You know how very small children often go through a princess phase?
I do not recall going through such a phase when I was a little girl. Instead, it happened in the sixth grade, when I was charmed by a Scholastic news report about the upcoming royal wedding of Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles. The year was 1981. That was 36 years ago, and the funny thing is? I don’t think I’ve ever phased out of the princess phase.
Lately — like everyone else, it seems — I’m charmed by Queen Elizabeth II as she is portrayed in “The Crown” on Netflix.
But there’s another royal family I’ve been following for a long time, too — and they’re on this side of the pond.
Let’s go back again in time: The year was 1995. I was a night reporter at the Pioneer Press. My editor told me to go down to the old Civic Center and get a quote from the new Aurora, Queen of Snows of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, moments after her coronation, in time for the next day’s paper.
It wasn’t exactly the best interview of my life. As the former commoner descended from the stage, she stopped briefly to speak with the media. I asked her how it felt to be crowned queen. She replied: “It feels great!”
My royal reporting continued in 1998, according to our newspaper archives: Apparently, I spent the month of January following around the candidates for a big story that ended with the crowning of the winner. I began the journey to the crown with orientation:
“Nervous energy builds as the candidates, dressed in business suits, adorned with poofed, French-twisted, curly or shiny straight hair and all with carefully made-up faces, gather Jan. 3 in an office on West Seventh Street. They learn the schedule of events, wardrobe mandates and protocol — no drinking, no smoking, smile, be nice, remember that kisses offered to or from guests, hosts and visitors are limited to the cheek and the laws of the state of Minnesota must be observed at all times. They are told: ‘You are all Princess Di right now.’ ”
That reminds me: It isn’t just Diana or Aurora who fascinate me. I have also spent years reading about Marie-Antoinette — a fascination that dates back to my high school French days. In fact, when I found out that a friend would be visiting Versailles last summer, I persuaded her to take the long, long walk from the castle to the queen’s “Hameau” — the fake village where the queen used to enjoy pretending to be a farmhand.
Later, when my friend was back on American soil, I quizzed her:
“So did you go to the Hameau?” I asked with relish.
She paused.
“Yes,” she said. “It was a very long walk.”
“You … didn’t love it?” I asked, truly shocked at her lack of je ne sais quoi.
She paused.
“Well,” she said, politely, “I think I would have to read more about her life to really appreciate it.”
Did I mention that I’m still trying to find the most definitive Marie-Antoinette biography — among the handful I’ve read — to gift to this friend?
I’m certain she will love reading it! Oui!
Non?
Closer to home, my favorite Queen of Snows was the late, great Helen Duffy Murphy. I first interviewed her in 1995 about what it was like to live with that title:
“It’s a great conversation starter, says Murphy. The 1947 queen has lived — fittingly, it seems, for a former Winter Carnival royal — on regal Summit Avenue of St. Paul for the past 45 years. Now 69, she and her husband, Dick Murphy, have hosted annual teas for the former queens and the snow queen candidates at their home since 1961. She was a 22-year-old bank teller when she was crowned queen that year. She likens it to a Cinderella story — a working girl used to scrubbing pots and pans getting treated like a princess for a short time. The hardest moments came visiting sick children and the war-weary veterans at hospitals, she said. It was her 15 minutes of fame, when people would regularly ask for her autograph. Murphy said she will always remember attending the cotton carnival in Memphis, Tenn., when the Southern city greeted her with fireworks that spelled out her name: ‘Welcome Queen Helen.’ ‘It was a great deal of pride, to represent the city,’ she said as she paged through a scrapbook of photos and yellowed newspaper clippings from her reign. ‘It is a fairy tale … the working girl becomes the toast of the town for a while.’ ”
In 1999, I decided to follow around the new Queen, Martha Hill, during the carnival. This article is so fun and so full of detail that I don’t even know which part to quote, but I’ll go with this anecdote:
“Hill and the royal family leave the stage of the Winter Carnival talent show at Roseville Area High School after a quick appearance Tuesday evening. They hurry to the junior royalty coronation in St. Paul. Like every day during the carnival, this one has been packed with visits to such places as schools, nursing homes and Winter Carnival events. But Hill stops when she sees Erin Callahan, a friend from college, in the hallway. At school, Hill wears jeans and sweat shirts and keeps her hair and makeup simple. Callahan seems bedazzled by Hill. ‘What did you win?’ Callahan asks. ‘Queen of Snows!’ Hill says, beaming. ‘Martha! That’s a huge, huge thing!’ Callahan says. ‘Oh, my God! Congratulations! This is way cooler than homecoming queen.’ It’s fun to be the toast of St. Paul.”
This Callahan person was correct: It is way cooler to be a snow queen than it is to be a homecoming queen. Way.
I’ll never be a queen or princess of anything, but over time, my editors have begun to associate me with writing about the Queen of Snows, which is way cool: Since 2007, I’ve been assigned to both introduce our readers to the candidates as part of our Winter Carnival special section and then, in a story that runs a week later, to interview the newly crowned queen.
To make it all happen, I rely on my royal sources, including Natalka Kramarczuk, who is the committee chair for the St. Paul Winter Carnival Queen of Snows Candidate Program. I literally pester her all January long with candidate (and queen) interview requests, biography verification and the all-important “winter question” that we’ve developed to run with the introduction of the candidates. The winter questions each candidate answers vary from “What is your favorite winter drink?” to “What would you do if you were a snowflake?” You know, hard-hitting questions like that.
But I give back, too. For years, I’ve been trying to get someone — anyone — at the paper to run for queen. No one has stepped up — yet — but if they do, I’m sure I could persuade the newspaper to serve as the candidate’s official sponsor, although I haven’t actually asked anyone, so it’s just a hunch at this point. This is a future issue. As for the past — I like to think that I had a part to play in helping to right a wrong that had been done to our first queen, a queen I’ve nicknamed the lost snow queen.
You see: In modern times, “Mrs. Albert Scheffer” was identified as the first queen.
However, a few years ago, while researching some other aspect of the Winter Carnival, local historian Patrick Hill discovered that our first queen, crowned in 1886, was actually Mary Harbaugh Brooks.
I’m not sure where, how or when the error originated — Mrs. Scheffer was the queen of something else, but not our first snow queen — but it was an error that was repeated for perhaps 75 years until Hill caught it.
I wrote a story about the mix-up and alerted my royal connections. They listened — and made things right. In November, the royal family graciously attended a commemoration that Hill hosted in our first queen’s memory. At this ceremony, the 2016 Queen, Alyssa Sigafus, placed a rose at the home where the late queen’s memorial service was held in 1916.
And now here we are … it is Winter Carnival time again. It is time to meet another new queen.
The 2017 queen will be crowned late on Friday. I am scheduled to interview her at 7 a.m. Saturday in the lobby of the St. Paul Hotel, a quick (15-minute) chat before she heads out with the rest of her entourage for a day of appearances. I’ll also take her photo, maybe shoot a video and then rush back to the paper, just as I did so many years ago, to get the copy to my editor to get it posted online (there wasn’t “online” back in 1995) as well as in print for Sunday’s paper.
Maybe part of me, a long time ago, would have rolled my eyes at such an assignment. I mean, it’s not exactly Watergate. Then again, I never went into journalism with the goal of covering presidents or politics. I am a storyteller, though — and I like sharing happy stories, most of all. So perhaps it makes sense that I’ve developed a real affection for this tradition of my adopted hometown — and I love that every January, I get to share one fairy-tale happy ending with you: “She lived happily ever after” — or, at least the queen is happy during the carnival. As are we.
The end.
Copyright 2017 Pioneer Press.
