J is for Just for Fun: Potsdam Ice Carnival. Tenth of 26 posts in the April 2024 Blogging From #AtoZChallenge. Theme: My Life: The Prequel (in Snapshots) adding my parents’ stories to the family history mix. Please join me on the journey.
If you don’t know what winter is like in Potsdam, N.Y., here’s a hint: it’s freezing!! The college town is located close to the US-Canadian border — and when winter arrives, it’s a land of ice and snow until spring.
This was particularly true during my parents’ 1940s college years — when my dad Norm Charboneau went to Clarkson Tech and my mom Peg Laurence studied at Potsdam Teachers College.
But that didn’t mean there was no fun to be had, because winter was the season for Potsdam’s Ice Carnival — an annual event initiated in 1931 and co-hosted by the two colleges.
Ice Carnival fun
Cold as it was, there was a full agenda of skating and skiing events, including ice follies performances — and sometimes there was a basketball game, a hockey game, and an indoor dance.
Most fun of all, though, was the creation and judging of giant frozen sculptures put together by the college sororities and fraternities.
1944: Sad Sack takes first prize
Freshman year — before she and Dad met — Mom attended the 1944 Ice Carnival with several college friends (shown above).
The winning snow sculpture that year was a towering statue of Sad Sack — a popular cartoon character, who was a WWII army private experiencing the ups and downs of military life (shown above and below).
Mom jotted “Lambda” on the photo below for the Lambda Iota fraternity that created the 1944 prize winner.
Sharing a fun experience
I know my dad attended the 1947 Ice Carnival — after Mom graduated from Potsdam and he was finishing up at Clarkson — because he wrote to her about it.
Jan. 5, 1947: “Janie’s coming up for the Ice Carnival, so I’ll probably keep occupied with both couples to amuse me (Fran & Marion also),” Dad wrote. “If you were here, we could have a brand new Big Six. We could call it the Gross Six (laughter, light and rippling).”
(Jane was one of dad’s Welsh-Irish Owen cousins, who may have gone with her husband Jim. Fran and Marion were dad’s brother and sister-in-law.)
Did my parents ever attend a Potsdam Ice Carnival together? Probably, although I don’t have any photos or other evidence. Yet, together or apart, my parents did share the just-for-fun experience of this chilly but unique winter carnival during their college years. Now, let’s see what else they had in common.
Up next, K is for Kinship: Extended family. Please stop back.
© 2024 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.
My brother in law worked for IBM and was moved to the Triple Cities by them from downstate. He got into the winter sports, snowshoeing and cross country skiing and enjoyed them for years, until the weather started to change. I remember local ice fishing tournaments here, too, back in the 1980’s when I moved to the Binghamton area. No ice carnivals, though. The 1940’s were a different time.
I remember Endwell being cold and snowy when I lived in the Triple Cities in the 1960s. We had a big ski club in our high school and they made trips to Geek Peak to ski — without me, though, as I was more into ice skating. I wonder if it’s still cold enough in Potsdam for Ice Carnivals today?
I’ve never heard of Potsdam but it sounds like it was a fun place to be even in cold weather. Your family photos are wonderful.
Thanks, Jennifer. I am fortunate that my folks kept so much — as did my grandparents. And yes, my parents and the other students seemed to make to most of living in a cold climate through college!
When I grew up in Detroit and then when we lived further north in Idlewild, the winters were cold and the piles of plowed snow didn’t melt until Spring. By the time we left, about 14 years ago, it was freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw all winter. Making the roads worse than if it had just snowed.
I feel your pain, Kristin. Upstate New York, when I lived there, was much the same, with piles of plowed snow higher than my head as a youngster. Oddly, you get used to it and adapt to winter activities.
The 1944 winner looks an excellent characterisation. The carnival sounds a fun way to celebrate the cold.
Yes, it does look like Sad Sack! I have a feeling it was a post-war theme, since the cartoon was about his foibles in the Army.