2024 Country Christmas | Keeping History Alive in Art: Christmas, 1908 and The Horses Led Us Home 

CHRISTMAS 1908 

By Henry N. Graven 

In December, 1908, when I was 15, my mother, a widow, together with my younger brother James and myself, were living on a homestead about 12 miles south and west of Pollock, South Dakota. We lived in a log cabin among the bluffs bordering the bottom land of the Missouri River. Pollock, which was our nearest town, was situated in the middle of a wide valley plain. To go from our homestead to Pollock, one first traveled north about three miles along the edge of the river bluffs and then angled north and east across the plain for about nine miles. There was no road as such leading from the river bluff road across the plain to Pollock; there were only scattered wheel ruts. There were no houses, fences, or trees on the plain between the Missouri River and Pollock.  

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My mother’s brother, Uncle Tom (Thomas J. Thompson), lived on a place further down the river. We usually went to Pollock about every two weeks to get mail and supplies. On December 24th Uncle Tom decided to go to Pollock. Knute C. Thompson and Kristen Thompson, relatives who were working for Uncle Tom, went along. I went along to get supplies and especially the Christmas mail we were expecting from the relatives “back east” in Minnesota.  

It was a bright, clear and fairly mild winter day. There were about five or six inches of snow on the ground. The sleighing was excellent. Uncle Tom placed the top of what was known as a “democrat wagon” on some light runners for the trip. Because the weather was so fine, we did not take along any blankets or even our heavier winter coats. We expected to be back about five o’clock p.m. Mother had planned a special Christmas Eve supper.  

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We arrived in Pollock around noon. We had rather a light noon lunch of crackers and cheese at one of the grocery stores. So many people had come to Pollock to trade that it took several hours before we could complete our purchases, and it was about five o’clock before we started for home.  

By the middle of the afternoon the sky had become quite dark and overcast. As we left Pollock it started to snow. As we were well out across the plain it began to snow very heavily, a high wind came up, and it turned much colder. It was not long before we were in the midst of a howling blizzard with visibility near zero. The blizzard continued all through the night.  

I felt no uneasiness because of the presence of Uncle Tom. He had come to Dakota as a young man in 1881. On a number of occasions I had heard his acquaintances tell of Uncle Tom’s ability to find his way across trackless country under difficult conditions and of his unusually fine sense of direction.  

After battling the blizzard for some time, Uncle Tom said he was uncertain as to where we were. I then did become uneasy. Uncle Tom, Knute and Kristen discussed the possibility of trying to get back to Pollock, but they finally decided it would be better to try and find our way to the Missouri River.  

We kept going. Uncle Tom gave the horses their head in the hope they would find their way. After about an hour the horses stopped. It was apparent they were as much lost as we were.  

There was some discussion about trying to get a fire started. The only combustible material of any consequence was the hard wood of the “democrat wagon” top. The possibility of getting a fire started and of keeping it going for any length of time with the material available seemed so remote that it was not attempted. We started on again.  

In order to relieve the tiring horses and to keep ourselves from freezing, we all walked. The continually deepening snow made the walking increasingly difficult. We walked with one hand on the sleigh – two of us on each side. To guard against the possibility of any of us falling into the snow and being left behind, Uncle Tom arranged two hitching straps in such a way that if one of us went down it would pull on one of the others.  

For several hours, each of which seemed a century in length, we and the horses kept slowly moving along. Then the blizzard lifted momentarily. Uncle Tom said, “I see a faint smudge over there. If that is the trees along the Missouri, we are all right” I looked but could not see the smudge. Then the blizzard settled down again and visibility was near zero.  

At the time Uncle Tom saw the smudge, we were traveling diagonally away from it, so he then turned the horses toward it. We trudged on for quite a while in the blinding blizzard. Then Uncle Tom said, “There are trees right ahead of us.” Uncle Tom’s sense of direction as to the direction of the smudge was correct. We had reached the trees along the Missouri River not far from the entrance to the road along the river bottom. As near as we could figure out, we had been travelling in a circle, or circles, on the plain for around six hours.  

We entered the river road and stopped between a high bluff and the timber. The blizzard roared on overhead, but where we were it could not reach. One had the sense of having entered a quiet and protected harbor.  

When we stopped, we and the horses were so near exhaustion that we thought it would be some time before we could proceed. However, the sense of being safe seemed to have a great rejuvenating effect both on the horses and on us. In just a short while we started on. The horses broke into a slow trot.  

We shortly turned up to our cabin. Mother had lamps set in the windows. At one o’clock a.m. we sat down for our special Christmas Eve supper.  

