THE WINTERS OF NORTH-CENTRAL IOWA 27 
The Winters of North-Central lowa. 
BY HOWARD CLARK BROWN. 
To the Iowan whose loss of perfect reason has driven him to * 
California, the escape from the Iowa winter is accounted his greatest 
blessing. Few, indeed, of those who have formerly lived in Iowa 
ever consider a trip back to the prairie state in winter. It is the 
cold, the below zero weather, the snow drifts which they have 
desired to get away from. And yet all people are not so anxious. 
There is a strain of Iowans, often having sturdy Scotch blood in 
their veins, and almost certainly have they come from Canada in 
their journey to the States, there is such a strain which delights 
in the cold weather. The coldness adds vigor to their pursuits of 
life’s varied interests. The thermometer at twenty below is only a 
sign for more eager greeting when once again the sun shines warm 
over the rolling plains as the Spring breaks upon the country. 
Often these persons who delight in the cold winters of Iowa have 
been pioneers in this Middle Western region. They have watched 
the stretch of plajns change from a great treeless tract of loneliness’ 
to a region rich with ripening grains, dotted with human habita- 
tions, and intersperced with clustered communities. 
Just such a pioneer, is Mrs. Eliza Cairns of Charles City, Iowa. 
Mrs. Cairns reached the Iowa prairie in December, 1858. Her 
brother, John Brown reached Bradford, the home of the Little 
Brown Church, in 1855. Both of these people delighted in recalling 
the oldtime, pioneer days. And a large number of their recollec- 
.... clustered about the relentless Iowa winters. I think that we 
of to-day, often hearing the tales of the cold of other times, do not 
fully realize the fact of the latter. I was interested in probing the 
subject of former winters to its depth. I spent many afternoons 
and many long evenings listening to the tales of the pioneer as 
either Mrs. Cairns or my grandfather would give them to me. And 
though often these tales contained much hardship, much struggle, 
yet seldom was there any bitterness in the telling. 
It is idle to try to assert that the weather of old times was more 
severe than it is to-day. A change of fifty years would make so 
little difference that human records would not denote it. The 
difference, after all, is in the conditions of life, and not in the change 
of the temperature. Life of to-day is fortified against the extreme 
weather of the winter season. Life of fifty years ago was open to 
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