A few weeks before the mudslides we had our first personal experience with the famous Farmington East Wind. It came whipping over the foothills and swirled like weightless water over everything in its path. It screamed through the doorjambs and bent the plate of glass in our family room window. The sound was unrelenting and frightening. I stood a safe distance from that glass in our new home and watched a section of our neighbor’s fence fly by. We were in Oz. The power was out for three full days. We kept the fireplace aflame until it was no longer practical, and the babies were shivering in our laps as we huddled in the dark, then we drove to South Jordan and stayed with my Aunt Edna until the power returned. I remember driving back home and looking out the car window at the devastation that a little moving air and flowing water can bring to a sleepy little town.
That next day people came out of their houses, walked the perimeter of their property, conferred with their neighbors, then went back inside. Within half an hour the whole neighborhood was abuzz with chainsaws and hatchets and hammers, neighbors coming together to chop up felled trees and retrieve scattered fences. It was quite remarkable, and truly touching to watch the united effort of many hands strategically working their way through our community. There was not one single house that was not included in this spontaneous united effort to pick up the broken pieces.
The Farmington East Wind has become an old familiar friend to me now. The red door of our side porch should probably have its rubber weatherstrip replaced. When the east wind blows, it whistles through the crevices in that door. There is a unique harmony in the wind working its way through a crack. Listen closely. There are usually a couple notes placed in an unexpected way against each other, coming in slurred crescendo and decrescendo. The wind is a patron of the arts, making musical vibrations for our ears, and causing the grasses and three branches to dance with all sorts of passion. There is a funny little sense of gratitude and sweetness that comes to me when I hear that red door give me a song. I am reminded that my home is safe. The foundation is solid, and the bricks stand firm, forcing the wind to just move on around us.
At 4 o’clock this morning a robotic voice came blasting from my cell phone “A high wind warning has been issued for your area,” it said. I groaned and rolled over. I realized, even in my half-awake state, that my ability to roll over was something the early settlers of Farmington never had the privilege of doing. They wet pieces of cloth and worked them into the cracks of their doors, saving themselves and their children from the snow that tried to push through. They pressed their bodies into the wind, locking down livestock and tying down machinery. They watched their crops disappear, the blossoms of their apricot trees float out to the west over the Great Salt Lake.
A friend who has studied Farmington history told me about the Latter-day Saint pioneers that settled Farmington. They could not afford materials for an addition to their small rock chapel. They fasted and prayed as a community, hoping to be able to find work or benefactors who would help. Instead, they got a storm. A mighty East wind, and a massive mudslide. When the wind and the rumble were over, they discovered that the mudslide had brought large trees and rocks down from the mountains. They landed right behind their little church. Lumber and stone. A gift from the Divine Giver. They built the addition to their church. The very first LDS Primary would be held in that chapel. Our daughter and her family now attend church in that very chapel. And it is in that chapel that we sang our last farewell to our mother at her funeral services. We walked behind her horse drawn hearse from that rock chapel to the Farmington Cemetery.
My friend Bernice Smith told me that the hill that houses the remains of good old Farmington folk used to be known as Sage Brush Hill. In the early days, when the Latter-day settlers were first establishing communities around the Great Salt Lake, a young man and his wife and new baby were hired to keep an eye out for native Americans who travelled through between Ogden and Salt Lake City. The fellow would light a fire on Sage Brush Hill and the smoke would signal people in Salt Lake to be aware.
The young couple harvested peaches from the trees planted along the fruit belt in Davis County. From that they made peach jam, which they sold at market in Salt Lake. The husband took off one October day for the 40-mile journey to sell their jam. It was a three-day venture. His wife and new baby stayed home in their tiny cabin at the bottom of Sage Brush Hill. While he was gone a fierce East wind came howling down the canyon, accompanied by an early snow. The wailing of the wind through the crevices in their cabin was so frightening the young mother lost her senses. She wrapped her baby in a wool blanket and left the piercing noise of the whistling cabin, trying to make her way to another home to the north. She and her baby were found frozen against a fence post. They buried them on Sage Brush Hill, which eventually became Farmington Cemetery.
I don’t know if that tale is true, or folklore, or a mixture of both. But I do know the power of a Farmington East wind. And I can only imagine the vulnerable feelings that might overpower me if I did not live in a true, solid brick house during a windstorm and a blizzard.
We sit tonight with the power out. My little laptop computer is powered by a charged battery. I realize that it will eventually die if it is not recharged, so here’s hoping it returns soon.
I’m just grateful for the reminder our Farmington East Winds give me, every time, that I am small when the wind is big. The comfort of my shelter is too often taken for granted, so I am grateful for a mighty wind now and again.
