Blizzard Party #5 The Story Nobody Listened To

The children looked up at Grandma Lu knowing that she was going to tell them a story. But this time it was different. She gave them a choice of telling a Blizzard Story when she was a little girl, or when her mama was a teenager in 1928.
Well there was a lot of talking among themselves including the grownups. Of course, they would like to hear both stories. Grandma Lu laughed and said, "You know what? There is a lot of winter time left. I will be back at Marleewood in a day or two (2) and tell you the story of when I was a little girl in Iowa at a farm just like this one. But tonight, I think I will tell you the story about my mama when she was a teenager.
The grownup ladies gave each other "the look" and had story time in Bella's bedroom. All the mattresses were on the floor along with the pillows and blankets. It was the perfect warm cozy place.
Grandma Lu sat down on the edge of the bed and started her story.

Gladys Banister
1928

"My mother was a very smart girl and graduated from high school when she was just sixteen years old. She wanted to become a nurse, but her parents forbid it. They said you will be a teacher. She had taken some Normal classes. They were classes you needed to take to pass the test to be a school teacher in those days. I am sure they included reading, arithmetic, and some history. My mother wasn't very happy about it, but she did what her parents wanted.
After my mother received her certificate of completing these classses she was awarded a teaching position in the country. In those days the school houses were built out in the country with no close neighbors. The roads were poor. People often cut across the fields for a short cut.
Iowa prairie didn't have very many trees. In those days field grass or prairie grass grew tall; sometimes higher than my shoulders. When the wind blew it was a beautiful sight. In the winter time however, the tall grass caught the snow that the wind brought with it. When you looked across a field it looked like a huge ocean of white sparkly snow for as far as you could see.
On this day so very many years ago, the sky started to get very dark. The snow and the wind shook that little school house where my mother taught only about eight (8) students. They were all ages in those days. My mother taught children from first to eighth grade.

Country school house
where my sisters attended

The one room school house only had a pot belly stove to heat the whole room. They didn't have furnaces in those days.
 Suddenly the door to the school house opened and a farmer said, "Close up the school there is a bad snow storm coming. It looks like a bad blizzard."

LuVerne Banister

My mother helped the children on with their coats and hats and mittens and sent them with their parents one by one until she realized she was there all by herself. She had no way to get home and no way to heat the school house. All the wood was outside. It was too far away for her to gather up by herself. Oh she was so scared. She had no food or wood. All she had was her own coat and mittens. She waited there all by herself for almost an hour. It was snowing so hard that my mother couldn't see out the windows. It was what they call nowadays "a whiteout". In other words all you could see was snow. She was getting very very cold. Again the door burst open and it was her brother, LuVerne. He had a team of horses and a wagon. He was there to take her home.

Gladys Zoe Johnson

Now, kids, this is the cool part of this story. My grandmother, my mom's mother had baked potatoes and wrapped them up in old coats and had also put heated bricks in the wagon. She had packed as many heavy quilts as she could to keep my mother warm. My mother told me that this wagon had canvas strips coming down from some kind of rail that helped stop some of the snow from stinging  her face. Of course, they made it home. It wasn't that far maybe only a mile or two (2) but they just could hardly see where they were going because of the strong wind and heavy snow. Mother told me it was one of the worst days of her young life and never went back to that school house again! To fill her time she went to a Junior College in Cherokee, Iowa. She would laugh and say, "I learned how to speak French. No one else could speak it but me, but that's what my parents wanted me to do. I had no choice."
 Grandma Lu laughed and said, "Guess what? When my mother had gotten all of her children raised she went to school to be a nurse. You can do anything you have a will to do. (Of course with the help of some family and friends makes things easier.)
Well, Grandma Lu had never told that story before and was smiling to herself. she was so glad that she could share a little bit of her family's history. She looked around the dark room lit only by a oil lamp that was outside the door. Everyone was sound asleep. "Harumph, she softly snorted, Well, I thought it was interesting." She scrooched around and rested her head on an edge of a pillow and went sound to sleep herself.