Weather

By Gary White (CVHS Class of 1955)

Weather was always a factor in our lives growing up in Cedar Vale, Kansas. In summer, the heat and humidity were stifling, and in winter, the ice storms would sometimes shut the town down completely. In my memory, the weather was seldom ideal for very long.

Kansas weather was always a subject for conversation wherever I went. Of course, farmers were totally at the mercy of the weather at all times and I can’t remember any year that was great for putting the crops in, cultivating them, and harvesting. I heard a lot about that while traveling with my father on his Standard Oil Company tank wagon from farm to farm. Mostly it was given as the reason why his customers had to hold off paying their fuel bills, so my family suffered with the weather along with everyone else. I never heard my father get persistent with any of his customers, even if they had bills running back over several years. He took all sorts of items as partial settlement of outstanding bills. I remember the day he arrived home with a used vacuum cleaner and my mother berated him that there was absolutely no way that we needed two vacuums. Having grown up on a farm himself, my father thoroughly understood the farmer’s precarious life. Some of his customers were appreciative of his understanding of their plight and remained loyal customers for many years.

In winter, the ice storms left the countryside a frozen wasteland. My father told me of being able to ice skate to school right down the dirt roads near his parents’ farm, west of Sedan. In fact, he told of breaking his nose by hitting a clod sticking up through the ice on one of those dirt roads. His nose resembled that of a boxer for the rest of his life. I remember being able to climb to the roofs of the sheds back of our house on the frozen drifts.

The frequent ice and snow storms made the main street of Cedar Vale impassible several times each winter. Town officials blocked off the main street from the bank building on Highway 166 all the way up to the water tower at the top of the hill. The entire area became our sledding hill, and we could get up tremendous speeds coming down the hill. The long walk back up to the water tower was strenuous but well worth it for the thrill of the ride back down. The speeds could be dangerous, and it was sometimes a challenge to get stopped before we crossed Highway 166. I do remember at least one major injury, a fellow student who lost a kidney in a sledding accident.

In summer there were nearly nightly tornado watches and warnings. Those more faint-hearted souls would “go to the cellar” at the first sign of storm clouds. Since we lived in town and didn’t have a cellar, or even a basement, we just weathered the storms. I thought of us as being very brave in the face of those monsters. Since we had nowhere to go, I became quite accustomed to watching storms gather, dump their loads, and pass over. I remember watching trees and power lines go down, hail storms that left our yard with drifts of ice, and even twisters that passed us by. The most terrifying storm I remember was the one that passed over Cedar Vale on its way to Udall, Kansas, where the twister left not a single house in the town intact. I remember people from Cedar Vale going to Udall to help out with the cleanup and returning with stories of horrific devastation.

Another frequent occurrence was flooding of nearby rivers and streams. There was an area between Sedan and Caney that was often under water after heavy rains. Since we had relatives living near Caney, we sometimes traveled on Highway 166 through this flooding. I well remember my father driving onto the stretch of road just east of Niotaze, which was covered with swirling water. He had to drive very slowly lest the water get into the engine compartment and flood out the engine. Mother was terrified and softly cursed him all the way to the other side. In later years that stretch of road was built up several feet and the constant flooding became a thing of the past.

Of course, Cedar Vale is prone to flooding of the Caney River and the surrounding creeks, and I well remember looking out on a swirling, muddy sea in the area just east of town. We took all this as a matter of course and adjusted our lives accordingly.

I think the weather was a significant factor in the development of our stoic, persistent characters. We learned to take adversity without complaint and to enjoy what nature put in our paths with good, if somewhat fatalistic, humor.