Powder River Examiner -

Your recent column “70 Years Ago” described the January weather of 1949 and brought to mind the story Mom (Bobbie Heidel) would tell of her untimely arrival from eastern Tennessee to eastern Montana on January 1, 1949, as a 21 year old who had never been further than 30 miles from her small family farm near the Smoky Mountains. She had graduated college mid-year with a Home Ec degree, and the only job opening that time of year was in Broadus, MT, some 1600 miles away.

Mom accepted the job and arrived in Miles City via train during the very blizzards your column has described. The school board president picked her up and they set out for the budding metropolis of Broadus, on roads unlike any she had ever seen. Yes, she did question her sanity more than once! But Trautmans welcomed her to their home, the school handed her a classroom and a few students (and little in way of supplies so she held a “shower” to acquire needed kitchen supplies), and the good folks of Broadus did their best to help her navigate that first frigid winter.

As it would happen, the matchmakers in town had extra time on their hands that winter and Mom and Dad were married six months later, “sentencing” Mom to 48 more years of challenging winters, but more importantly, 48 years of living in a community she grew to love and cherish!

Sue Leininger