My grandparents were farmers, of a variety you don’t see anymore. They were “everything” farmers. They put up hay, planted grain crops and had livestock. My paternal grandparents had sheep and a dairy operation in addition to planting crops, while my maternal grandparents had beef cattle and pigs as well as fields of corn. Both sets of grandparents got electricity through President Roosevelt’s New Deal program the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. They got power in the 1940’s. Their homes were relatively small and simple, but cozy. Both sets of grandparents lived off of small arterial roads that in turn were offshoots of, not that much larger, county roads. The farms were set back in the boonies at the end of long winding “driveways”.

This is a recounting, as best as I can recollect it, of a memorable Christmas for me, from the mid 1970’s, when the wind blew, the swirling snow fell, and a blizzard raged.

We were having Christmas at “Tuckaway Farm” in rural Mondovi, Wisconsin. That’s what my maternal grandparents, Forest and Laura, called their place. When visiting them, first you had to stop in Mondovi and use the one pay phone the town had (no cell phones then kids) in order to tell Grandpa and Grandma that you were almost there, so they wouldn’t let anyone else use their driveway. Their driveway was nearly a half mile of one lane dirt road, cut into a hill, with a stand of birch trees so close they nearly scraped the car on one side and an eight foot drop into a field on the other. If you met another vehicle, one of you had to back up over the winding, twisty turning driveway with no room for error until either one was back in the farmyard, or the other was back on the road – depending on which destination was closer.

As we made our way to my grandparents’ house, the snow continued to fall. It was tumbling from the sky in big flakes and coming down faster and faster all the time. The wind was starting to pick up and Dad was happy to have arrived. He was especially happy not to have to navigate that awful driveway as the snow began to fall more heavily, and the wind began to howl creating a ground blizzard.

We were the last to arrive, almost. Our relatives who lived in Michigan had been staying at the farm, so they were naturally already there. The Wisconsin relatives had less distance to travel, and many were teachers so had the time off and could get an early start. It was December 24th and Dad worked at the Post Office. The 24th was a workday and Dad had to work overtime, hence our later arrival.

The only one not in attendance yet was my cousin Russell. He was a PFC in the newly all-volunteer Army. Russell was on his way from Fort Hood, Texas. In the days before cell phones, texting and email Russell might as well have been riding for the Pony Express. No one had any idea where he was, other than he was coming and planned to be at Tuckaway for Christmas Eve and Day.

The snow fell heavily, the wind shrieked and moaned. The snow was thicker, a ground blizzard twisted and swirled with the wind, still no Russell.

My Uncle Ray and Aunt Judy took this occasion, with the whole family together, to announce they were having another child. They had three already and their oldest, my cousin Stacy, wailed “Not another one!” and began to cry. My Uncle Earl, the oldest of my Mom’s siblings, took Stacy by the hand into the kitchen and began to fill glasses out of the cupboard with water. Earl said nothing and Stacy eventually became fascinated with what Earl was doing. Why? Why fill the glasses with water? When Earl ran out of glasses, he started in on filling the pots and pans with water. His mother, my Grandma Laura, said “Earl, what on Earth are you doing!?!” Nevertheless, Earl said nothing. By now, all of us were crowding in the kitchen wondering what Earl was up to.

When the pots and pans were full, Earl left the water running and said to Stacy, “The water represents the love your parents have. This glass is your sister Lauresa. This glass is your brother Ray Jr. This glass is you. This glass is Grandma…” and on through the family. The pots and pans were all the kids at the place where Judy was a physical therapist as well as those people who were poor etc. and Earl went on in that vein. Uncle Earl then pointed out that the water was still running. There was enough love for a new baby and more. Stacy hugged his Mom and asked his Dad if he could name the baby. We all got a laugh out of that.

My Uncle Dean told his sister Judy if her child were a girl and born on his birthday that he would outfit the child’ nursery and also made some other more extravagant promises, never figuring that the baby would be born on his birthday. What were the odds? When Judy gave birth to Kristi (that’s who was in utero on that Christmas Eve) she was born on Dean’s birthday, and he kept every promise he made that Christmas. If you’re wondering did Judy “cheat” by inducing or delivering Caesarean, the answer is “no”. It was a natural childbirth.

Outside, it was blizzarding. My Aunt Marge, Russell’s Mom, gazed out the window into the night and sighed.

My cousin Steve, Earl’s oldest son, was a senior in high school – all set to graduate in the spring. Steve announced, once the excitement over the news of Judy’s pregnancy died down, that he was getting married to a widow named Patricia, six years his senior and who already had a child. Talk about a mood killer, the adults erupted in a cacophony of advice and cautionary tales. Steve was adamant. He and Pat did get married that summer after his high school graduation. The marriage that all of the adults muttered was doomed has been going strong for many a decade. Steve and Pat will celebrate 49 years of wedded bliss in the summer of 2024.

The water was emptied from the glasses, pots and pans so that dinner could be served. It was delicious, but still no Russell.

The adults drifted into “remember who and when” conversations that bored me and my cousins stiff. We went off to make our own fun while the storm got worse.

Finally, it was time for bed and Russell hadn’t arrived yet but now my sister and my cousin Linda (Russell’s sister) were missing. I was quizzed as was my cousin Randy (a year older than me and Russell’s younger brother) as to where the girls were. As if high school boys kept track of their middle school sisters!

A search was made of the house, upstairs and down, with no luck. The adults looked worried, and the men began to suit up to do an impossible search of the wicked wintery outdoors when the barn phone rang. My grandparents had an “outside” phone for regular calls and another phone that connected only to the barn. It was the barn phone and on the other end were the girls, a little panicked.

My grandfather had an old “radio tower” of a kind (more like a giant antennae, although it had four legs and resembled a miniature Eiffel Tower) mounted on the barn. It was a remnant of an interest by my uncles, when they were boys, in ham radio. On top of the tower Grandpa had placed a giant star. It was left there year round and only lit at Christmas. Linda thought the star would guide her brother into the farm from the road during the storm, so the girls went out to light the star (flip a switch). They got to talking, playing in the hay mow, then feeding the animals. When they decided to come back to the house, they couldn’t see it for all of the wind, snow and increased blizzard conditions.

Being girls, even middle school girls, they used their heads. If it had been Randy and I, we would have plunged into the snow and never been heard from again – until they found our bodies in the spring. But the girls were smart and used the phone. Inside the house, my Dad, Grandpa and my Uncles got wire, extension cords, rope and whatever and tied it to the house and strung it as far as it would go and then held each other’s hand to reach the barn. It took the menfolk a couple of hit and misses to find the barn in the blinding white out of snow. The girls were rescued and after all the hugs and “Thank Gods”, were severely reprimanded.

Still no Russell…

We went to bed, some of us slept better than others. We woke to the smell of coffee percolating and the sound of bacon frying. Good old Grandma, getting up early to feed us. We tumbled out of our rooms and sleeping bags only to see Grandma at the top of the stairs. What the…?

Downstairs in the kitchen, standing over a fry pan on the stove, sipping a cup of coffee in his Army uniform was Russell. He had abandoned his car on the road by the mailbox at the end of the driveway in the wee hours of Christmas Day morning and snowshoed in. He used his Army rucksack to transport his essentials and was amused at the wonder and concern expressed for and about him. When asked how he found the place, he said the storm had broken and he had followed the star – the one on the top of the barn – in towards the house. It was at that point he was mauled by his little sister Linda, the rest of us weren’t far behind.

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year, made more wonderful by following the Star. I hope you and yours have a Very Merry Christmas!