Jean walked.

The walk was longer than she expected.

Much longer.

She would crest a rise, expecting to see the lights of a farmhouse on the other side, and find only more darkness and more fields.

She would push through another stretch of cold and find another hill.

She told a reporter from Minnesota Public Radio years later: “I’d get over one hill, thinking his place would be there, and it wasn’t.

I was more frustrated than scared.”