In the mail I received at Pollock was a box of presents from the ever dependable Aunt Caroline. The delivery service of it at the receiving end was rather slow. My brother opened the box promptly upon my arrival. 

My brother said that evening was about as hard on mother and him as it was on us. While waiting they would go out every little while and try to hear some sound of our approach. For some time prior to our arrival, my brother had been urging mother to allow him to go down to Uncle Tom’s place where he, Henry and Ethel Thompson would get on saddle horses and go out and look for us. Mother was unconvinced as to the advisability of three children – thirteen and under – going out in a blinding blizzard as a searching party. 

Henry N. Graven 

(1893 – 1970) 

Scott Thompson’s father grew up in Mobridge, South Dakota, and brought his family back to visit the place of his roots nearly every summer. 

“Mobridge is a big part of me, partly because our family were some of the first settlers in the area,” he said. “Our ties to Mobridge are pretty strong.”  

Scott dug deep into researching family history about 20 years ago, and the quest to learn more still keeps his attention.  

“I love history and genealogy; it’s a hunt for gems in your history, finding these stories that maybe no one else ever knew.”  

He ran across the story of the “Christmas Miracle” in his genealogy research. He’s not certain whether his father, Ben, knew the story or not. “Likely he did, but it’s possible my dad didn’t even know about it,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t necessarily a story that was passed down in that respect.” 

Graven’s research and papers have added to Thompson’s knowledge of his own family.  

“One thing leads to another and you start making connections,” Thompson said. “I was lucky, our family is lucky to have so many fascinating old photos from my grandmother. Some families don’t have that record of their history.”  

Thompson discovered the story in a stack of family documents his parents had saved.  

“I’m probably the one in my family who is really into history and genealogy,” he said. “To me, it’s really exciting. I can really get caught up in it, almost addicted to it.”  

Thompson said his dad, like many Norwegians, wasn’t one to talk a lot about these stories. His grandpa, Tommy Thompson, was a trucker in the Mobridge area for years. Scott treasures memories of getting to ride in the truck with his grandpa to go pick up cattle or horses, sometimes in the middle of nowhere West River. 

“He’d drop off livestock at sale barn and take me in. It was fun to sit and listen to the auctioneer, fascinating to experience that.” 

Unfortunately, the location of the Thompson and Graven home sites is now under Lake Oahe. 

“I’ve narrowed it down, and I know roughly where the area is. We’ve gone fishing right in that area, but of course with the dam, where their cabin once was is under water,” Scott said.  

Scott created the Mobridge in History page on Facebook to share his father’s vast collection of memories. When Scott shared Henry Graven’s story of the Christmas Eve, 1908 blizzard, Mick Harrison – a Mobridge native and renowned artist – got in touch, corresponded with Scott, and eventually created a painting inspired by the story. 

Harrison admits to taking a few liberties with his interpretation of the Thompson and Graven families’ adventures of Christmas Eve, 1908, such as painting the wagon with wheels rather than sled runners, and painting winter clothing on the people who had not worn their heavy clothes that day due to the weather being warm. 

“It’s always my take on it, and not always super accurate; just my take on a particular moment,” Harrison said. 

But he enjoys the process of creating a painting “even more now than when I started. It’s always satisfying, and it’s hard to explain other than the fact that I just really like painting,” he said.  

Often, Harrison’s paintings have historical ties.  

“I think of history when I’m doing them, but they don’t have to be part of a specific historical moment,” he said. “I like the 1920s to 1940s for my paintings.”  

Harrison doesn’t travel to art shows very often, so his paintings sometimes stay in his studio for quite some time.  

“If they sit around long enough, I redo them and touch them up. It is an ongoing process and I’m my own worst critic. I have ruined a few doing that, but most of the time I think it has improved them.” 

He’s gotten to where he likes to have his paintings around so he can return to a particular piece of artwork after setting it aside for a time. 

“It can be an affliction, but it can also be a learning process,” Harrison said. “If you set it aside, put it away and come back a week or two, or a month later, it’s like looking at it from brand new eyes.”  

Born and raised in Mobridge, South Dakota, Mick Harrison has always had an interest in the area’s history.  

“My grandfather had a place just south of Sitting Bull Hill where I spent a lot of my youth,” Harrison said. “I read the book Dakota Cowboy by Ike Blasingame and used to explore both sides of the old river. I recognized some of the areas in Blasingame’s descriptions.” 

Harrison explored the Missouri River bottoms, where remains of old cabins still stood, prior to the construction of the Oahe dam.  

“I miss the old river,” he said, “It was a neat place. There were dry periods when you could almost walk across it.” 

The fishing is better now, Harrison said, but pieces of history were lost when the Oahe Dam was filled. Thanks to him, history lives on in The Horses Led Us Home.