[0:07] [Music] [0:16] armus day 1940 the day started out [0:20] beautiful uh it's just like any other [0:22] ordinary fall day uh Minnesota was [0:25] primarily [0:26] Agricultural and uh things seemed fairly [0:29] normal a day to remember but in those [0:32] days 1940 there was no Advanced National [0:36] Weather Service like we have today where [0:38] they can predict the weather days in [0:40] advance there weren't cell phones in [0:42] fact many homes didn't even have [0:44] telephones at all the day started out [0:47] mild Sunny people dressed accordingly [0:50] with just light clothing on but by mid [0:54] afternoon it had turned horribly cold [0:57] the wind would picked up from the north [0:59] it was very very very cold it started to [1:02] snow and people were not dressed [1:06] properly many many many duck Hunters [1:09] were out in their blinds and weren't [1:11] dressed properly and died froze to death [1:14] Farmers had a very difficult time [1:17] getting to their animals out in the barn [1:20] some of them got lost blinded by the [1:23] snow and froze to death in their in the [1:26] Groves close to their Farms [1:30] [Music] [1:33] it's a story that uh my mother told many [1:36] times over the years of what happened [1:38] with her uh during the Armistice Day [1:40] blizzard November 11th 1940 as I look [1:44] back to my years at the Lakeville High [1:47] School there is one occasion I will [1:49] never forget on November 11th 1940 my [1:54] brother Julian and I rode the school bus [1:57] to Lakeville as usual it was a mild day [2:00] in November and uh warm it was kind of [2:03] overcast a little bit Misty and they her [2:06] and her brother Julian rode the school [2:08] boss to school each day so they just [2:12] dressed in light clothes they wore light [2:14] jackets no hats or scarves no gloves [2:18] mittens and the girls all wore skirts to [2:21] school so she wore a skirt that day [2:24] before noon it had started to snow [2:26] heavily we were served our lunch and [2:29] then dismissed they called for the [2:31] school bus and the uh owner and operator [2:34] of the school bus was Arnold saber my [2:36] dad had a transportation company before [2:40] he and my mother got married in 41 and [2:43] part of that Transportation was starting [2:46] the bus service he also delivered cream [2:49] to Lakeville and milk to [2:53] Farmington so the bus service was part [2:56] of him driving and working with vehicles [2:59] and so he came to pick up the kids at [3:02] school uh after they had fed them lunch [3:05] and they started out for Credit River [3:07] Township is where my mom grew up on a [3:10] farm and so they only got maybe 2 miles [3:14] out of Lakeville traveling west a [3:17] terrible blizzard hit the area it was [3:20] impossible to see the road and finally [3:24] the bus became stuck in a huge drift [3:27] Arnold tried in vain to get the bus out [3:30] of the snow drift get the bus unstuck [3:33] and it just wasn't work…