So many of my gramma Viola's photographs are vistas of snow, huge piles of it, hanging on evergreens or plowed into towering white walls. As a rule, her other photos included people, but she didn't seem to think the winter photos required them.
This photo is undated but the caption is in her hand. I think she took it on the way to the mailbox, a view of the south bank looking east.
Tonight we've got a humdinger in Minneapolis-St. Paul and points south. The airport has closed, and so many buses got stuck that Metro Transit parked the rest. There's a comeraderie among anybody outside, freeing stuck cars, giving a lift to somebody stranded. Pat's on the road but I'm not alone, I'm surrounded by neighbors, by houses with lights on inside...connected by phone and internet besides.
I can only imagine the isolation on the farm in those days during a snowstorm of any magnitude, the wonder of the next morning, the awe that lies at the heart of the word awful. Winter is so much larger than we are.
Pine-Chisago county line, Minnesota, ca. 1930s or '40s. Photo by Viola Marty.
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