DECEMBER • 2008 • NEWSLETTER

The 2009 Reminisce
Calendar »

The Attic Treasures
Puzzle »

Check Out Reminisce’s 1940s DVD Set »

Featured Product from
Country Store:

Vintage Radio »

##\keycode.leftcolumnhtml##

Dear ##firstname[Friend]##,

Christmas is in the air...at least, in my local piece of it. To get you in the holiday mood, we’re offering three impressions of the yuletide season—the first from a girl growing up in the Depression, another from the 1940s perspective of a wartime mother and yet another from the eyes of a child of the ’50s.

If this isn’t enough Christmas for you (and my apologies to those of you who don’t celebrate the season, for one reason or another), additional holiday memories can be found on our Web site: www.reminisce.com. Included are a few memories from our staff here at Reminisce magazine. A full helping of staff memories is featured in the December/January issue of our magazine. If you don’t subscribe, you can do so at our Web site.

For now, consider forwarding this newsletter to a friend or family member. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you’d like a monthly copy of your own, just use this link to sign up yourself. Here’s wishing all of you an enjoyable holiday season and a happy new year.

—John Burlingham at Reminisce

##\keycode.pscopyhtml##

In this issue:

• Lean Times and Leaner Christmases
• Twenty of Them
• Meeting Old Friends...All Over Again
• Poem: Thoughts on Growing Old
• Over the Back Fence
• Time Capsule Trivia
• A Thought to Remember

Save up to $300.00 per couple!

Reserve selected 2009 vacations by December 23, 2008, and you’ll save $300.00 per couple on your trip! Get details »

Lean Times and Leaner Christmases

By Olive Smith Stone
Belpre, Ohio

Christmas for children today is nothing like it was for children during the Great Depression, especially for rural children. If the kids believed there were a Santa Claus and hung their stockings (ones they had taken off) from the fireplace mantel, there were no high expectations of that stocking being filled.

The highlight of the season had been the Christmas program at the one-room school when “Santy Claus” came to bring a treat. Poems about Christmas had been memorized, and monologues were often more humorous than religious. Parents came for the program, sometimes in horse-drawn sleds, to see their children perform.

The rough, muslin bed sheets mothers had furnished for the stage curtains would be back on the beds that night. I remember the turkey in a scene from A Christmas Carol was a pile of erasers with a brown cloth over them. Bob Cratchit didn’t even have it that bad!

I must not forget the Christmas tree. Two dependable boys from the eighth grade had been commissioned to cut a tree from a neighboring field—usually a cedar tree. A piece of board was fastened to the bottom so it would stand straight. The children made all of the tree decorations—chains of colored paper, strings of popcorn and a patiently colored yellow star at the top.

None of the children believed this was the “real” Santa when he showed up, and they tried their best to discover his identity. Parents, too, often had trouble knowing who it was, because the teacher might have a friend from a neighboring town act the part or enlist whomever they could get to take time from farm chores to do the favor.

There was no red suit with white trimming for this Santa. Often he and his helper were dressed in old cast-off clothing, usually sporting some patches. One year, I had no trouble recognizing my dad and brother, because the clothes they were wearing came from our attic. The glance from my dad’s gray eyes behind his mask told me without question not to reveal who they were.

“Santy” laughed and joked with the older students about things he knew about them, sometimes surprising them. He would call out our names, and Santa’s helper would hand us a little box of candy and an orange that the teacher provided. One year, the contents of the box from school were all that was in my stocking at home. I know because we never could afford oranges at home.

I especially remember that year. As we sat around the fireplace, the rest of the family ate cracked nuts and apples from the cellar while I sucked the juice from every piece of my orange.

When finished, I put the pulp back in my mouth and chewed it to get the full value of my treat. I was soon choking as it slipped down my throat. My sister, Gladys, 6 years older than I, was afraid to go out in the dark, but not that night. She threw off her shoes and ran out in the snow to the barn to get help. By the time she was back, another brother, Holly, had picked me up by the heels and shook me to dislodge the orange pulp.

One of my greatest desires was to have a knife like the boys had—one with a chain that I could fasten to the hole in my bib overalls. That’s how the boys would sharpen their pencils at school, and I hated having to ask them to do it for me. The winter I was 9, there was a knife in my Christmas stocking. That was all I got. The knife probably cost a quarter, which was a lot of money then.

Another Christmas, my dad butchered a hog, and all that was in my stocking that Christmas morning was the pig’s tail! Guess that was my dad’s devilish Welsh humor! Later, some candy that “Santa had dropped” turned up for me.

