On what date on the calendar are the three icemen?

Answer 1

The Germans who settled around the St. Louis area spoke of three days in the middle of May as the "three ice men". These unseasonably cold days ranged over a three day span from about the 14th to the 18th of May each year, and occurred with surprising regularity. My father, who was born on May 16, 1923 in Mascoutah, Illinois, remembers this happening around his birthday each year, and recalls the older people calling it the three ice men. Mascoutah is farming community where his family had lived since the 1850's after immigrating from Germany. In his youth, many of the townspeople still spoke German.