Violet (front, center) and School Friends
(recollections by Jacob Tschetter, continued)
In my teenage school days, our school was graded different than what they are now. I had what we would call now a high school education. I taught four years in our district schools. Three of my brothers had college and became medical doctors and surgeons. Two of my sisters became school teachers. The rest of us were farmers. We do not know of what I would call hardships as many of the early pioneers had. The Indians never troubled us. I never saw one till after I was grown up; we lived 50 miles from the closest reservation.
In those early years there were plenty of prairie fires, but we were fortunate and were never burned out. We had plenty of fire brakes around our buildings to prevent that. I remember very well the open prairie, not even a barbed wire fence around the buildings! There were no roads. Traveling on a lumber wagon we drove across the open prairie the shortest way.
We had hired a man to keep the stock from five acres of broken ground. I also remember the high snow drifts that piled up behind the buildings, snow that drifted over the [grain huts ?].
The snow storm of 1886, January 12 is outstanding from all the blizzards we had in Dakota where many people froze to death. In many places it had snowed heavy the previous to this day. But on this particular day it was mild and clear. Thus the teachers with the children were in the country schools, farmers were in fields hauling home their hay and straw, while others were going to town or coming home. Where in the afternoon a powerful gust of wind, laden with fine powdered snow, filled the air. With a hurricane strength for 24 hours, it kept the snow in the air so that the visibility was only a few inches before your face. About 2 hours after the storm had broken out, the temperature went down from 25 to 35 below. Horses refused to go against the wind. As there were no fences or roads, people were lost in the open.
Our school teacher did not have the children leave the room. They stayed there overnight, but many children froze to death when on their way home, and never reached home. A friend and schoolmate told us that 4 of his brothers and sisters were found after the storm clumped together in a pile, froze to death. In South Dakota, 148 lost their lives. This was the worst snow storm or blizzard known in history.
The winter of 1886 was the hard winter when there was so much snow fell that the claim shacks and sod houses were snowed under. There was absolutely no travel, only by foot.
The little feed people had was not enough and not possible to get. So much cattle and horses died. Families moved together and kept warm in their snow covered claim shacks. Father told us that he walked to Freeman for some groceries and carried it home on his back. It was 11 miles but he said, "The snow was hard, so I walked over the top of it." It took him 2 days to make the trip.