Does your family have that special person that is the unofficial record keeper? In our family it has always been my mother. Grandma Jean was that person that took pictures documenting all of those special events happening in the family, and then creating picture albums for keepsakes. Imagine the work involved with this, these were the days before camera phones and saving to the cloud. She spent countless hours sifting through the proper pictures to create albums that were frequently for the benefit of someone else. She was also the individual that kept up with extended family activities. Aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends received correspondence frequently from grandma Jean. Jean kept in contact with so many in a time that doing so required effort, not just a simple text or social media message. Yes, Jean was exceptional at maintaining family/friends contacts. She was also very gifted at crafting, a hobby she just loved to do. In her later years she was creating these special holiday cards that she would send out. We actually had to caution her about it, because she would mail them with a 1st class stamp and the recipient would end up paying a couple dollars postage due!

My mother (Jean) was born in 1927. She was one of 3 children, with a sister and a brother. This was a difficult time for everyone back then. WWI was over and the depression was coming. This was before the days of social welfare and rural families all worked very hard to survive. I remember a quarter of land that my grandfather owned that had two massive shelter belts on it. This was in a beautiful location and when Connie and I started our lives in ND was always one of my favorite places to do field work. One day I was commenting to my uncle about the reasons for my affection and he responded with a story of himself and my mother. He said when they were little my grandfather planted all of the trees in those shelterbelts. Grandpa would haul out my mom and uncle and drop them off for the day. They were to pick all the weeds between the young trees by hand. Now this wasn’t just a one time affair but numerous days per summer and multiple summer’s until the trees were large enough to compete. My uncle expressed no love for these shelterbelts even though they were beautiful. My mother on the other hand had never told me of these laborious events. She admitted to their happening when questioned, but she was not forthcoming with a lot of stories of the trials of growing up in this time period. 

Young women in those days took a back seat to their male counterparts. More often than not they did not attend secondary education. They took jobs where they could in retail, secretarial, or bookkeeping occupations. They were the primary keepers of the household and child rearing. This was how it was for my mother after she married my father and they had my sister and myself. I remember vividly how when we were to go on a family outing it was up to her to have all the necessary items in place. Groceries, sleeping bags, other camping equipment were her responsibility to prepare. It seemed so meaningless at the time, but after I started a family of my own and experienced a little of what was involved, you realize just how important the details of running the household can be. Women today search for accomplishments in business, politics or other occupations, but those women of previous generations were just as accomplished and important in my opinion. My mother withstood many difficult trials during those years and most of her efforts went without accolades or even notice for that matter. 

In later years after my fathers passing, Jean remarried to a widower. She completely embraced his children and grandchildren, and significantly increased her work load as the record keeper. Still not computer literate, she manually corresponded with his side of the family and her own, remembering birthdays or scheduling holiday get-togethers. She was constantly crafting gifts of cards or ornaments or some other trinket. Most of us had no idea of the effort or the love she put into creating these gifts. Truthfully I frequently scoffed at something I received “now what am I going to do with that”. But as time goes on you come to realize and appreciate the efforts put forth and the love she put into her labors. She needed nothing more than a thank-you call or note to make her feel appreciated. I know we will always treasure the many picture albums she created for keepsakes.

When I look back on my mothers life I am very proud of her. I wish I would have told her this more often. She was so considerate of other people’s lives and problems, often forgoing any of her own. As I write this for my blog site I can’t help but think of those special cards she used to make. We would often have to make a trip to the post office to retrieve them, or place funds in an envelope for our postal carrier to collect for the extra postage. I wish I would have never cautioned her about sending these out. I wish I would have just paid the dam postage and called her to tell her thank you!

Grandma Jean is 95 years old now and close to going to God. She is presently in the hospital and we feel it will not be long. We are praying that she passes peacefully and painless. We also pray for my sister who has been Jeans caregiver for so many years.  May she find some comfort knowing that moms struggle will end and she will be with her Maker.

Cody flew in for a couple of backcountry ski days. After a rain event that settled the snow, we then received 6 to 12 inches of fresh stuff that has created awesome conditions for this early in the season.

We started the first day heading up in the tranquil basin drainage. This is a great little area that I have skied many times, but was Cody’s first winter trip. Although we’ve had significant snows this drainage was still pretty brushy. A very enjoyable ski day, but would be better with a few more feet of snow.

When we were leaving the trailhead that morning we visited with 3 skiers that were obviously very experienced. They were planning a trip up the drainage separating snowslip and running rabbit mountains. This is an area neither of us had any knowledge of, so for our second day we elected to follow their tracks for finding the route up the mountain.

As with most of the drainages in this area we were greeted with steep inclines and heavy woods for the 1st half of the route in. When we emerged from the trees we were in some awesome snow conditions and open terrain.

Cody wanted to make it to the very top of this drainage which would have landed us on running rabbit mountain, but we ascended into heavy clouds and visibility wasn’t great for our first trip up here. Coupled with the fact that his old, out of shape dad would have been struggling severely to reach the summit, we elected to stop about 600’ short of the ridge line.

After a lunch break and admiring the views we made our plans for the descent. Cody wanted to continue up a short distance and then catch a contour line that would allow him to cross over to the snowslip side of the drainage. I would ski down the area we ascended and meet him a few hundred feet below. We figured about 1/2 hour additional for Cody to join me at our meeting point.

This is where our lessons learned came to play. As Cody started his descent, he popped his bindings after a hard turn. He lost both skis on the steep downhill. He didn’t see them get carried down with the snow wake and assumed they were buried where he fell. He spent the next hour and half digging with his avalanche shovel attempting to find them buried deep in the heavy snow. Meanwhile I’m waiting at our meeting spot with thoughts of my youngest injured or worse lying up on the mountain. Cody could actually see me waiting, but I could not see him. After much internal debate I felt I had to attempt to make another ascent up the mountain. I reapplied ski skins and headed up the switch backs, which when Cody realized what I was going to do, panicked him. He knew his old dad was in no shape to make another trip up the mountain. I made it close to our lunch spot elevation when I realized that there was no way I was going to be successful in following Cody’s route without exhausting myself and risking both of us being in danger on this mountain. Common sense told me to return to our meeting spot and give him till dark before calling for help. I reached our meet point and was greeted by a woohoo hollering up the mountain. As Cody saw me descending the 2nd time he gave up his search and was attempting to hike down. I’m not sure if his woohoo exhilaration was his happiness of seeing his dad return or the fact that he found his skis stuck in a tree a few hundred feet downslope! I got some nice video of the rest of his descent while cursing him under my breathe for removing some of the color from my hair.

We still had a long ski descent to make before dark so we headed out, both of us thankful that tragedy had been averted. As we visited on the way down Cody was adamant this would not happen again. Next outing we will have radios and ski tethers! He had the items on order before we even arrived home, lessons learned for sure.

Although we had a little scare this ski outing was fabulous. Terrific snow conditions with very little avalanche danger allowed us to ski some very vertical terrain. We are both dreaming of returning to this drainage for future outings, and maybe with some cooperative weather (and me being in better shape) we will make the trip to the top!