It could always be worse...

A reminder from our pioneer ancestors after my particularly trying day, that it could always be worse:

"A timber fire was burning, not very far from where they lived. Erasmus saw the smoke and fire while he was Ward [Colorado]. He hurried home as quickly as he could and found that the fire was getting very close to the house. He knew where there was a potato patch of about two acres that was plowed up, where he felt that they would be safe as the fire would be burned out when it reached the clearing.

"Anna and Erasmus talked of where to go, one place was a cave, not too far away, Anna left first, as the cave was farther away than the potato patch. There seemed to have been some sort of misuderstanding as to where to go, causing them to get separated. While Erasmus didn't find Anna and the children at the potato patch, he felt sure that she had gone to the cave. He left the children and went looking for her. He knew that he couldn't get back to the children so he told them what to do. It wasn't long before the fire was all aoround them. Lee Baxter said, 'I can still see those pine trees explode, when the fire got close to them. That was, barring none, the worst night I ever put in. I was afraid that our folks were burned and imagine how they felt. In the morning about daylight, we saw them coming towards us through the smoke. It was indeed quite a reuinion there on that burned flat. When we went back to where our house used to be, we were positively astounded to see that it was still standing.'"

-From The Snake River From Three Forks to Columbine, by Anna Mae Fleming Adams