Last week I wrote about a Bank of True Love valentine from Marjorie Boynton Cross. Below are the sod house and Bondville blizzard letters I mentioned.
Sod House
“Sargent, Custer County, Neb. May 3, 1885
“You wonder how a house can be built of sod. The ground here in places is covered very thickly with a coarse grass and the soil which is a black clay is filled with roots which make it very tough – there is no gravel or stones in it. They break it about 4 inches thick and 14 or 16 inches wide then cut with a spade about 2 feet or more in length.
“The door and window frames are made and set up the same as for a brick house and then the sods laid up around them as they lay up brick – breaking joints and filling in all the spaces with dry dirt. The walls are usually anywhere from 26 to 30 inches in thickness then the roof is made in a different way. Ours is covered with boards then tarred paper and a thin layer of sod over that which makes it warm in the winter and keeps from freezing and on account of the thickness of the walls and the sod on the roof it keeps cool in the summer.
“Then the inside they plaster over with a white clay taken out of the hills here and when done you could not tell inside the house that it was built of sod. Ours is not plastered yet but we have the inside lined with newspapers so you cannot see the sod. Some plaster their house over the outside and then white wash it so one could not tell there was any sod about it.
“They are by no means handsome and I guess would look funny to you, the dirt is so black that they all look nearly black and everybody’s house is the same color and also their stables, graineries and hen houses. In town at Sargent the houses are all frame houses and some quite respectable ones – nice little cottages. We are so far from the RR that lumber is very high and it is quite an advantage that the sod is suitable for building as otherwise people could not afford to settle here and build at all.
“Now I will tell you about our fuel. At present we are burning corn stalks principally. The corn is husked in the field and then the cattle run in and eat off the leaves and husks which leave the stalks nearly all bare. They are so dry that they burn well but it keeps one busy to keep stuffing them in. A stove full will not last more than 5 minutes so it takes a good deal of time to tend the fire. We shall burn cobs usually but have to get along the best we can this year. In the winter we burnt a good deal of corn and if we have a good season we hope to raise plenty of our own to burn next winter and not have to buy. It is as cheap to burn corn as to buy coal.”
Bondville blizzard
“Bondville March 28, 1888
“My Dear Sister
“Do you think I am never going to write again, well we have been snowed in but the mails run again now. Oh dear what a winter we have had.
“I never saw so much snow before, I mean in one winter but it does seem as though it must be warmer soon but it will take a long time for all of this snow to go off.
“I mean to come over and see you next summer if I have to come alone, so you may look for me if the snow ever does go off. Harriet has not been down here for ever so long, she and Cephas and Maude and her little girl got snowed down here and had to stay a few days. Before the big storm of March 12 & 13 we were not quite covered but now some of our windows are all covered and we can not see over the drift at the front door.”
This week’s old saying: “Temptation calling.”