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Show Page 8 The OGDEN VALLEY NEWS Volume II, Issue IV January 2000 Weather cont. from page 7 attract attention or to keep warm. Tortuous despair must have prevailed before they were softly covered over by succeeding blankets of snow. On March 12, 1875, Liberty had its most dramatic snow tragedy when a large snow slide came down Bridge Canyon. James Burt had just left his house when he heard a loud rumbling noise. He turned to see his house, wife, and four children being carried away with the snow. His loud and frantic cries for help rang out over the valley, as he ran down the slope to the assistance of his family. After carrying the house for four blocks, the snow stopped moving. Some of the neighbors came running with shovels and worked desperately to dig the family out of the snow. The mother and three children were saved, but one little girl could not be found. All day they continued digging. Finally the foundation of the house was reached and the little girl was found lying near the big black kitchen stove. She had been killed instantly. It was the opinion of the citizens that she fell from her high chair and broke her neck. The slide took everything in its way, even a haystack further down the hill, “An old cow was found sitting on top of the stack, munching hay, “ commented 94-year-old David E. Chard. A new baby was born to the family the next month and they named him George Survival Burt. Bucking the snow, cold weather, snow slides, and swollen streams made young people grow up faster and older men grow older. An example of what was expected of young people is told in the following account: Early in the spring of 1877, James Ririe 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 bottomlands. They left one team at their home in West Weber. But soon that team was out of feed, so 13-year-old Alexander Ririe and his six-year-old 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.” Now Offering Massage Beth Kristenson L.M.T. & Richard Smyka L.M.T. Nails by Kelli McDowell Call Now for an Appointment 745-1979 *Located in the Eats of Eden Plaza utility poles and wires are within easy Virginia McEntire Stallings reach of youngsters who climb the remembers her father putting three piles lining the roads. The snow children on the back of a horse with insures an ample supply of water for him as he took them to school. He summer, but makes it tough on would then take the horse back home communication and transportation and walk up to his barbershop in the systems in that area.” tracks the horse had make. In 1933 the winter was very cold Parents in Liberty warned their and miserable. The valley was snowyoungsters about touching the wires, bound for a week. There were six feet and housewives were jokingly deep drifts in the bottoms. There are accused by others of hanging their some old-timers who tell of shoveling clothes from the telephone wires. snow off the park in April or May in An employee of the county road order to play ball with a competing department who was working with a team. Others claim they played ball big “cat” on roads in Liberty, reported on the smooth crust and walked to he couldn’t even see over the tops of school over the fences on the crust. the banks. “I couldn’t tell where I The following legendary story was was, “ he said. “Every time I came to told to this author October 9, 1976 by a cross road, I’d climb down and take Tim Garrard, a Family social Worker my bearings.” at McKay Dee Hospital. He is a greatEighty-three-year-old Lewis grandson of the Garrard family. This Wangsgard, native of Huntsville, had family had moved to Eden in 1866 and made a hobby in the past years of moved out a few years later. The keeping a record of the weather. He Scottish spelling of the name sounds became interested when Lars Petersen like Garrett so Eden historians have turned over his weather records to him listed it as Garrett. Descendants now in 1940. These records went back to spell it the correct way as Garrard. 1894. Mr. Wangsgard has all kinds of One cold winter day the young instruments to help him check. He mother became extremely ill. Her can tell you how cold it is at the relative, Solomn Cam[p]bell of North coldest, and how warm at the Ogden, realizing she needed more warmest. One thing disturbs him. care than her husband could give her, The valley is noted locally for low wrapped her and her young nursing temperatures during the winter baby boy in quilts and proceeded over months, but it is ignored on a state the North Ogden Pass. The father level. Said he, “We have had the stayed with the other children. lowest temperatures in the state, but the newscaster always lists some other Attempting to keep the delirious section as the cold spot.” In 1915, mother covered, caring for the crying according to his records, December infant, and maneuvering the horses did not have one day above freezing. and sleigh over the narrow, But in 1953 horses were pastured in treacherous canyon ravine, was a the field the year-round, and in 1945, formidable task for this plucky man. residents fed their cattle by sleigh. He realized he must put priorities first, so he wrapped the baby warmly, dug a The question might be asked, hole in the deep snow to keep out the “Why did the town’s early settlers cold air, and placed the baby in it, remain permanently in the valley leaving air space at the top. He then under such adverse winter proceeded as fast as possible to North conditions?” The answer simply lies Ogden where he left the young mother in the fact that three months of the with relatives and hurried back to pick storm can be endured and even made up the infant son. The son, Levi pleasurable and anticipated. The Timmy Garrard, often told his widerainbow beyond the storm will be nine eyed posterity this exciting story of months of the most magnificent how he was once buried in the snow of scenery, invigorating air, pleasantly Liberty for several hours. His mother, cool summer nights and days, and the Myrtle Bingham Garrard, formerly of peacefulness and quietness that could Huntsville, died in 1867. not be surpassed anywhere in the state. Even the blue-white beauty of On January 6, 1917, the Ogden the winter scene, when viewed from Standard Examiner reported snow the warmth of the shelter, can be was eight feet deep between breathtaking. The recompense was Huntsville and the Hermitage in there in the old days, and it is still here Ogden Canyon. today. In the early days there were no Note: This information was taken hired road crews to clear the roads. from the book “Remember My Valley” Individuals used their teams to tromp written and compiled by LaVerna Burnett a path to the access roads. Volunteer Newey in 1977, and used by permission. 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 EDEN 745-4663 winter. It was quite an event 2595 NORTH HIGHWAY 162, EDEN UT 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. FOR ALL YOUR On January 29, 1952, the Dick Dixon Standard Examiner had a Branch Broker OGDEN VALLEY REAL ESTATE NEEDS picture and caption that said, 745-3119 DICKD@WBHG.COM “NEVER BEEN SO HIGH—RECORD HIGH SNOWFALL IN LIBERTY, OGDEN VALLEY, has piled the white stuff so high that WE MAKE IT HAPPEN! |