A Study in Survival /Part One

It was 13 degrees below zero this winter right here in Clear Lake, Iowa.  As a born and raised Californian, I have never experienced weather like this.   I have to think in a whole new way here.  I need to know what to do.  I need to know what to have in case my car breaks down on a lonely country road in the dead of winter.

I loved the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Struggling in the wilderness against tremendous odds sounded like one fun adventure to me.  I am now pulling out these books and reading them with new eyes.  These are studies in survival.

 First published in 1940, THE LONG WINTER, finds her family - including two younger sisters as well as an older sister blind from scarlett fever - spending a winter that starts October 1st, running out of coal and slowly starving.

 They finally run out of coal and must bring hay into the "lean-to" of the house to twist into something burnable.  This is no small feat.  Laura and her father sit together in the cold of the lean-to picking up handfuls of hay at least 2 feet long.  Twisting and twisting it, doubling it over and making these hay sticks as hard as possible so that they will burn as long as possible.  They do this until their hands bleed and they can't stand the bitter cold any longer.  They bring these "sticks" into the house to burn and get warm enough to go back out and start again ...for months.

On her first attempt, Laura is able to make only six sticks before her hands are cut and bleeding.

The word has gotten to town that the supply train, now overdue by months, has no way to get there until spring.  People are running out of food and trying to leave.  And if you think (as I did) that this is the olden days, and everyone helped each other ...well, human nature is human nature, and prices on any remaining supplies are jacked up.  The general store is long empty anyway.

It is still only January.

 "February is a short month and March will be spring." Pa said encouragingly.

A man in town butchers his ox and sells it at 25¢/pound, a fortune in those days.  Pa brings home four pounds.  They do have wheat seed.  Ma is able to grind it, in a coffee grinder that holds a half cup.  It is a complicated matter to be grinding and grinding, making the bread with a sourdough starter, and stocking the stove with enough straw sticks,  so it burns long and hot enough to bake bread.

There is a rumor of a man, miles away who has a stockpile of wheat.  Things have gotten so dire that Almanzo Wilder (Laura's future husband) and his friend set out in the general direction to find this person and demand his help as people are now on the brink of starving to death. 

Obviously Laura Ingalls Wilder lived to tell this story.  Almost certainly people died from the cold and exposure, the isolation, and running out of supplies far more than I have ever given thought to. But it is sunny as I write.  The sun streams through my east facing front windows and without that, the winter experience in iowa would be much more difficult.  Especially in the mornings.  These mornings when I think about every little thing.