Remember when: Dec. 20, 2006

Photo by Photo courtesy of Gene Vonk

O, TANNENBAUM — A snowy frock adorns the Vonk’s redwood tree on a white Christmas past.

Memories flood back on this quiet, partially cloudy day with the brilliant sun occasionally breaking through after the past few days of warm rain as I try and think of another story for “Remember When.”

I think of the snowy, icy days of the past. Outside of building the usual snowmen and having snow fights, the most impressionable times in my youth were the days in the 30s when it would snow and we had real hard freezes. At my folks’ old home here on Rupert Road we had a large, tall tank house with a huge tank on top of it, which was filled with water pumped from our old bricklined, spring-fed well. One winter following a long spell of snow we had a very hard freeze. The water always overflowed from the tank and the hard freeze really left an impression upon me. Icicles about 30 feet long froze from the water leaking from the tank down to the ground covered with snow. When the snow started to thaw from the roof of the house and garage icicles would freeze and hang to the ground each morning. Quite a sight, but the fun part of it was that all the ponds and streams also froze, even the edges of the Sacramento River.

The Cunningham kids, our closet neighbors, my sister and occasionally some friends from town would walk through the snow to about where Dodson Road enters the Anderson River Park. At that time there was a huge duck pond (my favorite hunting place) where we all hunted. It was frozen solid, so it made a good place to try and skate. None of us had skates, just our shoes. We would go sliding across the ice, playing hockey with sticks and oak balls.

We always had a big bonfire to help us thaw out and dry our socks and shoes before we walked through the snow on our way home.

Luckily we never lost any toes or fingers.

Of course when we where children, there was always the trip to Shingletown area for our Christmas trees. My Dad always had to find the perfect tree, so we would trudge through the snow looking for our perfect eight-foot tree, returning for hot chocholate, sandwiches and the bonfire to thaw out.

Another interesting trip was when my niece Carol Hafer Hansen was born. My brother-in-law had never driven in snow, so he ran off the road into the ditch. He called my folks and I had to drive them to the hospital in Redding. Luckily I had become quite handy at snow driving as I drove everyday to Redding for work. We slipped and slid our way without mishap and arrived in time.

The year I met my husband, in November 1950, it snowed nearly every weekend from around Christmas time to after New Years. I was working in Redding, which meant using tire chains nearly all the time and I became well educated in putting them on.

Luckily the Forest Service Office was on Cypress Street and not at the old location on the Placer Hill. I remember all the accidents from people who drove too fast without chains or slid off the roads. In those days very few city streets were plowed and the highways were quite slick with all the snow accumulation and the ice.

Our biggest snowstorm occurred in the mid 1960s just prior to Christmas time. Many buildings’ roofs were lost from the accumulation of all the snow in both Redding and Anderson. Many people who had lay-a-ways at different stores could not obtain their gifts for Christmas. We lost our 100-year-old barn, which had withstood the big flood of 1940, but could not withstand the weight of all the snow. At that time our daughter, Barbara, was raising sheep and the barn collapsed on her sheep. Luckily her pride and joy of ewes escaped without injury. We dug her out from under the crossbeams, roof and snow. Two of the big beams fell on the horse manger, cross-ways and held the roof and all the snow from hitting her ewe. I think she only lost a couple of ewes, but what a mess.

The large timbers were the type that was held together with pegs.

Some of the left-over timbers were used in the construction of our cabin in the mountains.

Since that time we have had some snow, but nothing like in the early days. One thing that has really surprised me is our redwood tree which my father gave us in the 70s and was not supposed to grow at this elevation. It has withstood the heat of the summers and the cold of the winters, and is now around 60 feet tall even after the top has blown out a couple of times.

Christmas wishes to you all and may we have another white Christmas.