Sioux Falls, Dec. 3rd, 1924

Dear Mr. Rølvaag,

Yesterday I received your letter. I thank you for your birthday well-wishes,

and your questions regarding the October storm in 1880 I will answer the best I can. 

Together with Ole and Anfin we drove and threshed for our neighbors that autumn. It was a rather rainy autumn, I do not believe anyone would say that we got to thresh every day. The earth was so soaked that it was especially hard to drag the machine around. But this day we were up north at that Per Nordlenning’s place (not Per Hansa, but a relative of his). I think we had threshed there one day, then we had a thatched roof to lie on, or straw to carry in on the floor to lie on at night. The morning of the 14th (I believe it was Friday) was dark and threatening with rain, and after breakfast, when it was getting light enough to begin working, it began to rain a little, so we stayed there throughout the forenoon and waited, thinking maybe it would stop. But instead it only increased. I stayed until the middle of the day, but then it began to snow instead, a little in the beginning, so that when I had gotten the machine covered, and all of the fixtures in the house or under a covering, I drove the horses and wagon home- the others had left before. The heavy snowfall increased. I do not believe I have ever seen such exceptionally big snowflakes; before I came the four miles home I had the wagon box half-full of wet snow. It was so far rather mild, such did it remain, wet snow as long as it was light out. Forming the working horses, I had a few-year-old foals and 3 cows. I left them in the barn, but some calves were out with Fathers’. Nobody could think about any strong cold front- much less a blizzard this time of year. I guess I thought that all this snow would become water the next day. In that thought we remained in good peace of mind for the night, and in the cellar where we lived we did not hear the terrible storm that had broken loose overnight, nor did we feel any cold before I opened the door in the morning on the 15th of October. 

We always had some “twisted hay” inside and perhaps a spoon (this was a Sogning) so we fired up the stove, and indeed there was enough smoke that morning in the oven. After a light breakfast I bundled myself in winter clothes and then I was going out to find my calves, but it became another matter. Coming out through the door, the mass of snow came so strongly down over me that I began to lose my breath “gasping for my spirit”. I dared not let go of the wall of the house. Could not see a foot in front of me. I had to crawl inside again. One hour or so later I tried again with the same result, but the 3rd time I got myself free from the house, and got myself after many cold baths in the snow drifts down to Father, where we found our calves safe and sound in the corner, tight against his barn wall, a little leeward of the wind, but the little ones so snowed in that they had to dig them out with a spade and shovel. I do not know how cold it was, but it was terribly cold. The wet mass of snow was now like the finest flour, the whole day it stormed incessantly, not a glimmer of light to see, so it snowed like this, such that the mass that came the day before swirled around in the air. I would not have been able to come as far as to Father were it not for the trees I had planted, they were small then, but on the same ground as now. As evidence that the snow was finely ground and the wind strong, I can tell you that when I came home and began to take off my clothes, I was covered with snow, even in my undershirt. But a winter blizzard, that I had been outside for before, and keeping it warm in the cellar was not so difficult. Because of the dugout we were positively under a large snowdrift. From this time on I always had a shovel inside the house and it happened after that winter that I had to dig myself out by taking some snow in until I got an opening out. The 16th, which I think was Sunday, it was cleared up, but still rather cold, as if it was January. Now we got to see how it looked. The snow was heaped up in large snow drifts around the houses, and in our small forest groves, and in dugouts, otherwise on the flat prairie and on plowed land it could be quite little, just enough to cover the earth so that it did not freeze. 

I had most of the potatoes still under the field. Gradually it softened, so that in a week’s time, most of the snow that was not in large snow drifts, melted away.

We got to dig up, I believe, about half of the potato-portion, the rest lay under a large snow drift that did not go away before the beginning of May the next spring, then we found our potatoes alright, under the mass of snow the ground had not frozen. I do not remember if the rest of it was very cold, but damp and bitter. I believe it was about 2 weeks before we could think about doing more threshing. 

The machine had to be dug out of the snowdrift and the bundles that were to be threshed had to be gone over and the snow knocked off them. Yes, the outer tie had to be torn out and the snow shaken off them. This was done mostly the first week after the snow storm, I remember that we struggled through 3 to 4 jobs up there in the Nordlenning settlement.

But then we had to give up, as close as I remember around Dec. 1st. I cannot remember whether it snowed or rained the most in Nov, but it was just bitter, gray and overcast, and also impassable, all of the valleys filled with water. No time was mild enough that the large snow drifts diminished, but lay there, as they were stacked up on the 15th. My green stood unthreshed, and some of the others also until the end of May the next spring. 

In the month of Dec. I remember that we got a lot of snow, and it was lying more evenly all over. There was thus almost no place where the land was frozen that winter. The heavy snowfall was there just as they were in both Dec. and January, but not worse than that both the driving roads and the one railroad that came into S. Falls were held roughly passable up until Feb. 7th. But then it was seriously stopped, because of the snow; it blew swiftly from the east one day and then from the west the next day from now until Apr. 4th. Then we had the last serious snowstorm of that winter. 

But I will stop here.

This was indeed about the October storm and throughout November you wanted a message. 

I find that my report is rather incoherent, but hope that you can pick out of this the facts that you wish to have.

When I get a little time I will write a little about this snowy winter’s hardships after, as I remember them. 

I am now even in the best of health again, the others in the city are healthy.

With dearest regards,

Anders J. Berdahl