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| Helen and Harry Edwards with grandson, Brandon Edwards |
Four days into 2005, Harry and Helen sat in their living room watching through the window as an ice storm cover the world outside their house. Harry maneuvered his wheelchair to get a closer look into the darkness while Helen stood near him. They talked about whether or not the storm would cause them any problems. Harry had been in a wheelchair for more than a year, ever since a stroke had left one side of his body paralyzed while sparing his speech and mind. Helen cared for him by herself for much of the last year. They were getting close to their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary and were thankful that God had allowed them to continue to stay in their home. Reluctant to leave the house that Harry designed and built when their family was young, they had decided to make this situation work. Anything else would signal the end of one chapter of their lives and the beginning of one they weren’t ready for.
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The cave was finished in September, 1874 and, between rainstorms, Simeon and his neighbors built the Swartz family a sod house. The settlers prepared the soil, once more, for a crop of wheat. In October, the men set off to hunt buffalo down in Oklahoma, hoping to replace the food the grasshoppers had devoured. They returned four weeks later, in time to celebrate the holidays with their families, bringing buffalo meat, one man with his arm in a sling from an accidental shooting but minus two horses, poisoned by bad water.
... to be continued ...
This was a tough time for all of our family. Exactly one month before the ice storm, on December 4, 2004, Harry and Helen's only son and my husband (Vince) died. Its hard to believe that so soon after that they dealt with the after effects of the ice storm.
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