The garden began to come up in April and as we had perfectly lovely weather things started to grow very fast and every morning I ran literally ran I was so eager to see how much things had grown over night and then nearly the first of May the hoppers hatched. Yes hatched i[n] millions and billions. One of the neighbors who had out a little small grain came one day and said, "Well nothing can live over two days. The hoppers will have every green thing eaten."
And then that night came a blizzard from the north and first came sleet or rain that froze ice over everything it touched and later turned to snow with [the] hard north wind. We had very little fuel and that little was wet. We managed a little breakfast some way but I was so chilled and everything so wet the roof leaking so badly J.T. insisted on my putting on his overcoat while he put one on his brother Donald had left us which was large and he could put Willie inside and going to neighbor Ellis[es] till the storm let up. They had a dugout and shingled roof so we knew they would be comfortable especially as he had a team of mules so had been able to haul wood. It was 3/4 of a mile west and I did not believe I could make it and would rather go to bed but there was no dry place for the bed and J.T. rolled the bedding up as small as he could to keep it dry. You see before this we had taken the straw roof off and put on a sod roof but the rafters were so light we could not put much dirt on so it leaked and leaked, muddy water at that. Well J.T. got me on the south side of him and Willie in his coat but some way I could hardly walk and he had to help me along with his arm around me and then just as we got to the door and the warm air struck me I fainted and nearly fell.
When I recovered I found myself in bed with warm irons to my feet but I did not feel very well all day so do not think I got up. Nor did I seem to want to eat or drink, just to lie still in a kind of stupor. J.T. went back home to see to the stock and about getting some kind of fuel raked up [and] probably went over to the garden for small pieces of old corn stalks and put [them] in the house.
A Prairie Populist: The Memoirs of Luna Kellie, edited by Jane Taylor Nelsen
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