Ice
Tales
from Emma Lake
by Harold D. Gingerich
Winter in northern
Indiana usually means
frozen lakes and ice.
memories of foolhardy fishermen, both
past and present, who misjudged the
thickness of the ice and barely lived to
tell about it.
Ben Leming (Topeka High School
Ice fishing continues to be a favorite
class of 1911), who operated a bakery
winter activity for many a hearty
and tavern, was notorious for falling
soul, but there was a time when the
through the ice. Bud says that pulling
ice itself was as important as the fish
Ben out of the water was almost an
that swam beneath it; a time when the annual occurrence. “He’d go fishwinter harvest of ice was a community ing in the spring when the
activity that brought people together
ice was thawing and
for the common good. With modern
he’d sit out there
refrigeration, the days of cutting ice
for hours and
from the lakes are all but forgotten. All hours,” Bud
that remains of that bygone era are the says, “And
ice fishermen who still test the limits
then finally
of the ice.
you’d hear
Bud and Richard Hostetler have
someone
lived most of their lives near the shores yelling
of Emma Lake. The brothers have vivid ‘H-E-L-P!
pg 18 · The Hometown Treasure · February ‘13
HELP!’ The voice really carried across
the lake. We knew it was Ben because
about every year we had to pull him
out with a hay rope.” Ben would wear
a big bearskin robe and when that got
soaked, Bud says, “He was REALLY
heavy.” Leming was a big man to start
with.
Leming would often wait so long
that the ice on
the edge
would