Summertime fun and wintertime fun! The recreation back in the early 1900s was somewhat alike and somewhat different than it is today.
For instance, we didn’t have snowmobiles, jet-skis, wind-surfers and skidos. But we did have skis, skates and toboggans in the winter and boats and canoes in the summer. And all generations loved to picnic!
In my mother’s day the favorite place to skate was at Camden Skating Pond, and her family’s favorite place to picnic was at Camden Pumping Station Park. That is what it was called at the turn of the century, then after that it was called Camden Park then later Webber Park.
There were two popular places to ski in the 30s and 40s - Glenwood Park and Columbia Heights. Glenwood had a high ski jump which was the favorite with the pro skiers. Two of my cousins, Richard Meyer and Bill Crow were among the elite who knew how to navigate those slopes! My sister and I, novices, stayed with the small hills or did cross country skiing.
When it came to tobogganing, Columbia Heights had the best ice slides. How frightening they were, though! My dad, Arthur, piled all of our cousins and us onto one toboggan and shoved us down the icy slide. It was tremendously exhilarating, but I was always glad to get to the bottom of the hill.
When the weather got warm, canoeing was a popular pastime, and a close-to-home place to canoe was at Shingle Creek. My friend, Ron Manger, who belongs to the Camden Community Historical Society found an old snapshot at the Minneapolis Public Library of my uncle, William John Meyer, sitting in a canoe in the middle of Shingle Creek, washing dishes.
His daughter, my cousin, Jeanne Meyer Edberg, reported that her dad used to rent a canoe to picnic there, and that Shingle Creek was where he did most of the “courting” of his girlfriend, Florence Mae Hamilton. She also said of the picture, “that was more dishwashing than I had ever seen my father do!”
We were puzzled by the white long-sleeved shirt he was wearing until Jeanne remembered all our male relatives used to dress that way at picnics. Because most of our picnics occurred on Sunday, the men stayed in their church clothes, while the women changed into their best housedresses to prepare the food.
Could it be that those long-sleeved shirts were meant to keep the mosquitoes off?
Whatever the answer, there was a lot of fun to be had, whether winter or summer in the Camden area! And yes, my uncle did marry his sweetheart after getting engaged at Shingle Creek! Their wedding was on March 5, 1919.