Oh the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful, And since we’ve no place to go, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
I love this song, created by lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Jule Styne in 1945. Today is the official first day of winter, but we know that in Nebraska snow usually arrives earlier at least somewhere in the state. The song is about staying inside while it snows, but we have lots of examples in Nebraska Memories of people being OUTSIDE to play or work in the snow.
This 1940 image of Children and adults by a truck shows 13 kids packed into the back of a truck for a ride sponsored by the Dundee Kiwanis Club. The four women are dressed in the long coats and skirts typical of that era, plus a lone gentleman who was probably the driver. No seatbelts in those days!
The Dundee Kiwanis Club also flooded part of their playground in the winter to make an outdoor rink for ice skating . I fondly remember the outdoor rink at my neighborhood community league playground in Edmonton, Alberta, where I grew up. The boys played hockey and the girls took figure skating lessons. How times have changed – now girls get to play hockey too!
Adults also liked to have fun in the snow, like this group of students having a snowball fight at Union College in the first decade of the 20th century. Do you wonder if the young man dropping the snowball on the head of the young woman next to him was trying to get her attention for other reasons?
But work has to be done no matter what the weather is like . Livestock still needs feeding and somebody has to keep the wheels turning, like Engineer G. Strayer driving a train through snow following a blizzard in southwest Nebraska in the late 1940’s.
Visit Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials.
Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information, or contact Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director, or Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director. 