Today, an abundance of new toys are given at Christmas to children who “don’t have.” We, and I mean all the children in our community, didn’t “have,” but we didn’t “need,” either. We made our own toys and used our imagination. By hard work, we managed to stay warm and well fed through harsh winters and knew that God’s blessing was upon us.

top

Twenty of Them

Marguerite Gilbert, holding her first child, Mary Frances View larger image

Written by Marguerite Gilbert, in 1942
Submitted by her granddaughter,
Jeannie Lohmeyer of Glenwood, Maryland

Looking back upon them now, each Christmas seems to stand clearly apart, as though it were a picture etched in frost and ice, framed by soft, white snow.

There was the first Christmas together, where there were just the two of us, away from home in a small apartment. The city and our apartment were gay with yuletide trimmings.

There were packages from home, calls from friends and the happiness of a love shared. There was a little tree, and more than a little homesickness.

But oh! The next year! A blue-eyed baby girl sat in a high chair and pointed a fat little finger toward the brightness of the Christmas tree. My husband, an illustrator, made a greeting card with our little one’s picture on it.

And after that, in rapid succession, like bubbles blown from a soap bubble pipe, fly the memories of other Christmases.

Soon there were two little stockings at the fireplace and then three. There were big dolls and little girls. Each December meant excited trips to “Toyland” to see Santa Claus. Beforehand, much serious discussion went into deciding what doll to ask for and what color dress she should come in.

Then, after three little girls, came a boy, and then another. Now, “Santy Claus” was bringing wagons, guns and Indian costumes…and later, bicycles.

As the girls outgrew dolls and toys, clothes went to the top of their teenage wish list. Being surrounded by the girls and their pangs of growing up was something to experience, and then, once again, the delights of a baby were given to us.

Another boy arrived one cold, cold night...followed a few years later by yet another blue-eyed baby sister. Again, chubby fingers pointed to our bright Christmas tree.

Strange requests have sometimes been presented, as the year Mary Frances decided she would have an “orange-colored pussycat.” Efforts were made to steer her choice toward white, or at least pink. But on Christmas morning, there it was—the desired colored cat—waiting to be wound up and run around the floor to the accompaniment of delighted squeals.

Another year, Lee’s choice was a “wooden bumpalo” (buffalo). He forestalled any discussion by stating flatly that if Santa Claus didn’t have any, why, he could just make one. And sure enough, when the great morning arrived, a really fine-looking buffalo stood proudly among the toys.

With the passing of the years, certain customs have woven themselves into the life of the family. Each year, on the first Sunday of Advent, a small box is placed on the kitchen table. For each good deed performed by the children, a piece of straw is deposited into the box. On Christmas Eve, when the little nativity stable is arranged, the straws are placed in the crib and on the stable floor to bring warmth and love to the Christ child.

And now, we prepare for another Christmas. In this battle-scarred year of 1942, the four walls of our home are safe from the sound of blazing guns, roaring planes and marching feet. Our little family will once again deposit straws…for schoolwork well done, for help at home, for prompt and cheerful obedience, for clothes and toys neatly put away, for deference to one another’s wishes in the matter of radio programs.

Another custom is for us to take our stray pennies and nickels and place them in a large stocking for several months. This stocking will be turned into Christmas cheer for some underprivileged family.

Seven stockings will hang from our fireplace…for the older ones now out in the world making their own living, for the boy who will come home from school for the holidays, for a little 3-year-old who is waiting, more or less patiently, for Santa Claus to arrive with a doll named “Sally Ann.”

While the tree is being trimmed, the radio will bring the beautiful music of long ago, and together we shall sing those dear hymns. Then we’ll be off to Midnight Mass with two of our boys serving in the sanctuary. Then back home, for hot chocolate and gingerbread before bed.

Christmas day brings love, laughter and a full day of visits with friends and relatives. Though we live in a shadowed world and face the terror of an uncharted future, still we know that we stand on firm ground.

We know that God, who came to a selfish, seeking world so many years ago, will not now abdicate His place in the hearts of men, nor turn His children over to the gods of hate and greed.

This is what twenty Christmases have taught us—that the roots of home and family and country and religion go so very deep, that they can never be plucked or dug out. Because a child was once born in Bethlehem, we are secure today, and our children will be secure.

top

Meeting Old Friends...All Over Again

Cindy Heffron, as she looked in the 1950s View larger image

By Cindy Heffron
Ardmore, Pennsylvania

Ask anyone about their favorite Christmas memory from childhood, and more times than not, you’ll hear about the memory of a special toy.

As a young girl of the 1950s, living in Avoca, Pennsylvania, I loved playing with dolls. By that time, they had invented a doll with eyes that closed when you laid her down and a doll that drank water from a bottle and then wet her diaper.

