January 9, 1887: The cattle ranchers of the American West had seen rough winters before, but because the cattle had entered the winter in good condition they had always survived. But, in the mid-1880's, the situation changed. Speculators had overstocked the northern ranges in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. A series of mild winters had led managers to carelessly stop laying-up winter-feed. In 1886 disaster struck. The summer of 1886 was abnormally dry and by November the usually well-grassed plains were barren. January saw record snowfall followed by a short warming. As the snow began to melt, brutal arctic cold suddenly swept over the land. In some places the temperature dropped to 63 degrees below zero. The melting snow was instantly transformed into a hard icy shell encasing the land. On January 9, 1887, snow again started to fall, and for 16 hours it piled up at a rate of an inch an hour. It was impossible for weakened cattle to move about and break through the snow-covered ice crust for forage. Without stored feed, the ranchers could only watch their cattle die. Thousands staggered through towns dying in yards looking for feed. They ate the bare branches of bushes and the skins from trees. When the snow finally melted, dead cattle dotted the land as far as the eye could see. Carcasses clogged watercourses rendering water supplies unfit to drink. It was the winter of "The Great Die Up."

January 20, 2002: An article entitled “The Power of One; A Hidden and Solitary Soldier,” appears in the Los Angeles Times. The subject of the story is an 81-year-old grandmother named Marion Pritchard – a woman of courage and a hero of World War II. At the time of WW II, Marion’s name was Van Binsbergen, and she lived in German-occupied Holland. As in all the occupied countries, the German policy toward Jewish citizens was one of rounding them up for forced labor, concentration camps and eventual death. Marion Van Binsbergen worked with the Dutch resistance and assisted scores of Jews, especially children, to escape the Nazis. One day while she was hiding a father and three children under the floorboards of her home, four German SS officers and a Dutch Nazi policeman pounded on the door. They searched the house but found nothing. Then, after the danger was believed passed and the family had emerged from their hiding place, the Dutch policeman returned to the house. He caught Marion and the Jewish family red-handed. As he was about to lead them away to the unspeakable horrors of German death camps, Marion pulled out a hidden pistol and shot him dead. A local undertaker, who was also a member of the Dutch resistance, removed the body and disposed of it by placing it in a coffin with another body. One can only assume that the coffin’s first occupant was also a patriot and would have approved. At any rate, eternity keeps quiet company.

January 29, 1774: On this date, in a building in London called the “Cockpit,” occurs an incident that possibly more than any other assures the American Revolution and the birth of the United States. During the reign of Henry VIII, this location served as his cock-fighting arena. Now, although no longer a location for that bloody sport, the building continues with the name and dark atmosphere through its use by the government for the questioning of prisoners. Often, when the victims leave the Cockpit, their reputation is in tatters, their fortune forfeited, and their life in jeopardy. Today the intended victim is an American. He is one of the most respected men in the entire world, Benjamin Franklin. The Privy Council, the House of Commons, and many an angry Englishman, expect the Solicitor General, Alexander Wedderburn, to totally humiliate Franklin. They are not disappointed. Wedderburn’s attack on Franklin is so venomous that no London paper will even print the text. Why? Why would the lords of English government attack such a highly respected statesman and scientist? Franklin even lived in London and proudly referred to himself as a “Briton.” The answer is the “Boston Tea Party.” In protest of unfair taxation, Americans disguised as Indians tossed forty-five tons of tea into Boston Harbor. It littered the beaches for miles and depressed the profits of the East India Company for years. The English considered it treason, and Wedderburn held Franklin partly responsible. Franklin tolerated the tirade in the Cockpit in stoic silence. He answered no questions. He made no statement. When it was over, Franklin turned his back on England, his adopted home, and returned to America. England had made an enemy of a friend, and Franklin knew America must become independent. To that end he devoted himself, and America benefited from that devotion; truly he was a Founding Father.

February 3, 1837: Hollywood movies of the American West depict virtually every man carrying a weapon. Is this just Hollywood, or is it the reality of a developed habit? On this date, the Little Rock Arkansas Advocate noted the growing popularity of Bowie knives by saying, “…all the steel in the country was immediately converted into bowie-knives.” Such deadly weapons were not merely worn as additional dress to some men, but were considered required equipment for living and traveling on the frontier. A visitor to America, Colonel Edward Stiff wrote an 1840 guidebook entitled The Texan Emigrant. The following quote found in chapter 2 describes early Houston: Perhaps about 3,000 people are to be found at Houston…among them are not exceeding forty females. Here may be daily seen parties of traders arriving and departing, composed of every variety of colour from snowy white to sooty, and dressed in every variety of fashion, excepting the savage Bowie-knife, which, as if by common consent, was a necessary appendage to all… These items clearly refer to knives, but it must be understood that prior to the development of revolving percussion firearms, the easily carried and concealable handgun was relatively unreliable. Considering then that old habits are hard to break, there is credence gained in the popular saying that grew with the 1835 invention of the revolving pistol: “God made men equal; Sam Colt keeps them that way.”

Author’s Note: The disparity in numbers between males and females on the frontier can also be seen in Stiff’s comment.

Snowing heavily, but I drove over in my sleigh to Chestnut Hill, the horse plunging to his belly in the great drifts, and the wind cutting my face like a knife. My sweet life was just as lovable and pretty as ever; it seems hardly possible that I can kiss her and hold her in my arms; she is so pure and so innocent, and so very, very pretty. I have never done anything to deserve such good fortune.

Of course today is Valentine's Day - a day set-aside for all lovers like Theodore and his "Sweet Life." But, Valentine's Day 1884, is filed with less than blissful happiness for Theodore. On that day, Theodore's young wife, his "Sweet Life," dies after giving birth to their first child. As if this grief is not enough, Theodore's mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, dies earlier that same day in the same house. Torn by grief, Theodore writes: "For joy or for sorrow my life has now been lived out." After the double funeral, Theodore seeks to renew his spirit by working his isolated North Dakota ranch. Calling upon the personal determination that is his historic trademark he bounces back, and historically, all of his wonderful activities and great accomplishments come after this time of terrible sorrow.