Dena and Nels Peterson with Lawrence driving the 1924 Model T
Dad then bought another second hand Model T car to haul the cream to Westbury, and what mud roads! Sometimes the mud was hub deep. Then a year later he bought a new Model T, which was his last. Mom tried to learn how to drive it, but she hit a tree by Ed Olson's farm, so she wouldn't try to drive any more.
On the long winter evenings after the chores were done, Dad would play checkers and pedro (a card game) with us. He was a sharp checker player, but soon we were just about as sharp as he was. While we were playing checkers, the wolves were down behind the barn in the slough, howling. It sounded like dozens. It was so close to the house, your blood froze in your veins. It made me feel good to think you were snug and warm in the house. This went on for quite a few years, but now you never see or hear a wolf in this area.
Most winters we were snowed in from Jan. 1 until the last part of March. The roads were so full of snow even horses couldn't get through so they laid down, the men cut two fences to drive where the snow was not so deep, especially for the mailman that drove a team everyday. Then we would walk to Richwood, three miles, or leave the cars on the highway at a friend's house and drive the horses there and take the car and go to Detroit.
This went on for many years till they built a new road that could be snowplowed.
On the way to school, there was no road. The cuts were full of snow, so we walked across the land and through the brush where there was not so much snow. Frank and Lawrence skied to school. Myrtle, Andy and I walked, and many of the others did too.
In the spring all the neighbors went out and opened the road by shoveling it open, and had to fix fences before the cattle found the openings. The boys built a high jump behind the schoolhouse on a high hill. There they spent all their recess and noon hour, skiing and sliding down the hill, and they were really good on skis. Frank and Lawrence made homemade skis and spent many hours on the hill.
Brother Palmer came home from World War I and spent most the winter with us. Then he went to North Dakota and later to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where he later married Della Wells. They have four children, Shirley, Beverly, Clarence, and Gerald. Rudy also came home from the Navy and settled in Bonners Ferry, but he never married.
Palmer and Rudy worked in the big garage there for years. Later Palmer worked on big Caterpillars for logging companies and farm tractors. He has retired now, but they still call him for advice on a big cat job that is being overhauled.
In the fall when the ponds and lakes froze over, a group of neighborhood teenagers, about fifteen of us, walked three miles to the Albert Fingalson home to a skating party. They had a merry-go-round with a sleigh on one end and the other end you pushed a pole. The sleigh would just fly around on the ice. We skated till about ten PM, and then we went to the house for lunch before we hiked home. We had a lot of fun on more than one skating party before the snow came in the fall. When the snow came, there was always somebody to drive a team on a sleigh with a wagon box on it. We sat on the bottom on hay, and had quilts and blanket to cover up with. The horses always had sleigh bells on and on a clear cold night you could here those bells jingle for miles.
We sure miss those sleigh rides and the sound of those bells.
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