WINFIELD SETTLER'S TOWN LEGACY-CHAPTER-32-DAYS-36-40

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           CHAPTER-32 (MID WINTER)  DAYS-36-40           

    The town of Winfield had reached the middle of the winter and it was getting colder because the mercury was freezing in the thermometers in the town.The residents of Winfield were lucky none of them had gotten lost in the blizzards or gotten frozen in the -50 degree tempetarures they were getting at that point in the season.The locals in Winfield were hearing about entire families gone missing in  Bellflower, Middletown,New Hartford and Foley.

    There were reports of New Madrid families having schoolkids gone missing when the blizzard hit them during a school day and they found the kids a day later frozen into a snowbank.A few women with children lost husbands up in Grange and would be left raising the children alone and in need of help from the community.A pregnant woman in St.Louis was suddenly left without a husband after her husband went missing in the blizzard.

    The Winfield residents were worried about thw French couple staying in their town who'd not been seen since the blizzard first hit on the fourth day of winter.Eli and Ami Jankowsky had not seen them at Garden House for the past three days and didn't think they'd left town to go back home to France because they were stuck until spring.The snowdrifts in town were growing bigger every day and were over ten feet high in some places.

    The Jankowsky and Ivanovitch families were both still managing to get to work on the days they had work and to visit the winter festival for a few special days when they didn't have work.They were taking care to make sure they didn't overdo the spending time outdoors because the temperature had been getting down to -60 degrees and not rising above -40 for days now and people were freezing to snowbanks and being found dead later.

   The Winfield sheriff was also missing in the blizzards and found later on the island at the library during a break in the storms alive and well though a little sore from using a sleeping bag for a bed.The residents were aware of the record breaking cold because they kept reading about people getting lost in the blizzards and frozen bodies of the missing being found frozen to snowbanks or buried in deep drifts.Some had been found in sleighs frozen near homes.

    Tanner and Tracy Ivanovitch were starting to consider the possiblility that they might have to start eating some spoiled food later in the winter season if things kept going on the way they were and they'd hear of other families in other towns who'd begun to starve because they had run out of food and no supplies were making it into their town stores for the locals to have anything to buy and some were willing to try going hunting and ice fishing.

    Some towns had enough food though their leftover meals were all starting to go bad and residents were starting to get desperate enough to even eat spoiled leftover meals just to not let themselves starve.There were families that had run out of any fresh food and had only spoiled leftovers which they were having to eat if they didn't want to starve.Everybody living in Winfield was hoping for an early spring like others all over the region were.

    They'd still been getting temperatures going no higher than -40 degrees and getting down to -65 degrees some nights with the worst blizzards hitting them and they were getting slammed by strong winds with these blizzards.Everybody was starting to look foreward to seeing spring arrive and hoping the missing who'd not been found would turn up in the spring thaw.


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