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Show Page 14 The Ogden Valley news Volume XV Issue V February 15, 2008 WEATHER cont. from page 13 and his son David Ririe (for whom Ririe, Idaho was named years later and where he pioneered) came to Eden with cattle and horses and with plans of building a home on the Eden south bottom lands. They left one team at their homes in West Weber. But soon that team was out of feed, so 13year-old Alexander Ririe and his six-yearold brother hitched up the team and began the journey from West Weber to Ogden Valley. We got to the west mouth of the Ogden Canyon and found a foot of snow. We left the wagon and started on horseback with both on one horse. We got up to Johnson’s place (where Lewis Camp now is) and since he had a lathe house there, we left the harness. Here there was about two feet of snow. We went on to Goodal Flat and found a snow slide about 30 rods wide and six to 20 feet deep. It was hard so we would cross that fine. We found another near Winslow’s place about 20 feet deep. When we got there, they asked how we were going to get the rest of the way as the bridge was gone. They helped me move a plank across the bridge, from the back of the horse and put it in front so we could go one or two steps at a time. That is how we got across that old rock bridge. We then had about four feet of snow to get through. C. F. Colvin accompanied us from Winslows on. He had been there three days and no one had been through in that time. I tied my six-year-old brother, Hyrum, on the horse and put the rope around the horse’s belly and tied his feet so he wouldn’t fall off. I had to walk from the slide above Wheeler’s Creek which was the worst one. Our horses nearly went in the river. We finally got through but it scared Father when he saw us. I was laid up for three weeks with a sprained ankle from it. The late Dan Allen recalled to me that his sleigh and horses used to go over fences and rocks on five feet of crusted snow as he traveled from Huntsville to his Red Rock Ranch to feed his animals. If a horse fell through a soft unsuspecting spot, it was a major operation to extract him. Standard Examiner of June 22, 1921 reported that “residents of Ogden Canyon were warned not to drink river water by A. E. Brueton and Game Warden W. H. Anderson after they toured South Fork and found 250 carcasses of dead ewes and lambs, killed by the recent cold snap, near the stream.” Virginia McEntire Stallings remembers her father putting three children on the back of a horse with him as he took them to school. He would then take the horse back home and walk up to his barber shop in the tracks the horse had made. In 1933 the winter was very cold and miserable. The valley was snow-bound for a week. There were six feet deep drifts in the bottoms. There are some old-timers who tell of shoveling snow off the park in April or May in order to play ball with a competing team. Others claim they played ball on the smooth crust and walked to school over the fences on the crust. The following legendary story was told to this author October 9, 1976 by Tim Garrard, a Family Social Worker at McKay Dee Hospital. He is a great6-granson of the Garrard family. This family had moved to Eden in 1866 and moved out a few years later. The Scottish spelling of the name sounds like Garrett so Eden historians have listed it as Garrett. Descendants now spell it the correct way as Garrard. One cold winter day the young mother became extremely ill. Her relatives, Solomn Cam[p]bell of North Ogden, realizing she needed more care than her husband could give her, wrapped her and her young nursing baby boy in quilts and proceeded over the North Ogden Pass. The father stayed with the other children. Attempting to keep the delirious mother covered, caring for the crying infant, and maneuvering the horses and sleigh over the narrow, treacherous canyon ravine, was a formidable task for this plucky man. He realized he must put priorities first, so he wrapped the baby warmly, dug a hole in the deep snow to keep out the cold air, and placed the baby in it, leaving air space at the top. He then proceeded as fast as possible to North Ogden where he left the young mother with relatives and hurried back to pick up the infant son. The son, Levi Timmy Garrard, often told his wide- eyed posterity this exciting story o how he was once buried in the snow of Liberty for several hours. His mother, Myrtle Bingham Garrard, formerly of Huntsville, died in 1867. On January 6, 1917, the Ogden Standard Examiner reported snow was eight feet deep between Huntsville and the Hermitage in Ogden Canyon. In the early days there were no hired road crews to clear the roads. Individuals used their teams to tromp a path to the access roads. Volunteer citizens with their heavy front-pointed wooden plows, pulled by eight or ten horses, cleared the main arteries. If the rest were lucky, the lateral roads might be cleared by the same teams about twice during the winter. It was quite an event for the people living on that street when that happened. Sometimes one had to wait for a funeral to have this occur. Then sympathetic neighbors and townsmen pitched in to dig the family out or make a roadway to the cemetery. Some Liberty residents recollect that the first snowplow came to Liberty about 1920. On January 29, 1952, the StandardExaminer had a picture and caption that said, “NEVER BEEN SO HIGH— RECORD SNOWFALL IN LIBERTY, OGDEN VALLEY has piled the white stuff so high that utility poles and wires are within easy reach of youngsters who climb the piles lining the roads. The snow insures an ample supply of water for summer, but makes it tough on communication and transportation systems in that area.” Parents in Liberty warned their youngsters about touching the wires, and housewives were jokingly accused by others of hanging their clothes from the telephone wires. An employee of the county road department who was working with a big “cat” on roads in Liberty, reported he couldn’t even see over the tops of the banks, “I couldn’t tell where I was,” he said. “Every time I came to a cross road, I’d climb down and take my bearings.” The winter of 1972-73 proved we still have cold winters. It started in October when zero weather hit. By Christmas, we had one and one-half feet on the level. The cold weather continued. Sometimes it was 30 degrees or more below zero until almost March. There was three feet of snow or more with very little of it melting, as it was too cold. By March, it was moderating and the heavy snow, combined with heavy water content, crumpled many unshoveled sheds. On March 24, 1973, the biggest snowstorm of many years hit Weber County and Northern Utah. Those in the lower valley and Ogden were without electricity and phone service for three days. Their schools closed, and people huddled around their fireplaces, wrapped themselves in blankets, or went to bed without benefit of electric blankets. The valley, for once, was lucky. We only had to close our school for one day because of the 18 inches to 3 feet of new, wet snow that immobilized us. Our utility lines were shaken free of snow. Don’t Forget to Dig Out That Fire Hydrant! Just a reminder to keep the snow cleaned out around neighborhood fire hydrants. |