2. SNOW STORMS

2. SNOW STORMS

Bob Zybach: Do you know if have any family stories come through about, say, the flood of 1861 or the snow storm in 1883? Do you know anything about those?

Donald M. Dickey: Snowstorm, yes. The flood I don't. I don't know much about the snowstorm. But it snowed and snowed and snowed. Dad used to talk about that. He talked about finally it quit snowing and they decided they wanted to hike over to some friends or family, or something for a visit and he said that that old snow was piled up and kind of slippery on the surface. And dad was walking with a stick with a nail in the end of it. He got down on the side of a hill and he started slipping and sliding down, he said his mother was standing out there "Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim!" He didn't get hurt or anything, just down untill he stopped.

Maxine Dickey: Wasn't that your grandfather that was sliding down the hill?

Donald M. Dickey: Yeah.

Maxine Dickey: Yeah, his grandfather. His name was Jim, too.

Bob Zybach: So your dad was Jim, Jr.?

Maxine Dickey: He was James Abraham.

Donald M. Dickey: Well, he was Jim anyway. I never heard him called Jim, Jr.

Bob Zybach: I see. Okay. Then that was the snowstorm in 1883?

Donald M. Dickey: Yeah, I'm sure that's when it was.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Maxine Dickey: Donald, he had only one eye. Do you know how he lost his eye? Your grandfather?

Donald M. Dickey: I think he fell in a fire, but I'm not sure about that.

Bob Zybach: So your grandfather was the person that this story is about. Did he, had he lost that eye by the time he was a child, or could that have been the snowstorm of 1861 maybe?

Donald M. Dickey: No, because my dad wasn't born untill 1872.

Bob Zybach: Okay, and your dad could remember the story.

Donald M. Dickey: Yeah, well my dad was along when his dad was sliding down the hill and his mother was saying "Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim."

Maxine Dickey: His dad was the last of the Dickeys, I mean the youngest child.

Bob Zybach: Now, on your father, when you had a snowstorm in, was it 1937, on Berry Creek, did he compare that to that earlier one?

Donald M. Dickey: No, we couldn't get out to the road for two days, we lived back about 3/8's of a mile off the main road. We didn't get any mail for three days. We had 3 feet of snow. With what, they had Sunday school over at the school house at Berry Creek there, so we went over and we got back and ate lunch, and my dad looked out and it was still snowing 6-7 inches. We had an old barn there on Berry Creek, and dad didn't think it was too stable, and so he says I think we'd better start shoveling snow off the barn. So we shoveled snow off the barn till 5:00, then we had to start doing chores and take cows in, the horses, feed the chickens and stuff. I had about 8 or 10 or 12 sheep out behind the fence that stayed under a big fir tree where I'd been feeding them. And at 5:00 they'd been out there. At 6:00 when I got around to get out feeding them, I took out a load of hay and some grain and they were gone back up the hill into other timber. By that time there was a foot of snow. And I thought boy if I don't get them down off that hill tonight I'll never get them. So I went out and chased them down off the hill and got them feeding under the tree, and figured they'd stay there. So when I went into the house I measured the snow and there was, I think there was 16 inches on the ground at 7:00. At 9:00 there was 30 inches of snow.

Bob Zybach: Wow. Can you recall any snows since that time that were that bad?

Donald M. Dickey: Well we had one down here a few years back, that was almost that bad. In 1969 down here it was that bad. Out west of Eugene here.

Maxine Dickey: It was '69.

Donald M. Dickey: '69, yeah.

Bob Zybach: It was almost as bad as the '37 snow.

Donald M. Dickey: Well, it was worse out here in some places. They told me out, oh just this side of

Donald M. Dickey: the mountains, out there they had four feet.

Bob Zybach: What did your dad say about the one in 1937? Could he remember any that were any worse?

Donald M. Dickey: Oh, he wasn't particularly worried about it. They had one in [the winter of] 1919- 1920 that snowed every day for 30 days.

Bob Zybach: So the one in 1919 was even worse.