We lived in Casselton, ND at the time, where my father owned the local hardware store Coast to Coast. Our next door neighbors were Bud and Jane Sinner; Bud went on to become the governor of North Dakota.
My father typed up his account of the storm, which I'm lucky to still have in my possesion. I was only 5, but have vivid memories of the event.
The snow started Wednesday morning, and by Thursday morning there were drifts up to 10 feet high, and the neighbor kids were sledding. My little brother wanted to join the fun, and while Dad was putting his boots on, Bruce slipped out the door. The Sinner kids had by that time all gone back inside, and Bruce was nowhere to be found. Mrs. Sinner said she hadn't seen him, and Dad got very scared, since the blizzard was making visibility very difficult. Another neighbor thought she'd seen him out front of the house, and Dad saw his boot prints heading into the yard next door. When Dad caught up with Bruce, he was crying and had enough of the storm.
The wind howled and snow fell all Thursday night and the drifts around the house kept getting bigger and bigger. By Friday morning, we couldn't see across the street, and the snow in the front of the house was about 6 inches below the top of the picture window.
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Living Room Picture Window[/caption]My older brother Mick crawled out of a bedroom window and shoveled the front and back doors open. He managed to keep our exits open until about 4:00 Friday afternoon, when the shovel broke.
That night Mom went to bed anxious that we would all suffocate, and Dad called the mayor of Casselton, Frank Woell, to tell him we might need help before morning, as we were completely shut in except for about 2 feet on the north side of the house.
The next morning we awoke to find that all exits from the house were completely sealed off. Luckily, the phone still worked, so Dad called for help. Bud Sinner was the first on the scene, and he started digging. He finally cleared enough snow from the top of the kitchen window so that he could see in and let us know that help was on the way.
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Kitchen Window[/caption]Mom called Mitzi Moos, our neighbor across the street and asked if we could come there once we were rescued. She had a two story house and wasn't affected by the snow as badly as we were. In the meantime, our rescuers, all neighbors, tunneled alongside the house until they had one window opened up. Two of the men went over to the Moos house to make sure that we could get in the door there, and then came back for us, all ready in our snowsuits. Bud Sinner led the way, but because of the density of the storm we overshot the Moos house and had to backtrack. I vividly remember sitting on Bud Sinner's lap and sliding down the snow bank to the garage entrance on the ground floor.
By 5 pm Saturday the storm had started to abate, and we went back home. Sunday people from all over town came to walk on our roof and marvel at the amount of snow.
As kids, we thought it was pretty cool that we could sit on top of the clothesline, but our parents weren't so happy!
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