Ice cycle begins at Kline Creek Farm

Call it the beginning of the ice cycle.

Visitors to the DuPage County Forest Preserve District’s Kline Creek Farm learned how 1890s farmers cut blocks of ice from frozen lakes Saturday afternoon and even got the chance to try their luck at ice cutting and harvesting.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said Michael Simmons, an agricultural volunteer at the farm. “It gets you out of the house and that’s the big thing.”

Volunteers and forest preserve staff members, dressed in canvas jackets and blue jeans or long flannel skirts and wool overcoats, gave a hands-on history lesson about the process of making ice blocks and storing them year round.

First, farmers would mark equal sized rectangles on the ice in a grid, Simmons said. Then they would cut three sides of an ice block with a large saw, before prying it loose with another tool.

“We use stuff that is typical of the era. We try to be authentic,” said farm volunteer Ruth Pingolt of Lombard.

Anne Gulbransen of West Chicago jumped at the chance to saw an ice block.

“Come on, let’s cut the ice,” she yelled to her cousin as she jogged out onto the ice.

After removing 60-pound ice blocks from the lake, farmers would pull them up a metal ramp and onto a wagon, which would take them to an ice house for storage.

“I’d think it’s a lot of work, if I lived back then, to keep the ice box cold,” said Stacy Swierk of Lombard.

A little outdoor work is not a bad thing for today’s children, said Anne’s mother, Linda Gulbransen.

“This is our third year that we’ve been out doing this, so it’s a fun outing even though it’s usually one of the coldest days,” Gulbransen said.

To keep meat and dairy products cold before refrigerators were invented, farm families needed ice to last all year, Simmons said. So they insulated the ice with sawdust or straw and stored it in a cool, ventilated space to keep it frozen until the next winter.

But at Kline Creek Farm, the ice cycle ends about the Fourth of July.

“Typically, we use (the ice) for programs,” Simmons said. “We’ll make ice cream with it in the summer.”