DIES TO SAVE HIS FAMILY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16091, 3 April 1923, Page 2

DIES TO SAVE HIS FAMILY.

FARMER’S ARMS FROZEN SOLID. WOMAN’S HANDS AMPUTATED. WAHPETON, N.D., Feb. 23.—John P, Wolfe, 31, Richland County farmer, who lived several days after his arms and legs were frozen while protecting his wife and two children in the recent blizzard, was buried at Ilankinson today. His wife, who is in a hospital here, had both hands and a foot amputated. The two children are reported to be recovering. Nearly smothered beneath crusted blankets of snow heaped upon them, the mother and children were found huddled together. The father was standing upright, his face turned toward the north-west, his body rigid, his arms outstretched to better protect his loved ones. Though his arms and legs had been frozen solid and bis face seared, ho lived several days.

The feet of the boy seven had been slightly frozen, but he quickly recovered. The baby girl, aged two, when found, was nestled in her mother’s arms, unharmed, shielded by the hands that to-day were amputated. For 32 hours Wolfe and his family were in a raging blizzard, their only protection the sides of a waggon box and the few coverings that farmers usually have with them. The story of Wolfe’s death was told hero to-day—a story of a father’s heroism in the face of overwhelming odds, flic family had been visiting relatives and at 8 o’clock in the morning set out for home. Five minutes later the storm began with suddenness and fury. Wolfe attempted fo retrace his way, and, in turning his team, lost his bearings in the blinding wind, dust and snow. Back at the farm house the relatives —aged parents of Mrs. Wolfo and a brother and sister—became frantic. The brother, 20, started out to find the "airiily, but he could make no headway in the storm and was forced to return alone. It. was late the next day before the storm abated and the search could bo resumed. Out in the field, a hundred feet from the road and only 200 yards from the house, the sledge was found. The horses had been unhitched, but had not moved. Ono was dead and the other near death from the cold.