Barbie dolls came later, and I enjoyed them, too, but it was the baby dolls and the ones designed to look like little girls that captivated me during those early years.

You wouldn’t think the smell of vinyl plastic could trigger a fond memory, but I often have associated it with the fragrance of a new doll when I held her close for the first time.

I also remember coming downstairs one Christmas morning to find the smiling faces of Raggedy Ann and Andy waiting for me in a wooden doll carriage that my dad had repainted to look like new. There were four of us kids and not much money, but my parents always managed to make Christmas a special time for us.

The family Christmas tree was festive the year of the doll surprise. View larger image

One year, my mother wanted to make some outfits for our dolls, just like her mother used to do for her. A week or so before Christmas, she walked through the house retrieving our dolls. A few of them were wedged deep down inside the toy box. Some were without any clothing, since we children had lost or torn their original pretty dresses. One or two had hair sticking straight out!

These neglected creatures were scooped up my mother and taken to the kitchen sink. There she patiently scrubbed away the dirt and crayon marks till they looked presentable. Then she made them cute little outfits from scraps of our old clothes. A piece from a worn-out flannel pajama top was transformed into a full-length gown for one of them.

On Christmas Eve, she lined up all these old friends along the couch in our living room. When I saw them all dressed up, their faces bathed in the soft lights of the Christmas tree, I thought they looked beautiful! I fell in love with them all over again.

Like most kids on the night before Christmas, I was filled with a delicious anticipation of what Santa might bring for me. But after spending time alone with my old dolls, now renewed, the anticipation was replaced by the warm contentment of what I already had.

Share Your Thoughts and Enter to Win a Prize

Join the Reminisce Powerhouse Panel, and you’ll get free, members-only access to special offers, discounts, and rewards, plus the chance to share your thoughts on new products, hot topics and more. Sign up today! You can enter to win a high-tech digital camera and other great prizes. No purchase is necessary to win. The sweepstakes, open to U.S. residents ages 18 and over, ends on December 31, 2008; void where prohibited. Entry details and official rules are available on-line at www.reminiscepowerhouse.com/rules.

top

Poem: Thoughts on Growing Old

By Jesse Coghill
Jordan, Minnesota

I’ve seen the best and seen the worst.
I’ve been blest and I’ve been cursed.
Life has been a bumpy route.
But that’s what life is all about.

This body’s had some wear and tear.
Thank the Lord for Medicare.
Finding friends is kind of scary.
Most are in the cemetery.

Can’t remember someone’s name,
So we play the guessing game.
Can’t find my glasses, where’s my hat?
Pills for this, pills for that.

Growing old with dignity,
Growing old gracefully,
Head is burning, feet are cold,
Oh, the joys of growing old.

top

Over the Back Fence

One of the tasks I had in our monastery was to go to the Health Care Center and bring the food cart back to the main kitchen after our infirm sisters had finished breakfast.

Before returning, I would load any remaining food and dirty dishes onto the cart. One morning, a sister, noticing me put an empty platter on the cart, felt obliged to apologize, explaining, “There’s no coffee cake left.”

“Coffee cake?” I replied, a bit piqued. “No, that was stollen!”

“Oh, really?” she responded in an astonished tone. “That’s too bad, because we ate it all!”

—Sr. Mary Penrose
Duluth, Minnesota

Time Capsule Trivia

From the decades spanning the 1920s to the 1960s, try to guess what year these historic events took place. The answer is given below, but no peeking!

1. When the British withdraw from Palestine, on May 14, Israel proclaims itself a nation. The next day, it is plunged into war with the invasion of neighboring Arab nations opposed to the creation of the Jewish state on what is deemed to be Arab territory.

2. The “Hollywood Ten,” a group of film directors and screenwriters, serve jail terms on contempt of court convictions after refusing to say whether or not they have had Communist affiliations.

3. Indian peace activist Mohandas Gandhi is fatally shot by a Hindu fanatic.

4. Judy Garland co-stars with two top-notch dancers on the silver screen—Fred Astaire in Easter Parade and Gene Kelly in The Pirate. Humphrey Bogart thrives with dramatic roles in Key Largo and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

5. Milton Berle starts earning the nickname “Mr. Television” as a host of The Texaco Star Theater, and other big premieres in the early days of TV feature Ed Sullivan on Toast of the Town and Allen Funt on Candid Camera.

For the answer to Time Capsule Trivia, click here.

A Thought to Remember

The squirrels in our neighborhood are so elite, the squirrel nests are known as Nutcracker Suites!

top