New Year’s storm of ‘49

It’s not often that a snow storm brings with it a great streak of good luck but that is what the New Year’s storm of 1949 brought me. First, however, I must explain a few things.

When we awoke the morning of New Year’s day, 1949, we discovered that a large amount of snow had fallen during the night and strong winds were swirling it into mountains all around. At breakfast time my sister found some strange spots on her skin. They were quickly diagnosed as chicken pox by our mother. My poor sister. Here was the snowstorm of the decade and she couldn’t go out to play. Lucky big sister.

I wasn’t lucky big sister. As was his custom our father had gone to Toronto to spend New Year’s with his sister and other relatives. The rest of us kept the home fires burning and looked after the cows and the hens at the barn.

Usually the cows were let out each day to amble off to the river for a drink. It meant chopping a circular hole in the ice every day but that was a small effort compared to what I had to do that day.

The snow was far too deep for the cows to navigate their way to the water hole. There was no water at the barn and getting the water at the house meant filling a pail with the power of a good right arm. That meant someone had to carry water to the cows. That someone was me.

Now, carrying pails of water is not complicated normally, although it can be tiring. I tried doing it with skis but had no poles to give me balance in the soft snow. I tried plunging through the snow but the snow was to the tops of my legs and I had to hold the pails at shoulder height. Full pails slopped out. Partially filled pails made the job long and tedious. Finally the cows had enough water to choke down the dry hay.

As you might imagine I slept well that night and when I awoke I had the prospect of more trips to the barn. But there at the base of my neck were the same spots my sister had. Our mother had to bravely do all the hard work until my father came home.

This is where the luck set in. School started the next day and, of course, we couldn’t go. Our vacation hadn’t been spoiled and now it was extended. It’s true; the chicken pox made us feel miserable for a few days but we soon recovered. It was believed at that time that as long as we had scabs from the blisters we were still infectious. That meant another week away from school.

We felt perfectly healthy and the weather was wonderfully wintry. We had to decide each day whether we would ski, toboggan or skate. The hills were nearby and the river at our back door was covered with the smoothest of ice, Sometimes we did two things. There was no more carrying water to the barn as a path had been made again to the river.

I suppose we never did properly learn what we had missed at school but I never regretted that streak of luck the storm of New Years ‘49 brought.

(The above first appeared in The Creemore Echo Jan. 13, 1999.)

Helen Blackburn is a retired teacher, avid gardener and a long-time contributor to The Creemore Echo. She writes about local history.