Dec. 23, 2022: Area residents step up amid massive snowstorm

As Christmas approaches. Walter and Paddy Janzen are in short sleeves, not expecting a snowflake for days.

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But last year at this time, the recent arrivals to Chatham, were stuck in a ditch on the Caledonia Road in Chatham Township, wondering if they’d make it through the night.

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They were among countless motorists stranded when a massive snowstorm walloped the region.

The couple had left Chatham about 6 pm on Dec. 23, 2022, to make the 20-minute drive to see their grandchildren in Dresden. They wouldn’t arrive for 21 hours.

First, their vehicle got stuck on Prince Albert Road, Walter Janzen said. A passing motorist offered to take them to Dresden, but that vehicle ended up stuck in a ditch on Caledonia Road.

Paddy called her son, Chris Quiring, pastor of Dresden Community Church, who called his friend, Scott Brooksbank, to rescue them.

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When Brooksbank got the call, he recalled thinking, “No big deal.”

He’ll get his Magnum tractor, with a large snowblower attached, and go pull them out.

But, Brooksbank quickly realized it wouldn’t be that simple.

Before spending hours to reach the Janzens, who were only about seven or eight kilometers from his home, he helped his son and a co-worker stranded on Caledonia Road. Then he helped a neighbor’s health-care worker, who was stuck.

“Meanwhile. . . the conditions were deteriorating rapidly,” Brooksbank said. “Now, I’m encountering drifts the size of cars.”

He was pushing snow with the grid of his big tractor and getting stuck.

Brooksbank said he put the tractor in reverse and began blowing snow “not knowing if I was going to hit a vehicle that was stranded. . . I could hardly see.”

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He still couldn’t reach the Janzens when he arrived about four hours later, so he had to get them one at a time, because there was only so much room in the tractor’s cab.

After returning to Prince Albert Road to free the Janzen’s vehicle, he got them to Chatham Christian School about 3 am, where they and other stranded motorists spent the night.

Looking back, Walter Janzen said they are “thankful for being alive.”

He recalled being in the ditch and wondering if they were going to die — and fearing that every Christmas, their grandchildren would remember their grandparents had died in a ditch trying to come see them.

“It was kind of scary night,” he said.

Their story, included in Daily News coverage of the storm, served as a kind of community introduction for the couple, he said. “Since we’ve moved to Chatham, we’ve had people say, ‘You look so familiar. I feel like we’ve met.’ ”

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When he gets out a screenshot of them on the front page of the paper, people often say they remember the photo.

With the Janzen’s safe at the Christian school, Brooksbank still faced an ordeal getting home.

He left Chatham and headed up Prince Albert Road in zero visibility.

Coming upon the railroad tracks near Pioneer Line, his tractor starts climbing what he thought was a snowdrift. When he got out to check, he felt about down 1.5 meters down a hole.

“I realize my tractor is almost on top of a pickup truck with a topper on it,” stranded on the tracks and covered by drifting show, he said.

Brooksbank ended up playing “concession hopscotch” to get home, trying Highway 40, then Baldoon Road, even Bear Line Road, but encountering stranded vehicles each time. He stopped to check every one, but all were empty.

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“The Lord’s hand was on everybody that had been stranded that night,” he said. “People, realistically, should have died that night.

“I don’t know how people got from their vehicles to safety,” he added.

Brooksbank was one of the many residents of Chatham-Kent who stepped up to help others during the storm.”

Ridgetown residents Henry and Kathy

Ridgetown’s Henry and Kathy Vandergriendt took in Kitchener’s Suh family for the night after someone named Kenny found them stuck in their vehicle on Kenesserie Road in rural East Kent and took them to the Ridgetown Arena warming center.

But the Ridgetown couple’s hospitality didn’t end there: they offered the Suh family of four the use of their vehicle to visit a gathering of nearly 50 relatives in Michigan.

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“We were just happy to help out, you do what you can,” Henry Vandergriendt recalled.

He said he recently texted the father, Vincent Suh, to wish the family a Merry Christmas. He added they have kept in touch.

Vandergriendt said local residents still occasionally recall their kindness to the family. Some jokingly ask if they can borrow his car for the weekend.

Maple City Baptist Church in south Chatham also opened its doors to motorists stranded mainly on Highway 401.

Some people who found refuge from the storm at the church have written letters since, most including donations, associate pastor Dan Christiaans said.

Some wrote because “we actually drove to pick them up, because their vehicle was stuck.” he said. “Others were grateful to have a place to stay for the night.”

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