Aletterto Sean-Grammy Remembers

2009-02-02T07:39:00.001-08:00

WINTER

2009-01-16T17:02:00.001-08:00

My Dearest Sean,

Don't know what happened, but the last letter I started didn't save, so here goes. My first actions when I wake up are to start the coffee, prop myself up in bed, turn on the TV and check the local weather. Then I go on to the Weather Channel to check out the country. The Midwest (Green Bay, WI included) and the East Coast are both "Frozen Tundra" zone. Global Warming, anyone? Those are the kind of winters I remember when growing up in the UP of Michigan. Once the snow started to fall, it didn't leave until the Spring Thaw. We usually had something called the January Thaw when the temperature would go above freezing but that didn't happen too often.

We didn't have central heating - the houses were heated by woodstoves in the kitchen and cylindrical-type heaters in other rooms. The main source of heat was wood which your great-grandfather would do in the winter time to provide enough wood to burn. It was always my job to fill up the wood box on the back porch with wood for the evening and next morning. My Dad would take a sleigh-type skid pulled by 2 horses to the woods and would cut down trees - load them on the skid with a chain - I'm not sure how that was done but when he had several logs, trimmed off the branches, he'd head back home and unload the logs for further processing. The next step was to saw the logs into smaller pieces so that could be split into small pieces for use in the stoves. The saw was not a chain saw. I'm sure my Dad would have been very happy with that but instead it took 2 men - one on each end of about a 5-6 ft. saw and with a back and forth action, they would saw the log into chunks of wood. The chunks then had to be split and again, no log-splitter either. All this was done with an ax and man power. Some times a wedge would be driven into a crack to break open the log to make for easier splitting. Once the wood was split it was taken by wagon to the woodshed where it was stacked for use in the house.

The only rooms that were heated were the kitchen and living room stove was lit only when we had company. Our bedrooms were upstairs which was not heated so in the morning, I'd grab my clothes and head downstairs for the kitchen. I always dressed behind the stove.

Winter was cold. -20 to -30 degrees at night and near that temperature when I would walk to the school bus. My Mom would wrap a scarf around my head, including my face only leaving a slit for the eyes and when I would breathe in, it was cold. Sometimes your nostrils would stick together!! There was no Global Warming those days and I think the parts of our country who are experiencing this winter weather would argue as well.

Blizzards were common and because there was so much open land, the road would fill with snow and sometimes even the snowplows would get stuck. There were no studded tires in those days but I think there were chains. It was very difficult driving because the wind would blow the snow and cover up the tracks that had been made by other drivers. By the time I was born, the automobile had taken the place of the horse and buggy which was the only mode of transportation my grandparents had. They had to travel about 3 miles to go to church and they did it faithfully even in the evening for choir practice and mid-week services. It was customary in those days to heat bricks and rocks to put on the floor of the sled to put your feet on. Believe me, they dressed warm and had big, heavy robes across their laps.

More about winter in Green Bay soon.

Love,

Grammy

Marion's Corner

Aletterto Sean-Grammy Remembers

WINTER