Necessity Generates Simplicity

A childhood memory was triggered last night while lying in my warm, comfy bed. Following my nightly ritual of wiggling around and saying that I love my bed, I thought of a time when we couldn't sleep in our beds.

We lived in a lovely old house in Eden, Wy in the early 70's. My father worked at a coal mine some 50 miles away in Reliance, Wy. My mother was a stay at home mom and some of my fondest memories come from the time we spent in this old house.

The house, barns, and bunkhouse were built around the turn of the 20th century as a Wyoming State Experimental Farm. My brother slept in the bunkhouse with a woodstove to keep him warm. My two sisters and I shared a small bedroom at the back of the house. My parents occupied the only other bedroom in the house. There was no bathroom, so we used a nice outhouse located out behind the house. The house was heated with an old Stoker-matic in the living room. There was also a cookstove in the large country kitchen.

The winter of 1970 - 1971 was a long, hard winter in Wyoming. A particularly large storm hit in February of 1971. I remember my brother shoveling a path to the outhouse. The snow was over his head and he seems very tall to me. There was a snow drift on the side of the house that went from the roof to the ground. My mother put boards in the window to keep them from breaking.
The roads were drifted in to the extent that plows could not break the drifts. They had to clear the roads with big patrols, which took a considerable amount of time.

My father was at work during the storm and was unable to get home. We were getting low on coal, so he was planning on bringing some from work. After about 3 days, we were running seriously low on coal.

My mother asked us to drag out mattresses into the kitchen. We thought she had lost her mind, but did as we were told. My brother brought cushions from the couch for his mattress. Making a game out of it, she helped us make up our beds. She hung blankets on the archway going into the living room and also covered the windows. She used the remaining coal in the cookstove to keep us warm. We lived on the simplest of terms for a few days until the roads were cleared.

Taking care of the animals was especially difficult due to the excessive amount of snow. I am sure that my mother thought this chore to be overwhelming, but for us children, it was a great adventure.

I am not saying that I want to live under these conditions on a daily basis. I think that we might need to put ourselves in the mindset that my mother was in during this trying time. If we simplify our lives in general, then perhaps we will be better prepared to handle difficult situations when they arrive.

Going without might not seem like a trial, it may be more like an adventure. *S*