They’ve run the St. Paul Winter Carnival Education Committee, staffed the carnival store, judged the Klondike Kate contest and collected taxes for King Boreas.
But the volunteer work the “Winter Carnival Twins” are best known for isn’t even an official job. Twin sisters Jane Lonergan of Mendota Heights and Joan Kelly of New Brighton describe it in their back-and-forth style:
“Meeting and greeting and bringing smiles,” said Lonergan.
“To help people have fun at the carnival,” said Kelly.
“You want to have some fun? Stick with us, we’ll show you how to have some fun!” said Lonergan.
There’s no question these two know how to have fun, especially where the Winter Carnival is concerned. They
rattle off stories
till they almost fall off their chairs laughing. They sing and dance along with a mechanical, musical penguin.
And, if you give them a chance, they’ll re-enact the acceptance speech they gave Sept. 15 when they received the Sal & Francesca LoBaido Volunteer Service Award, where they were described as the “notorious Carnival Twins” whose “bright smiles, infectious laughter and deep love for the Winter Carnival cannot be missed.”
Their acceptance was really more of a routine than a speech, with touches of costume, performance and audience participation.
“They do things the fun way,” said Marilyn DiMartino, the former award winner who nominated Lonergan and Kelly. “They put a lot of effort into it. It was very, very funny and nice.”
DiMartino has known the Carnival Twins for nearly 20 years. When carnival organizers asked if she wanted to nominate someone for the volunteer service award, she immediately thought of Lonergan and Kelly, always willing to help out, always there to spread the carnival joy.
“I just said they’d be very worthy,” DiMartino said. “They’ve been part of the carnival since they were babies.”
BORN TO BE FANS
As 2-year-olds, twins Jane and Joan Schleiter wait for the 1949 Winter Carnival parade on a fender of the family Oldsmobile. (Courtesy of Jane Lonergan)
Jane and Joan Schleiter, who say they are in their “late 60s,” have been delighting Winter Carnival crowds to some degree since the late 1940s, when they were carbon-copy toddlers in matching snowsuits on the sidelines of the Grande Day Parade.
Their father, Bernard Schleiter, was an official Winter Carnival photographer hired to document the construction of the 1940 and ’41 ice palaces.
The girls attended carnival activities side by side every year while they were growing up, learning from their family how to make the most of a Minnesota winter.
“They taught us if you stand on piles of newspaper or cardboard,” Kelly said,
“And march your feet,” Lonergan said,
“And you march to the beat of the drums of the bands, that you will keep your feet warm,” Kelly said.
“And it works!” Lonergan said.
The two say the only times they missed Winter Carnival were when they were away at college. They introduced their own children to the event and, in the past 20 years or so, have cemented their reputation as the Carnival Twins.
Both teachers, they served as chair and co-chair of the Winter Carnival Education Committee from 2001 to 2006. They took school groups to the Landmark Center to learn the carnival legend, and took the carnival legend to schools and nursing homes with their traveling program.
“We teach about the carnival because it is a part of Minnesota history,” Kelly said.
“It’s part of the history of the city of St. Paul,” Lonergan said.
“It’s to show people in the world that we can have fun in the middle of winter in Minnesota, that this is not just a Siberia unfit for human habitation,” Kelly said.
“Like the New York reporter said,” Lonergan scowled, referring to the newspaper correspondent who inspired the Winter Carnival by criticizing St. Paul in the winter of 1885. A year later, St. Paul had a 106-foot ice castle and a carnival to prove the reporter wrong.
MATCHING COATS
Twin sisters Joan Kelly, left, and Jane Lonergan, right, sing happy birthday to Rebecca Becke of Afton at the start of the St. Paul Winter Carnival Moon Glow Parade in St. Paul on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)
This year, Lonergan and Kelly have been working in the Winter Carnival Skyway Store and collecting taxes for the king (by selling Winter Carnival buttons).
You’ll see them at carnival events in matching Hudson Bay coats, one found at an antique store and the other custom-made from a blanket. They say they have no intention of slowing down anytime soon.
They also say they were speechless when they learned they were chosen to receive the LoBaido award.
“We just do things for the carnival because we love the carnival so much and we want to share our love for it with other people,” Kelly said.
“Anything we can do to help the carnival and be good unofficial ambassadors, that’s what we do,” Lonergan said.
Copyright 2016 St. Paul Pioneer Press.
