August 26, 2010: from Aunt Liz's "readread"

More about Ottawa

Ottawa school

Another memory of Ottawa-We had to go to a little post office to get our mail.It had been a grocery store also but no groceries when we lived there.The train would throw out a mail bag as it roared thru Ottawa & the station master would take it to the post office. Outgoing mail was put in a bag then attached to an iron post & as the train went by a man in the mail car had a long rod that he would grab the mail bag off the pole.My friend & I would go to the little depot to watch this & to see if the guy ever missed the bag. He never did when we were there. Then we would go to the P.O. to wait for the mail to be sorted & get our mail if we had any.

On Nov.11th 1940 my friend, Lorayne & I went to the P.O. about 11:30 to get the mail--It had been sunny in the AM but it started to snow about that time. It was about 12:30 when the mail came in & the snow was really coming down.We had a hard time walking home as the wind was blowing & it was snowing really hard! I was glad to get home.That was one of the worst blizzards in Minn. Many people were caught out in it & died. Trains & cars could not get thru the big drifts. We did not have electricity & were lucky that way as all electricity was out all over. Our neighbor borrowed lanterns from us so he could milk his cows.We had a battery powered radio so we could hear all the news about the blizzard-which was not goodnews!!