Mina Simpson Bjelke ~ letters of the flood of 1946

Mina and Max Bjelke lived at approximately 44 West and 100 North, Mt. Pleasant

July 26, 1946 ~ "I can't begin to tell you how terrible the flood was.  Our front yard is completely covered with mud and debris, and part of the garden.  We are hemmed in all around, except we have taken a board out of the fence between Etinger's fence right in the north corner, and we can get out there and get over to Mary's house. (Mary Cloward, their daughter) 

It was the State Highway bridge that closgged and made a dam, and that sent the boulders and mud down our street and Main Street.  It carried Pat Willcox's barn down against Ursenbach's garage, hay and all.  Well, its indescribable! We are thankful it didn't get into our house; it got to the front porch and under the porch, but didn't get on the floor.  Dan (Cloward) happened to be here when it came and as he heard the roar, he said, "Grandma, let's go to the bridge and see the flood come down the channel."  So we both started out.  He got to the bridge before I got to the corner, and Max Rosenlof got out of his car and said, "You had better get home, Aunt Mina, the flood is coming down the street." So I called Dan and he came  and we had just stepped on the porch when it came.  He got his bicycle to the back of the house just in time.  Max Rosenlof's car was sailing down the street and went into the main channel down by Carlson's, and it sailed in the mud and was thrown back on the bank down where Estella (Bjelke's Niece) lives ....They say there will be a very big crew of men soon to help people dig out.  Our main worry now is water.

Our taps are dry.  We had drawn a few kettles full whch we use so sparingly.  The water main was broken in five places.  I hope they get the pipes fixed soon.  There  are quite a  number of men working , but the damage  is so extensive, and people so depressed.  I hope a road crew starts  on our street soon.  The sea of rocks we have to look at and the barnyard wreckage closer than before  doesn't make a very nice picture.  Well, our petunias are doing all they can to make the scene brighter.  They loom up among the green shrubbery  that is against the porch.  Anyone looking at our place wouldn't believe the shrubbery is standing in more than two feet of mud and the flowers are in the porch box, so folks look and say, "they aren't hurt so bad."  Well we weren't hurt as bad as some are, it didn't get in the house, for that we are thankful.  Dad was up to the ball game when it came and I had been home all day.  I was getting a handcart float ready for the parade that was to be at 7:00 o'clock (p.m.) Mrs. Hugh Hansen had an old handcart just like the picture on the Relief Society (Magazine) cover.  Dad and I went up and got it that morning and I loaded it and tied kettles, skillets, bedding, ax, and shovel; and I was standing admiring my work when the roar of the flood reached our ears.  This was five o'clock (24 July Pioneer Day) I had also made a miniature handcart using my little green cart.  Our plan was to have Michael and Dan and some little girls draw that one and Mr. Winkelman and I were going to pull the large one...

Mary  (Cloward, Mina's daughter)  was visiting the hospital when the flood came and she left by the back door (because the front one was filled with debris.  She waded through the mud at the back door and through the street, and had to make her way up several blocks to Toby Candland's to get a bridge to cross.  She was almost hysterical as she and Estella had let Tommie and Michael go to the show.  She didn't know where any of her children were, and she could see we were surrounded by the flood.  So she just waded knee deep and got home somehow and tried to call me...."  (Luckily the phones were working and all the children were safe.  This Pioneer Day of stress was a reminder to our family of the hardships of the original family pioneers!)

31 July 1946 ~ "The state tractor was helping Pat Willcox remove a very large piece of timber that had lodged in his corral gate, and he said it was that timber that had saved our home from the main force of the flood.  It was the biggest log I have ever seen!  It had held the force back until it crowded the barn and it sailed down against Ursenbach's fence.  The  mud is dry enough so we have walked over the damaged places in town.  It makes one weep to see such destruction.  I wonder if it can be repaired in twenty years.  The state and county equipment are all humming and trucks are carrying mud and rocks away.  But its like moving mountains.  Oh God surely took care of us!  I see it more and more.  Francis and Marlen's team of horses with a scraper and a hired man and two boys, Steve and Tommie Peel, worked all day Monday scraping our big lawn.  They worked until they got it all off.  So I am thankful.  That was the day the Church had all the surrounding stake priesthood men to work.  ~ 300 of them - with shovels , buckets and pumps to clean out basements and dig paths for those who were unable to get in their homes ... It seems so strange looking back.  There I stood and watched it coming closer and closer and I didn't have a fear.  I was calm and never felt afraid, even when it came to the porch.  I am truly thankful no lives were lost.  Nature will soon cover the damaged parts that man and machinery can't mend, and right now I would rather live where I am than any place in the world.  Well, the Jubilee will still go on.  They have set up the Ferris Wheel and Merry-Go-Round Already. 
These remembrances are taken from the book "Utah Pioneers of the Second Generation" by James Pyper, a grandson of Mina Bjelke.