I remember everyone at school getting called into the auditorium and we were told school would be cancelled until further notice. We weren't home two hours and our driveway was covered with water. I don't think I left home for almost two weeks.
Remember there was no dike so you could see the water rising towards town with nothing to stop it. Jerry Hendrickson And I canoed around town. We had to go to Hendricksons house and secure the piano which was just floating around the first floor. At one point ice floes were floating down highway 93 and some of us had to don floatation suits and direct the ice bergs from smashing in to houses. As the water approached the houses the fire department would pump water into the basements to keep them from collapsing. I feel guilty about it but it felt like a big adventure...Ich bin ein River Rat
3 lawmen at the start, Sheriff Herman Schulte's '63 Chev Impala Wagon, Henderson Police Chief Bill Schreiber in the '61 blue Chevy sedan. Arlington Police chief Paul Feil gets out of the back seat of Bill's car and walks toward his International pickup. Red 57 Chev four door hardtop was Dave Kolters.
The Minnesota river was so strong that Rush River could not enter it; instead, it followed Hwy 93 into Henderson. It brought huge ice flows up the street. Those had to be chopped up so they would not take out a house when they headed for the main channel of the river. You could not enter Henderson from the east, north, or south.
I remember making lots and lots of homemade doughnuts with my mom and Rosalyn Kroehler. We took them down to Lennie Blaschko's Independent where all the workers stopped in during the flood to get updates and grab a bite to eat. The day it began for me, I was in the 3rd grade...we got out of school on what seems like a warm spring day with the snow melting all around. Mrs. Linquist, with her signature clips holding her sweater around her shoulders, led my class to our busses and was impatient, saying, Hurry children...I want to get home before the water comes over the bridge. I did not understand. She had not patience at all for the antics of my classmates Scott Thomas and Russ Engel who could not resist picking up snow and firing snowballs at each other as we went out. I remember going into Mr. Gabbert's store and being amazed...there were only a can of something here and a box of something there and lots of dust bunnies visible on all his empty shelves. I remember I was thinking, Now would be a great time for him to dust his shelves! All the groceries were gone...had been bought by someone. I remember being in our car with my dad and he made a U-turn BEFORE the Steckman's building...right in the middle of the street, not because he was trying to be funny but because that is where the water's edge was. I remember thinking, Dad, please don't hit those ducks! They were swimming at the flood water's edge. And I remember the next year being in Mrs. Pinney's 4th grade class and reading our weekly reader on Friday. I couldn't believe it! Here was a house I recognized from my town (the 1st floor covered by water) and a group of folks in a boat waving at the camera man who had to have been up in the air in a plane. It was the house that the ORVILLE Beuch family now lives in! ( in 65, it was in town....under water ) The caption in my Weekly Reader read...Floods come in the spring. Floods cause damage. Remarkable...our little town had made it into a national school magazine....we weren't named but it's a picture of our town!
Motor Boating with Grandpa Lloyd, I was just a young Chick at the time. I always had fun anytime GPa took us anywhere. Esp. Fishing. (Bringing them with Us). Man I Miss that Man.
