This Story is excerpted from a workshop conducted in Rushville in August 2026.

Diana Dohrman: During the ’49 blizzard, I remember so plain. They flew in an airplane in front of the house that had skis on it to bring us groceries. That’s the only way we could get our supplies.

JoAnna Drummond: The Blizzard of ’49. My highlight when I was a kid. (All I remember is doing a lot of work when I was a kid. And yes, I had to milk cows.) But the blizzard of ’49. I’m assuming it was National Guard Army somebody… Anyway, they came up with bulldozers, and I got to ride in this, for like a mile. And the ranchers would leave them from one ranch to the next ranch, and we couldn’t get out for at least six weeks. It was at least six weeks.

Dianna Dohrman: But I didn’t have to go to school.

Sandra Loosvelt: I got snowed in town. I came into Methodist Youth Fellowship that night. And I remember my mom when we came into church that morning. She said it was such a nice day. It was a beautiful day, and she said, “It’s so nice. I wish I had a new spring hat to wear to church.”

And then that night I came into youth fellowship, and I went to the show, the movie, with friends. And when we came out, it was blizzarding. And unbeknownst to me at that time, my brother had tried to come in to get me. And he was, of course, we didn’t have a pickup at that time, and he couldn’t get to town. But the Giddys girls took me in, and I stayed there until Wednesday when my when my dad got to town to get me. And, of course, my parents were milking these cows, and every receptacle that could pull milk at my parents’ house was full of milk because, of course, they had to milk the cows. And in later years, I asked my brother Jim, “How did you do that? I could remember that the drift!” He said the drive from my parents’ house was so high that he could stand on that drift and step over the electric wire that went from the house to the barn. And I asked my brother, “How did you do that? How did you get the milk from the barn to the house? How and in that snow?” And he said, “You know, I really don’t know.” But he said we did it, and he said he could only remember one time that he was coming from the house and the barn, and he momentarily lost his sense of direction, and he didn’t know where he was for sure. And he said, “I was scared, but I stopped and just waited a little while.” And he said, “Maybe there was a break in the wind or something. But I, I finally got oriented, and they did that.”

JoAnn Drummond: Dad tied ropes between the house and the barn so that he could get to the barn and back. I was what, six years old. I was terrified when he went out. It was bad, but he built fences on top of the corrals around the house to keep the cattle out. And there were drifts that were probably, oh, they’re higher than the hops.

JoAnn Drummond: Yeah, my-my horses were the end of the way.  

Sandra Loosvelt: My husband got snowed in in town also, but he was kind of glad. He would have been out in the country a long ways, and yeah, I don’t know how his parents managed, but he kind of was able to shirk all duties. 

JoAnn Drummond: I was in Cherry County. In Cherry County, I think really because I know the only way they could get in a town or get mail or anything was to go by horseback, and that was for weeks. 

Sandra Loosvelt: I-I asked when I was talking to my brother. I mentioned the weather, and he said what he really remembered. He couldn’t remember about getting from the house to the barn exactly, but he said what he really remembered was the saying, “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.” And he said when they went out to milk that morning, he said the sky was just blood red, and he remembered that part. 

JoAnn Drummond: Well, Dad went out right after dinner, and yes, it was dinner. He said, “I don’t like the feel of it.” And cattle weren’t close to the house; they were probably a couple of miles away. And he went out, and they were all waiting at the gate, and he said they just took off for a dead run for the house. He said there wasn’t a snowflake. There wasn’t a snowflake around, but they ran for the ranch, and he was lucky they didn’t lose any cattle because he had this feeling. 

There wasn’t any weather forecasting. It was feelings.