Tell me your winter traditions/memories

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m the director of a small history museum and we’re opening a new exhibit tomorrow :eek: about winter traditions of the 1930s to 1950s. It’s sort of a half-assed exhibit designed to take up some space in our gallery until we have time to work on a semi-permanent exhibit for that room.

However, some cool things have come out of it. The whole point was to tell the story of how folks used to live in that time period… what did they do for fun in the winter? What were their favorite memories – and least favorite memories – of winter? How did they keep warm? We’re focusing specifically on our region, because we’re a museum about local history, but I also know some of this stuff will be fairly universal around the US.

We’ve interviewed a bunch of old-timers and will have their interviews playing on some digital photo frames. We took excerpts from their interviews and those are incorporated into storyboards.

Sections of the exhibit talk about sledding, ice skating on the nearby river (it hasn’t frozen solidly enough to do that in over 50 years), snowmen, and different ways to keep warm.

What I’m looking for are ideas about games children would typically play during this time period. Jacks, board games, etc?

Any personal anecdotes would be welcome, too!

I’ll post some pics of the exhibit when it’s done. Right now I must go try drilling an antique sled into the concrete wall.

2

I was born in 1956, I was the youngest of 3, sibs born '53 and '50. I remember playing a game that I think was a snowy version of duck duck goose. I remember stomping out a 4 spoked wheel in the snow, then playing some kind of tag/chasing game.

I also remember waxing my sled runners with a big chunk of paraffin, and putting bread bags over my socks inside my boots to help keep my feet dry, then hiking a couple miles to the good hills with my sibs/cousins.

3

Heh–I thought my mom used the bread bags to help the boots slip on and off more easily.

When we had a snow day, and we came in from playing outside, my mom would warm us up with the same thing her mom had used–hot chocolate made from scratch from Hershey’s cocoa powder, and butter on bread you could dip in the hot chocolate. Those were the best days.

4

I grew up in Indiana and spent time in Michigan during the winters. My mom grew up in the early 50’s. One of the things she did with us a few times was making snow ice cream.

Here’s an example:

5

Yum and thank you! These are the types of stories I’m looking for exactly. If nothing else, you are getting me in the right frame of mind and getting excited about the exhibit again! Thanks all, and keep the memories coming!

Oh, here are some we’ve gotten from our local residents… some of the cutest 80+ year olds you can imagine.

Grace (94 year old woman):
When I was a freshman in high school, for Christmas I got shoe skates and that was during the depression… I had to be the only girl in town that had shoe skates so I got to skate with the boys and I played hockey with them but they usually made me be the goalie.

People just didn’t have money, and often at that time all the farmers and a lot of people in town raised chickens. This one company would have 50 pound feed sacks and if you can believe, some of the girls from the country whose folks brought chicken feed had dresses made out of chicken feed sacks. They were all printed and they would try to buy enough feed sacks alike to make a dress.

Mable (about 80 years old, played on a women’s WWII baseball team):
I can remember this really cold day and the skirts then were right above the knees and we had our pea-coats on. By the time we walked up to the high school our knees were just like bright red tennis balls.

Going to the bathroom in the winter outside. You didn’t worry about it or think “oh this is terrible”. It was just cold and you wanted to hurry up and get back in where the heat was.

Andy (80 years old and he’s helped me do some pretty heavy installations):
You know, really things were different back in ‘35, ‘36. We didn’t have the clothes we got nowadays, we wore the ol’ long johns with the flap in the back, that was just cotton long johns. If it was real bad you just wore 2 pair of overalls or 2 pair of pants, maybe jeans and overalls over the top. We didn’t have any thermal stuff, like they do snowsuits or coveralls, stuff like that. It was bad… it was cold.

We didn’t get electricity till 1938… Then we use to listen to the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet and all those good ol’ radio programs at night. We played card games and finally when we got a Monopoly set, we played Monopoly and things on that order.

6

Feedsack was used for quilts also, as the feed companies knew the fabric was used that way and designed the sacks to be pretty.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Feedsack-Quilts

““One young girl was out walking with her beau when she tripped and fell. Oh, how embarrassed she was when her betrothed noticed her underdrawers imprinted with ‘Southern Best’! Another story was about a woman who made her husband’s drawers from a flour sack and left the words ‘self rising’ on the cloth.””

7

I remember having to wear skirts to school, even if the temperatures were below 0. And later when they told us the girls could wear pants under their skirts,we thought it was wonderful.

There was a huge hill by my house with a river at the end at it. We use to walk to the top of the hill and try to gather enough speed coming down to fly over the river. I remember going there at night and thinking about neat it was to fly down the hill and over the river while watching the stars. No parent in their right mind would let a child do that today.

8

I was born in '61, so my recollections won’t help the OP at all. But I’m posting to bump the thread, and subscribe, because I really enjoy reading the replies.

9

Thanks for your responses so far! I agree that, time period aside, I really enjoy just hearing the random memories and traditions that people have. Bring them on!

Here is a link to some pics of the exhibit as it looks this morning. It’s not 100% complete, and please bear in mind we are a SMALL history museum with limited staff and budget… but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out in less than 24 hours.

Thanks again! I still want to hear your stories!