There have been famous snowmen through the decades. "Frosty the Snowman" first appeared in 1950. It was a song written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson. "Sam the Snowman" was voiced by Burl Ives and …
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There have been famous snowmen through the decades. "Frosty the Snowman" first appeared in 1950. It was a song written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson. "Sam the Snowman" was voiced by Burl Ives and narrated the "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" TV special first airing in 1964. The 1970's brought us "Snowman," the nickname of trucker Cletus Snow in the movie "Smokey and the Bandit." After the turn of the millennium, "Sam the Snowman" helped to narrate the Christmas movie "Elf" featuring Will Ferrell in 2003.
For the purpose of this story, Ellsworth's Helen Peterson will be nicknamed Aunt Arctica. Peterson and a festive collection of her fellow Ellsworthians have summer spots on Bone Lake near Luck, Wis., in Polk County.
"Our Bone Lake neighbors are like our second family," said Peterson.
Part of Peterson's Bone Lake family are Milltown residents Craig and Jamie Carlson. The Carlsons own Carlson Construction. Jamie manages the business and Craig builds residential homes, usually when it's warm outside. When the temperatures turn frosty, Craig and his employees, friends, and relatives are building a snowman. A tremendous towering snowman. The Titanic of all snowmen.
"He ate a lot of marshmallows this year," joked Craig.
"Jeffrey the Snowman" is 49 feet tall. Instead of sticks for arms, Jeffrey has birch trees. Frosty wore a magic silk hat. Jeffrey's hat is made out of hog panels and tarps. It's 8 feet tall and the brim is 16 feet wide, complete with electric lights. Instead of "two eyes made out of coal" like Frosty, Jeffrey's eyes are made out of corrugated steel and his corn cob pipe, when completed, will really be a 55-gallon barrel. Jeffrey's scarf is 75 feet of material, all sewn in one piece.
"Sewing that scarf was a comedy hour," said Jamie Carlson's dad Steve Warndahl, "or more like comedy hours."
Warndahl has taken on the role of "Snowman," as in the “Smokey and the Bandit” trucker, Cletus Snow. It's tough to build a home without nails and wood, and the same goes for building a 49-foot snowman with little snow. Like Cletus, Warndahl has been loading up and truckin' in snow for four days.
"We're looking for cleaner snow off of asphalt," said "Snowman" Warndahl. "We got a lot of it from the Unity School parking lots and we cleaned up Luck, too."
"We wanted to go bigger this year," said Craig, "but the hauling is a lot of work and a lot of fuel."
Jeffrey takes a large group about 40 hours to build, not including the snow haul. Close to $1,000 worth of plywood bound by cables serve as the mold to dump and compact the snow.
"Jeffrey the Snowman" did not have a name when Carlson first built a 19-foot snowman in his parking lot in 2019.
"It started out as just a Milltown Christmas spirit contest," said Craig.
The group won a small trophy and they had so much fun building it, each year became bigger and better. Two years ago, with plenty of snow, Jeffrey grew to his seven-year record height of 58 feet tall.
In 2021, people started asking what the snowman's name was.
"I just said, I think that's what I'm going to do is name him after my brother," said Craig.
Jeff Carlson, Craig’s brother, moved to River Falls to attend UWRF in 1990 and was a resident of River Falls until he passed away in 2016 from an accidental fall in his garage at the age of 44.
The Carlsons have started the "Jeffrey the Snowman Foundation" and receive free-will donations from all the visitors.
"You never know who is going to show up," said Craig. "We get little kids, old men, and we even had people show up in a limo."
"Jeffrey the Snowman" may be icy, but he has a warm heart. All proceeds from donations benefit scholarships for Polk County high school students. "Jeffrey" has raised close to $4,500 the past two years.
"We are expecting to raise about $3,000 per year moving forward with some sponsors," said Jamie.
“It’s all for the kids,” said Craig.
"Jeffrey the Snowman" will have a tantrum and his meltdown will usually come in May, but for the next few weeks, Jeffrey will see close to 150 visitors per day in the Carlson Construction parking lot just off of Highway 35 in Milltown. Just like Frosty, Jeffrey will be back someday, as in every year.
"That's the plan," said Craig.
Visitors could play Christmas music to accompany their viewing of "Jeffrey the Snowman," but since the bulk of the visitations will be in the month of February, it may be more appropriate to play "I'll Stop the World and Melt with You," the 1982 hit song by Modern English.