Icebound Easter Not So Bad

by Donna Poole

When Easter Sunday comes, will we all still be under orders to stay home and stay safe? Perhaps we will be. Thinking of that reminded me of an article I wrote about an Easter we spent at home in 1978. I sent it to our local paper, The Hillsdale Daily News and was overjoyed when they published it on the front page on March 27, 1978. I laughed when I noticed the typesetter had changed “friends” to “fiends.” I’ve made my own share of fiendish writing errors!

9:30 p.m., Saturday, March 25, 1978—Freezing rain pounded at the windows, and the lights flickered a warning.

“Just let me read this to you before you fix supper, okay?” John asked.

We’d fed the three small ones earlier and planned a late evening supper alone, an occasional event in our home, almost like a date night without having to leave home. But John decided he needed to practice Sunday’s Easter sermon out loud, and I was the only available audience, since his guppies refused to look interested. So, I listened, and supper waited.

10 p.m.—John snapped his Bible shut. “What do you think?”

The lights flickered and went out. “I think I don’t like cold tomato soup.”

11:30 p.m.—The inside temperature dropped to 62 degrees, not uncomfortable. Did we usually keep the house too warm? Surely, we weren’t one of those energy hogs we condemned, were we? On that thought, we oink-oinked our way to bed.

Midnight to 7 a.m.—The inside temperature dipped to 58 degrees overnight but Sleeping bags for the three small ones and two extra blankets for us kept us almost too warm. How quiet it was! No motors running, no FM radio—perfect for sleeping. We couldn’t sleep. It was too quiet.

7:30 a.m.—John ice-skated on four wheels up to our country church. There was no electricity there so no heat. The church was cold, and branches littered the road. He and the board decided to cancel the Easter service.

“It’s too bad I was the only one who heard your Easter sermon,” I said.

“Oh well,” came the cheerful reply. “Maybe you were the only one who needed to hear it.”

8 a.m.—Cold breakfast: juice, milk, peanut butter, un-toast, and cold cereal. The house temperature was 56 degrees. We put on jackets.

8:30 a.m.—We settled in the living room for our Easter service. Our four-voice choir plus one coo did feeble justice to the hymn, “Christ Arose!” We read the resurrection story and talked about the promise of eternal life we can have because Jesus died for our sins and rose again. Suddenly, it felt like Easter.

Easter morning—We took a walk outside. No crocus, daffodil, or green grass welcomed us, but the ice-encased branches had their own beauty. Flowers are nice, but they aren’t the only proclamation of a risen Lord. We heard a whispered announcement from God’s handmade crystal, breathtakingly lovely, and sparkling in the sunshine.

Noon—Friends from church knocked on the back door. They had a gas stove at their house. “We knew you couldn’t cook on your electric stove,” they said. They gave us smiles, hugs, jugs of water, ham, homemade rolls, home-canned jelly, a relish plate, and hot stew. With the Lord’s provision and the love of friends, who needs Easter lilies?

Afternoon—That afternoon we asked ourselves questions. Why do we normally use so much water? With the limited amount we had—pumps need electricity so country people don’t have water without it—we discovered how much work a little bit of water can do.

We remembered our camp stove and lantern and hauled them out of the attic. Why didn’t we use the lantern more often? And it doesn’t have to be summer to set up a camp stove and use it outside. The house temperature dropped to 54 degrees but with extra sweaters no one felt too cold. Why didn’t we grab sweaters before we reached for the thermostat?

“We’re having an adventure,” we told the kids. “Let’s pretend we’re camping in the state forest up north like we do in August.”

“Oh, fun!” they said. And fun it was.

6:30—7:00 p.m.—We lit the lantern and stayed in the same room after supper. No one wanted to sit in the dark alone. The baby nodded and smiled in his highchair. The other two small ones played on the cold kitchen floor.  John and I did dishes, using sparing amounts of water. What should we do with the dirty dishwater? We didn’t want to waste it by just pouring it down the drain; it wasn’t like we could turn on the faucet for more. Our noses told us where it was needed most, and the dishwater became very useful in the bathroom.

7—8 p.m.—We curled up with blankets in the living room and read to the kids from one of the Little House on the Prairie books. It seemed appropriate.

“Hey!” A little one interrupted. “They had lanterns. Just like us!”

8:30 p.m.—Prayers were said and sleeping bags zipped. Three little bodies stilled, and three cheerful voices quieted. John and I huddled together and talked about what a wonderful Easter it had been. We discussed what amazing conveniences we enjoy and how we often take them for granted.

10 p.m.—It was time for the last talk of the day with the Lord. We thanked Him for the big thing: Our risen Savior, the bridge between man’s sin and God’s holiness. We thanked Him for the day’s many blessings, our surprise Easter meal, the beauty of the ice, the sweetness of our family, and the many concerned phone calls and offers of warm places to stay. We thanked God for the many things we’d taken for granted: light at the flick of a switch, heat at the turn of a dial, water at the twist of a faucet, and a toilet that flushed all by itself without dishwater.

5:30 a.m.—We heard the welcome sounds of noise pollution, motors and pumps. John yawned his way downstairs and came back.

“The furnace is running now, but it’s only 50 degrees in here.”

Under ample blankets and with hearts warmed with gratitude, no one had noticed the chill. No one at all.