Patty's Place: It's a Snow Storm........

There are two winters that I remember in my life that were really humdinger's. When I was 14rs old we went through a very dry summer and fall. We were in drought conditions. We got into November with no sign of snow. Our Stake President at the time called upon us to have a fast and to ask the Lord to bless us with snow. The snow started up that very day. It fell thick and quickly. There were no little snowflakes, they were big and covered the ground. Boy, did it ever snow, and snow , and snow. December, January, and March passed us by with no let up in the snowstorms. The snow was very deep. One of the little neighbor boys told his mother that when "those" Mormons prayed for snow they really got it. The big snow storms let up a little in April and May, but it didn't get warm enough to melt it away. June came and the big storms started again. On June 26th, on my 15th birthday, We got the biggest storm for being in the summer season. Needles to say, a birthday party just didn't happen. The snow started melting in July, and was gone by August. I will never forget that winter season. I will always remember it as the year of my lost birthday.

The 2nd bad winter that I went through was in 1972. It was the year that I got married. We were living in Salt Lake City. I worked for the church offices. I rode the bus to and from the offices. The snow that year started in September. It fell steadily until the end of December. In January it got really bad . The snow got up to 5 feet deep in the Valley. The snow was so deep and came down so quickly that the snow plows couldn't keep up with it. Our Volkswagon was completely hidden under the snow. People couldn't shovel the snow fast enough to dig their cars out to go to work or anywhere. Every thing in the Valley shut down. Every one had to stay home and get through the snowstorm. It snowed 6 days, and it took a full 2 weeks until the roads were cleared enough so that the traffic could flow again. It was a good thing that I had 2 weeks worth of groceries in our house or we would have gone hungry. This taught me how necessary it is to have food storage. I always tried to buy extra things to put away every grocery day.

Of course I went through lots of bad winters, and driving over the mountain was always a time consuming and sometimes a frightening thing to do. There were several times that the car would slide off the road. The snow was falling so thick you couldn't see a foot in front of you. We always had enough snow fall that tubbing down the hill by the golf course would always be one of the highlights of our winter season.

My kids liked the winter time. They would often go up to Price Elementary and go down the hills there, on sleds, tubes, and even on their stomachs and bottoms. They seemed to enjoy it. They would make snow forts, have snow ball fights, make snowmen. When they got mutual age they would sometimes go up Huntington Canyon with the Church and tube. One of our favorite things to do in the winter time was to go to Temple Square and see the lights. And who needs snow to enjoy a winter activity. My girls came up with something neat. Sliding down the front steps of our home on a toboggan. How imaginative. They seemed to have a good time.