The Blizzard before Christmas

Uncle Art, our family historian, always had stories to tell—and the blizzard before Christmas and the Davis Road Church was one he especially loved.

When Art was a young boy, horses and wagons took parishioners to church. It was nearly an all-day affair, with the women bringing a hearty meal to share at noon-time.

Mid-December brought frigid temperatures, and extra wool blankets in the wagon did little to ward off the cold. Then a blizzard came. Snowdrifts higher than wagon wheels halted travel.

The Davis Road Church was isolated in the storm. The pastor and his family lived in the two rooms in the back of the church, but relied on the church families for weekly provisions. Now they were snowed in.

The storm only worsened, and the wind whipped the snow drifts into impossible ice-mounds. But the church families knew they needed to reach the pastor and his family.

Uncle Art said our cousins down the road were a wild bunch. But they always cleaned up and went to church. Then on Monday they were back to their heathen ways.

At this point in the storytelling, Uncle Art marveled at those wild men’s ingenuity—they fashioned sleds to work as a snow plow for two of their biggest work horses. Would it get them all the way to the church? They’d soon find out.

They loaded up large hams, bacon, three sacks of potatoes, flour, and bags of coal, and braved the cold ride to the Davis Road Church.

For the pastor and his family, Christmas came early. They welcomed the young men inside to warm up—and the children’s eyes brightened when the men offered some homemade candy too.

Uncle Art always liked to finish his stories with a lesson. “Those wild cousins preached their own sermon that week—with a makeshift snow plow and two strong horses.”  Loving their neighbor took a whole lot of courage.

Even though it’s over a century later, Christmas is still about showing up for each other with love, and whatever we have to give.

Photos from my family's collection.