I remember when it reached -73 degrees in Montana

To the editor:

My parents owned the “Fairchild Dairy” on the High Valley between Butte and Helena (referred to as “Elk Park”).

Our school bus driver was Joe Sologob, Sr. He kept the weather station at Elk Park. I remember him speaking on the radio and saying it’s -73 degrees.

Needless to say the milk cows were in the barn for days. I was 11 years old and my brother was 16 years old. I don’t remember him doing barn duty but my mother and I did a lot of shoveling. My dad seen the milk route. Not only the snow but the wind blew every day all winter. We had about a mile from the highway to our place (shovel in and shovel out). The drifts were there every day.

But things heated up. The fields were waist high by the 4th of July. Haying season was under way. We had one tractor used mostly for cutting the hay but the rest was by horses and beaver slides. I was stuck in the kitchen. An endless job of cooking for all the hands (I wanted to be in the fields).

I remember well my dad coming home from Butte, loaded down with food and drink on “VJ” day. And then again the war was over. A good time was had by all.

—Darlene Hammons

Libby