Being that is winter and it is snowing as at this moment, I thought it would be a good time to relate an experience I had. I will call this experience:

Stranded School Teacher

We lived in Eureka from 1970 thru 1973. We were living in the area on the southern edge of Eureka, called Fitchville. This had been a private area where owners of Chief Consolidated Mine and some of the top executives lived. The Fitch mansion was a large house built in the 1920s. It had 3 stories, a basement, the main floor and an upper level.The Jeldens live on the main floor. The upper level had a room that was used to show movies when the Fitchs lived there. The kids used this upper level to play in. To give an idea of the size of this house, is the living room which had 855 square feet in it. Walter Fitch, if I remember his name right, could not stand the smell of cooking. A special building, separate from the main house, connected with a covered walk way contained the kitchen.
Charles and Jeri Jelden and their 5 girls were renting this house. The house was poorly insulated as old homes usually were, and had a lot of square feet in the 3 stories. The Jelden family lived on the main floor. where one of the rooms had been converted into a kitchen. The house was heated by a coal fired furnace. It consumed coal at an enormous rate. One winter Chuck burned 28 tons of coal. By comparison our much smaller house never took more than 7 tons and as little as 4. Chuck would shovel the stoker full of coal before going to bed. He would wake up in the morning to an empty stoker and the fire almost out in the furnace.
A school teacher from southern California was teaching at the Eureka school. She was boarded with the Jelden Family. I do not remember what grade or subjects she taught. She was straight out of college and and never lived in a cold climate. Winter in Eureka, at greater than 6000 feet, could be hard and long. The snow would drift into the roads and you could not even get around with a 4-wheel drive vehicle. The roads in Fitchville would be kept open by a small cat dozer operated by Adrian Underwood. He would plow out the roads in Fitchville then we could get out and down to the main road which was Highway 6 which ran thru Eureka. When the wind blew, which it did regularly the roads would soon drift back in. One morning after a night when the wind had blown and the roads were closed, Adrian was not able to open the roads in time for school or work. The teacher was wondering how she would get thru the 4-6 foot snow drifts and to school. I told her to get ready and I would take her to school on snow shoes. I had to 2 pairs of Alaskan Trail model snow shoes. I put on a pair and went up to the Jelden home with the other pair on my shoulder. She came to the porch and I helped her get the snow shoes on. I showed her how to walk in snow shoes. This required walking with your feet a short distance apart so you wouldn't step on the other shoe. Off down the hill we went to the school which was about 1/2 mile away. We made the trip thru the blowing snow with out any problems. She now had a real story to tell to her family that still lived in southern California. By evening the roads had been plowed and she could hitch a ride back up to Fitchville.