned goods supply in Mason jars froze and broke in the outside cellar in the subzero weather. Fortunately, we had a large pantry that we had stuffed full.

      Reply
  12. Joseph S. Salemi

    The Dakotas and the surrounding area are of course subject to these kinds of severe blizzards, but even here on the east coast we can be hit with them occasionally. Our massive ones in New York City were in 1888 (people were really helpless in those days), and in 1947.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      At that time (1940’s) shelter belts had not been established on farms in the upper plains region to protect the homestead from excessive winds. There was nothing between Canada and the Mexican border, except barbed wire! Shelter belts came in the 1950’s with a Department of Agriculture initiative. I read about the terrible 1888 blizzard that devasted New York and the rest of New England. You are right. They truly were helpless in the 1800’s. The differences in the two blizzards were in 1888 the region most attacked was the northeast where the snowfall reached 50 inches and winds were up to 45 mph, while in 1949, the region most attacked was the upper plains states with up to 30 inches of snow, but winds reached 90 mph.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        The 1947 blizzard in New York started in December. My parents told me that when I was born a few months later in 1948, snow from that massive storm was still on the ground.

  13. Jeff Eardley

    Roy, “toilet” with “boil it” is lovely. We had a bad English winter in 1947 with our Staffordshire moorlands villages snow-bound. On of them, Grindon, is the sad location of a tragic air-crash when a Halifax bomber was on a food drop, only to collide with a rocky outcrop, killing all on board. Your wonderful poem brought back memories of our freezing winter of 1963. It was a great time to be a kid. Thank you for a shivery read.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Thank you for sharing about the English winters of 1947 and 1963. Those also must have been difficult! Some memories stick with us and clearly such a bad winter stuck with you from when you were a young boy. I appreciate your thoughts.

      Reply
  14. Yael

    Great poem, thanks for sharing. You paint such a vivid word picture that my mind brings up all kinds of lovely and interesting barnyard memories from when I was a child, even though I never lived anywhere with that much snow. I know the hardships involved in caring for animals during harsh winter weather and it can be quite heart breaking when things go wrong. I’m glad to hear that your family was so well prepared that it caused you warm memories.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Wonderful sharing of your winter barnyard memories. Thanks to my dad we were prepared but a lot of farmers had grave difficulties. Dad helped some of the neighbors. Thank you for your kind comments.

      Reply

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