"Sweetheart," Dad whispered to Mom, "I've got to get out of bed and go check on the turkeys."
It was midnight on Saturday. The predicted early arctic winter storm was much worse than forecast. In the early 1950s weather prognosticating was often a "best guess" science.
When Dad left the house, Mom worried that he would not be able to make it to the farm on Lehi's north bench. The snow was whipping around the little white frame house at 40 mph, and there were already deep drifts on the driveway. She watched him chain up the little Dodge pickup and saw his bright red taillights disappear into the white darkness.
The storm never let up. At 7 a.m. Mom was ready to call for help when Dad's green truck slid into the driveway. He plunged through the back door and nearly collapsed on the kitchen floor looking more like a frozen trapper than her husband.
"Call Bishop Gurney," he stammered. "Have him tell the congregation to come up to the farm and get a free Christmas turkey this afternoon. Near as I can tell, we have 500 frozen birds," he continued, shaking his head in tragic defeat. "Give me a minute to get warm and cleaned up, then I'll go back to the farm and have the turkeys ready for anyone who wants them."
My father owned a turkey farm where he raised 10,000 birds each year. In the early '50s, turkeys were being sold to holiday shoppers for about 22 cents per pound. The Thanksgiving market was slow, and Dad had decided to hold his birds a week later to sell on the Christmas market . . . hoping prices would jump a penny or two per pound. Often just a single cent per pound meant the difference between whether Dad made money or lost it. With nine children to feed, the potential loss of so many turkeys would be financially devastating.
Arriving at the farm, Dad immediately recognized the catastrophic effects of the storm. His flashlight revealed the icy burial of every wooden shelter. The blizzard was even worse than anticipated.
The buried birds were huddled under the shelters in bunches of 200 or 300. Some of the drifts were 6 feet deep. Dad staggered from shelter to shelter shoveling snow away from the south side of the structures as fast as possible to allow air into the cave-like pockets. He pulled hundreds of birds from each shelter trying to revive the dead and dying. The dead turkeys had suffocated from being trampled by the hundreds who sought protection and stampeded in upon them.
After six hours, Dad finally extricated all the dead and carried them to a pile in the middle of the field where he covered them with snow to keep them frozen. When he returned to check the survivors, he found many birds on the outside of the shelters frozen in the minus 20-degree temperature. Dad was soaking wet from working so hard in the suffocating piles of birds. During the trip back home, his clothing froze to his body.
In the early morning light he sat quietly with my mother at the kitchen table. "We're in serious financial trouble, honey," he said. "We have lotsa dead birds and cannot save any of them unless they are sold immediately. They are frozen but will not last more than one day. . . . They'll spoil. Let's just give them to anyone who needs a turkey for Christmas and take our losses."
Mom nodded. Tears welled up in her eyes. "You've worked so hard this year, Don. I am so sorry this has happened." She began to cry. "You need to go tell the bishop now," Dad urged, turning away with watery eyes.
That morning Bishop Gurney relayed the tragic story to his congregation, then called the other five bishops in Lehi and told them the devastating events of the blizzard on the Lehi bench. He urged them to tell friends and neighbors where a free turkey could be obtained.
As the sun burst forth that afternoon, hundreds of cars and trucks poured up the snowy road to the Fowler farm. Every frozen turkey was claimed. Friends visited with each other and viewed the tragic scene in awe and sympathy.
Incredulously, the mood changed as more and more people arrived. Sympathy was expressed to our family, but with the realization that the tragic event was being salvaged, friends smiled, talked and even laughed as the day ended. Nearly every turkey, which had to be cleaned and plucked, was paid for in cash. Often much more was proffered than what the birds would have cost at the store. That night Mom and Dad cried as they counted not only hundreds of dollars but literally . . . hundreds of friends.
About the author
Bill Fowler and his wife, Candy, live in St. George, where he recently retired from Dixie State College. They have four children and 10 grandchildren. They have been married for 35 years. His hobbies are storytelling, reading, hunting and fishing and golf. He grew up in Lehi and has fond memories of his childhood there.