Remembering Nebraska: Stories of Courage, Determination, and Luck

"The Blizzard of '1888... The term blizzard supposedly originated on the Great Plains of the United States where early settlers were terrorized by these blinding snowstorms. Severe blizzards are ones with winds of more than 45 miles per hour, visibility near zero, and temperatures 10o F or lower..." One story tells of a teacher who tied the children together with rope, then set out toward the homestead a hundred yards away. "The teacher... missed the homestead and all of the outbuildings, but the last child in the chain ran into the corner of the barn. Over the deafening scream of the wind, he called to the child next to him, who called to the next child, who called to the next, and so on, until the news reached the teacher... If the last child had been so much as an inch to the left, he would not have run into the corner of the barn, and the entire band would have followed the teacher into the prairie to certain death." This is just one of the many stories that has been told and retold about the settling of the Sandhills near Alliance, Nebraska. This anthology of oral history is a record of the late 19th and early 20th century emigration of families from "The East" to become farmers and ranchers in the Sandhills. Some say that, when humans are faced with catastrophic events, the difference between those who survive and those who don't comes down to three things: courage, determination, and luck. These stories document that through courage, determination, and luck, family members survived range fires, flooded rivers, labor strikes, gunfights and mysterious disappearances. Each unique, extraordinary event has a profound impact on the settlers; but then, ordinary life returns, the extraordinary events are remembered, and the families go on to live new stories.