Bio: Norris, James – Letter from South Dakota (Feb 1910)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Norris

----Source: Greenwood Gleaner (Greenwood, Clark Co., Wis.) 03 Mar 1910

The following was written under the date of February 15, 1910, from Draper, South Dakota, by James Norris. His friends will undoubtedly be pleased to learn of his whereabouts.

“Last week the South Dakota Press got gay and made too many flippant remarks about he ground hog and his shadow, and now the weather has slapped us in the face with a mile-a-minute blizzard to compel our respect for the ancient shadow forecast. There is no dout the the press is a mighty force in the affairs of men, but even it can’t trifle with the weatherman’s bets without getting the colds raked over it as a penalty.

“Hence her I stand, jigging around a Watertown, Wisconsin Stove filled with Pennsylvania Hocking Valley coal, my feet clad in heavy Connecticut overshoes, trying to keep warm, while a Montana-Dakota blizzard is shaking this Minnesota pine and hemlock house and blowing snow in under the front door.

“There goes a fellow holding his mitten over his face with one hand and carrying a coal bucket in the other. I’ll have to get out after coal in a minute, too. Oh, you ground hog, “now look what you went and done.”

“Well, I must get the coal and go out into the “chill, no coat, however stout, of homespun stuff, can quite shut out,” and go to dinner.”

Yours, etc.,
Jim Norris.