There’s so much excitement about the State Fair of Texas returning this year.
But the lack of a country favorite can also move tears.
Wanda “Fernie” Winter, the concessionaire who brought us funnel cake, died last June at the age of 95.
She and her husband John Winter opened their food stalls in 1969. Their “nachitos” – simply good old cheese and fries with jalapenos – won over the fans.
Then came the funnel cake in the 80s and fans fell in love with Fernie’s funnel cake. The winters didn’t make it, but they perfected it.
And now that the family is moving on without Fernie, they’ll do it with memories, love, and lots of fried batter and powdered sugar.
“It’s very emotional to hang up all these pictures and look at her face,” said daughter Christi Erpillo as she and sister Johnna McKee got the concession stand ready in the dock for opening day. “But we’re doing exactly what she would expect us to do. And we have her little chair over there. And we have her scarf that she always wore, take her picture with her throne. “
“Until she was 93, she’d sit here in her chair every day and people would come in to have their pictures taken with her,” McKee said. “We’ll do everything to honor both of our parents. I just get goose bumps. Because we wouldn’t be here if mom and dad hadn’t decided spontaneously that they would work here 52 years ago.”
The family invites the guests to take a seat in the “throne”, where Wanda “Fernie” Winter held court as the funnel cake queen.
One wall in the dock is packed with pictures of Fernie with her family: husband John Winter, who died in 1899, and their four daughters and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who followed him. There are also pictures of Fernie with guests, as she called customers, who came year after year to see her and fix her funnel cake. The dock is where the funnel cake was born and where a grandson Johnathan almost also would have been.
“We were the original people who brought funnel cakes to the State Fair of Texas. The very first funnel cake was served back there behind the counter. Johnna went to work there making funnel cakes,” Erpillo said.
This grandson, Johnathan McKee, is the third generation to work in the family business. Other family members will come and go during the 24-day fair, but primarily it’s him, his mother and aunt with a team of seasonal workers who have accompanied them over the years.
They’ll be frying tons of funnel cakes and this year they’re going to add something new: Fernie’s Fried Coffee Toffee Crunch Cake, a Big Tex Choice Award finalist. It’s another delicious brew from Erpillo named after her mother who probably knew she’d found another winner.
“When my mother was so sick almost four weeks before she died and there wasn’t much communication with her, Christi and I were sitting at the end of her bed one day talking about the Big Tex Choice awards and we hadn’t heard mother say words for weeks and we just talk and suddenly she looks up and asks, “Did we make it?” and Christ and I looked at each other and we … “Are like,” What the hell? We didn’t hear you say anything! And are we got in? ” I think she knows we’re in. “
The family is happy to be back with their guests and the other concessionaires they consider family. And while there will be moments when Fernie’s absence becomes too much and the tears will come, they will celebrate a woman whose glory will forever be the fried batter and powdered sugar so many desire this time of year.
“We say we have fun in funnel cakes and we believe so,” and that’s what Fernie would have wanted.
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