The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
This article is continued from last week about William Everett.
Survives “La Grippe” Siege
It was in about 1878 when there was a siege of “la grippe,” then a very rare disease. He recalls that he was helping to haul some corn from a farm when he became ill. The day was warm, and the men with whom he was working were not wearing their coats. About 2:30 p.m. they hitched their teams, and started for their destination. It seemed that her disease struck all of them all of a sudden, for all put on row. When his father and mother finished their garden they had two wagon loads of dead hoppers but they still didn’t save the garden.
Movement of the settlers was a pitiful sight after that. The farmers, who had nothing to begin with lost all their crops, and began moving to other places. Sometimes a settler would come along with one cow and one horse teamed together pulling a wagon. Others would have a cow hitched to the cart, a mother, her baby and a few personal belongings on the cart, and the other members of the family walking behind. They traveled at the rate of about six or eight miles a day.
At that time, his father was helping build the Sioux City hotel, and was paid 75 cents a day. He walked 22 miles every Saturday night and Sunday.
He was working on a farm in South Dakota when the blizzard of 1880 struck in October of that year. He was herding over 180 head of cattle, and because the day was unusually warm, he was wearing only a straw hat, a “hicory” shirt, a pair of overalls and a pair of “holey” shoes. Although he tried to guide the cattle toward the barns, they would not go against the wind but kept drifting away from the farm. The wind kept getting colder and the snow deeper, and he became lost.
“God Guiding Me”
“I knew God was guiding me then, because I managed to drift to a road between two springs.” Mr. Everett reminisced, “then I could go no farther. Then above the roar of the wind, I heard a sound, one of the sweetest I’d ever heard, before or since. It was rattling of the overland stage which was headed for Elk Point.
“Both the stage driver and I owe our lives to his lead team. Those horses sensed that I was ahead of them in the road, virtually covered with snow, and they stopped. I couldn’t talk, but I still had my sense of hearing, and I could hear the driver urge the horses to go on, but they wouldn’t move. He then got out of the stage and walked ahead of them, and there much to his surprise he found me up to my chest in snow. He lifted me into the stage, and although it was impossible to see the road or know which direction we were going, the horses had sense enough to lead us to our destination. He knew who I was and managed to find my father’s home in town. My face, ears, and the lower half of my body were badly frozen. A couple of days later, after the skin had blistered, I was unable to wear any clothing except a big baggy nightgown my mother had made for me. It was four months before I was well enough to get out of doors.
80 Cattle Frozen
“Meanwhile, the man for whom I was herding cattle thought surely I had been lost in the storm. It was two weeks before he knew that I was safe at home. Of the 180 head of cattle that I was herding, 80 four year old steers froze to death. The others made it to the wooded area near the river and were saved.”
The ice break-up in the Missouri river in 1881, the spring following the blizzard is one that Mr. Everett will never forget. Their home was on the lowland, and they were evacuated to the courthouse of higher ground. He recalls that his father and a couple of others swam three blocks from the courthouse to the lumber yard to get lumber to build a boat. They floated the lumber back, brought it up on the second floor of the courthouse and built it there. By the time it was finished, the water was so high that it more than half filled the first story. “We had to bend down to avoid hitting our heads when we shoved off and out the front door,” Everett declared.
Church Bell Tolls
“There was an ice gorge a short distance above town, and I’ve never seen such a lot of different things come down a river as I did that spring. There was a team of mules hitched to a wagon which floated down atop a hay stack. Chickens came floating down the river on buildings and straw stacks, and you could hear roosters crowing out in the middle of the stream, one of the funniest sounds I’ve heard. I’ll never forget, though, the church from Mecklin that came floating down. You could hear that bell ringing long before you could see the church. When it finally did come into view, we could see two people inside the tower. It seemed funny, but in some way, the church floated around toward the edge and the people managed to get off. Then it floated back into the fast water and just seemed to be swallowed up in the gorge.”
The next two or three years, Mr. Everett just “knocked” around, doing any kind of work he could find to do. He went to LeMars, and there he learned that they were hiring men to help build the combination bridge at Sioux City. He had a lot of fun while was there, and earned good money — $7.50 a day, helping sink the piers. Although he had trouble getting a job because of his size and age, he persuaded a foreman to try him out and he got the job, one that he kept until the bridge was entirely completed.
This article will continue in next week’s edition of the Star Herald.
Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, 312 E. Main Street, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.