Fewer than a hundred people called Lengby home in 1980.

The nearest significant town, Fosston, was small by the standards of most Americans but enormous by the standards of the area.

The landscape was flat to gently rolling, cut through by the usual Minnesota pattern of small rivers, wetland margins, and the endless fields that stretched between farmsteads.

In December, this part of Minnesota belongs to winter in a way that the word “cold” does not adequately capture.

Cold is what you feel when a wind comes through an open door in October.