Winters Past

About This Project

Winter Fun

The following is taken from “Memories of McFarland” by Crystal Helmke Lokken who grew up in McFarland in the 1930’s with her sisters Delores, Corrine and Audrey.

Outdoor Winter Games

There was a game we played that started by making a big circle in the snow and then dividing it into wedges like a pie. The name of the game was “Fox and Geese.” The center of the circle was “home” and that is where the fox was, trying to keep us from reaching it safely. Of course, we made angels by lying down and moving our outstretched arms to make the wings.

Sledding and Skiing

Then there was the sledding. It was enough when we were very small to slide down the slope of the ditch on the north side of our house, a rather gentle ride. Then we would come into the house and put our wet mittens and snow pants on the furnace grid in the dining room to dry them.

Later on as we grew older, there was sledding and skiing on Benny’s Hill. (Broadhead and Cook Street hill, just west of Main Street). That was a place for winter fun for generations. We would go there after supper – it was already dark, but there were the streetlights and the moon, and then just the whiteness of the snow to light our fun. There would be kids of all ages, some with short sleds and some with longer ones. I thought it the best of fun when we could slide with the older kids, like Morris Sorenson, Eugene Vinge and Lyle Larson who were pretty daring. There were a lot of our girl friends there, too. We just had such good fun. It was a very social time. I remember going downhill on my skis. They weren’t very long, and they had leather straps into which I put my snow-booted feet. There were lots of falls.