Playing Penguin

A cold snap froze up Lake County in mid-January 1917. On the 14th, temperatures dropped to 10 or 15 below zero, and on that Sunday afternoon, with nothing better to do, young daredevils found the frozen Deep River and Lake George irresistible. Ben Bodamer and H.D. Green took their motorcycles out onto the ice and performed every stunt they could think of.

Everett Newman (Paul Newman's son) took his small, light Ford and loaded it up with three of his friends: another young Hobartite named Fred Bowlby, and from Ainsworth, Will Wollenberg, Jr. and Will's younger brother Eddie. The four of them rode the car out onto the frozen river. They went racing and spinning around Lake George for awhile, and then drove upstream as far as the E.J.& E. bridge and back, about a mile's trip. It was great fun, but in that unheated car, with the bitter wind blowing freely over the ice, the boys couldn't last too long. Everett decided to land his craft. From the lake, he drove under the Third Street bridge and toward the riverbank near the streetcar barns (where today there is a tiny riverfront park).

Just as he braked near the shore, the ice gave way beneath them. The car and the four boys plunged into six feet of icy water. The car apparently capsized, as the Gazette described the scene: "In scrambling to get out, the boys would catch hold of a wheel, and it would turn and give them another plunge, so by the time the boys reached safety they had been thoroughly wet through several times."

They had to leave the car to fend for itself — they were soaked and in danger of frostbite or hypothermia in that bitterly cold air. Everett went home; the other three boys went to Fred's house; they all got dried off and warmed up, and fortunately none suffered any ill effects. Someone eventually hauled the car out of the river using a rope and pulley. The Gazette described the car as "uninjured" but I find that hard to believe. It was taken to the Newman garage to be thawed out.


Sources:
♦ "Auto Fell Through Ice." Hobart Gazette 19 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Four Boys Get Cold Bath in Deep River Sunday Afternoon." Hobart News 18 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 19 Jan. 1917.