The theme for the month’s Book Club was “Prairie Homesteading”. I did some online searching to find something I might want to read, and happened upon this book, which I then read. I was sure glad I had picked it, because it is both insightful, engrossing, and gripping. Here is a review:
This novel uses as its base, what is often called the “School Children’s Blizzard” or the “Schoolhouse Blizzard,” an extreme and devastating winter blizzard that swept through Nebraska and Southeastern Dakota on January 12, 1888. It officially killed 235 people, but there were probably a lot more, since Indians weren’t counted and many of the corpses were not discovered until the spring when all of the snow melted.
The blizzard killed many homesteaders in the short distance between their homes and their barns, when people were unable to find their way through the blinding snow. The name of the blizzard usually includes “children”, because most of those killed were kids.
Benjamin’s novel not only tells of the experiences of some of those children, but also gives a good deal of information about the difficult lives of those homesteaders on the prairies, who were sucked in by the unrealistically rosy propaganda put out by the railroads, in their attempts to sell tickets on their trains.
The lives of the homesteaders were usually very bleak, as they faced the hardships of building dwellings for themselves, poverty, isolation, loneliness, crop failures, and of course, the horrendous winter weather. Sixty percent of those homesteaders gave up, abandoning their dreams of owning land. Most men seemed to enjoy the struggle of building their own farm, but life became extremely disappointing and laborious for their wives, who had expected something better.
Benjamin centers her novel around two sisters in the Olsen family, homesteading immigrants from Norway. Education for their children was a priority for the struggling homesteading communities, but it was difficult to find teachers for the isolated, poorly insulated, one-room schools.
The two teenaged Olsen girls took up the job and the responsibility of being teachers while still in their teens. Eighteen year old Gerda, taught in a one room school in South Dakota, while her 16 year old sister, Raina, taught in a different community, across the border in Nebraska. The two teenage teachers each lived in a different situation, boarding with families within the school areas where they taught.
Gerda lived with an older couple, who kept a close eye on her. Despite this, she had become infatuated with a flighty, young man who longed to be a cowboy. On the day of the blizzard, her guardians had traveled to stay overnight in a nearby town while buying supplies.
Gerda had planned to take advantage of her guardian’s absence by dismissing school early, and having her boyfriend pick her up in his sleigh and take her back to the house for some intimate time. When she dismissed her students, they started the long hike back to their homes, shortly before the extraordinarily strong blizzard began to hit.
Even though it was mid-January, the day had begun, by being unusually warm, over the whole area where the blizzard hit. This prompted both the teachers and the students to forsake their normal winter gear, and they had all dressed lighter.
Sixteen year old Rainy, who was more conscientious, saw the dark threatening clouds and felt the temperature begin to plummet, and recognized the existential threat of the sudden blizzard, so she immediately called her students in from their recess, into the school. There they huddled together, inside the uninsulated schoolhouse. Soon, as the temperature inside became very cold, it was discovered that there was very little firewood left.
None of the class had worn their winter gear to school. The snow outside was blowing with great fury which caused one of the glass windows of the school to break, and snow began blowing into the building through the window.
Sixteen year old Rainy had to figure out what to do to save the children. She realized that the frigid school would soon become a death trap, but the only other solution that Raina could come up with, was to try to hike the kids through the blinding, freezing blizzard, in the dark of night, to a house, closet to the school. She tied her students along a line, using their aprons, and bravely she led them out into the blizzard.
The novel becomes a harrowing tale of survival and death, brought on by one of nature’s most dangerous weather events. It deals with the struggles of the two teenaged sisters during the blizzard, and also with its aftermath. It shows the the personal repercussions of the two, who had survived the blizzard, but whose lives were profoundly effected differently by the event.
The Children’s Blizzard was an extremely engaging book, that was hard to put down. It really gave the reader a thought provoking look at what life was like for those struggling homesteaders who settled the prairies.
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