Thirteen hours on the road between Coe Hill and Bancroft last Tuesday was the harrowing experience of Miss Cecelia A. Folkard, Mothers’ Allowance investigator, who finally reached Bancroft after as uncomfortable a travelling experience as could be imagined.

It is only 16 miles from Coe HilI to Bancroft–with open roads covered in a half hour. But with the wintertime conditions occasioned by a blizzard, it is more or less of a miracle to get through at all until hours or days after the blizzard is over. Last Tuesday the blizzard came on just after Miss Folkard had left Coe Hill with her hired car and driver.

From then on it was a matter of digging out from snow-drift after snow-drift. A few hundred yards of clear travelling and then bump into a snow-drift was the repetition of experience. Finally, the shovel was not enough to break a way through for the flivver.

The driver left to walk three miles to the nearest habitation, and it seemed hours before he returned, Miss Folkard said. He had phoned for help, and two teams and eight men accompanied the driver to the marooned car. The help had come from five miles away.

Hitching the teams onto the car, they towed it the remaining miles into Bancroft, the men assisting by heaving and pushing at the tough spots. Thirteen hours after leaving Coe Hill, the welcome lights of Bancroft were at hand.

Since that time, Miss Folkard has been recuperating–fortunately having suffered only a very bad cold brought on by the chilling experience. Had I not been dressed as I was, I shudder to think of what would have happened, she says.

Miss Folkard had had a distress call to visit a family a few miles out from Coe Hill. She had gone to Bancroft by train, hired a taxi, and accomplished her mission. It was on the return trip that the blizzard came on.

Anyway, the condition was distressing in that home a tar-paper shack where the mother and two infants had very little food, and they are going to receive help, Miss Folkard says.

You never saw snow anything like they have now in that North Country, Miss Folkard says. On the way out by train from Bancroft, Friday, they held the train for the arrival of a sick man. From very early, morning to noon, men had been bringing him in from Fort Stewart, towing a sleigh behind a caterpillar tractor. That tractor would mount the ten-foot snow drifts, mostly on top and only plowing through a little bit. Snow was being thrown in all directions, Miss Folkard said, even though they travelled very slowly, and it took them hours to come from Fort Stewart to Detlor where the train was held.

The people in the North Country are very kind, Miss Folkard feels–always ready to give freely of their time and anything they have to help people in trouble.