My recollection of the winter of '48 & '49

I was born in 1934 and had a real good memory of that time frame. Our fall of ‘48 wasn’t as bad as it was in the Dakotas and Nebraska.

We lived 32 miles south of Ismay, MT. Ismay was a big shipping point for horses, cattle and sheep on the Milwaukee Railroad (600 hundred people) until the depression hit in the 30’s.

During Christmas vacation of ‘48 we cleaned out a spring and I remember it was 60 above. December 31st my dad took us to town with team and sled, with mother and four of us boys, it took all day. He stalled his team in an old livery stable.

He left the next day and we didn’t see him again until the first week in April when he made it back in to stock up with groceries and other supplies. The population of Ismay had dwindled down to 125 people by then.

I went with him to the stores. He bought a lot of burlap, iodine and salt. I asked him what in the hell he bought all the burlap for. He said, “Lad” we could use your help for a few days and I will show you.

So I skipped school and got a fellow I knew to fly me out there. It was the first time I had ever been up, and I didn’t care if I ever flew again after that (wild pilot).

We didn’t start calving until the last of April in them days. I could not believe what I saw when I got there—hoof rot all over the place. Dad and a hired man were wrapping their feet with burlap and then iodine. It saved most of them, but he had to shot the real bad ones. They were skinned and then salted the hides.

I stayed out there for about two weeks. It was good education for a young ‘lad,’ although I didn’t know that at the time.

When I read the recent article in the “Tri-State Livestock News,” I felt for those people from the Dakotas and Nebraska that went through the winter of ‘64 and ‘65. It was a long winter and had some bad storms, but I’ve never seen a three month stretch like ‘48 and ‘49. Thank God for horses, they always started.

I might add that my dad and his dad raised work horses for a living until after the second World War. What a change. We didn’t have electricity until ‘54.

On the light side, I was 14 years old before I learned that my name wasn’t “Emmett Git Wood.” Funny thing, I did hear that a lot.

Adiós,

Emmett