Monday, December 04, 2006
#5. Christmas In The 30's and 40's
To post #5 of my life story, I intended waiting until after the Christmas season, But something happened that caused me to change my mind. A group of Christian women take a quote each week, (this time it's Billy Graham's), and post about it.
What Mr. Graham said about how people do Christmas got my literary brain to buzzing, and I wrote a lengthy post about it, how most of the celebrating hardly acknowledges Christ coming to earth.
I've thought a lot about this today, and finally decided maybe it would help if I told you how Christmases were done long ago when I was a little girl, in the 30's and 40's.
As I think on what to write here, I remember what a patient said to me one night, as I worked a nursing shift. We had somehow got on the subject of raising children. I'm as old as some of my patients, so we easily relate about things like that.
She said what our country needs is another depression, so people would have to do with less, and maybe children would learn how to be more responsible, and as they became adults, be more able to take care of themselves.
I'm not advocating a scrooge mentality attitude about Christmas, or about raising children, but I can tell you what both were like in my childhood.
Down the road was my grandfather's big, two story house, but Mom and Dad and a sister and I lived in a smaller place.
A heater that you built a wood fire in barely kept us warm, and you had to turn from side to side as you stood near it, because it was nothing like today's central heat. If one side of you was warm, the other side wasn't, and there was always the danger of a fire, which had happened.
My sister's nightgown had caught on fire, and it burned her pretty badly. I remember that the doctor got Mom and Dad to put table chairs on each side of her in the bed, so the covers could be draped, and not touch her burns.
It was Christmas time, so Mom put cookies or something out, and told me not to eat them, because they were for Santa Claus. Christmas morning they were all gone, except for some crumbs. Dad showed them to me, then took me outside and pointed to tracks in the dirt. "Those are Santa's" he said, and I believed him. I still didn't know much about expecting Santa to deliver toys and things.
Dad said maybe Santa left me something at GrandPa's.
I loved going to GrandPa's house. It always smelled like something was cooking, and usually it was. Aunts and uncles would arrive, and the tree, it brushed the ceiling. It was beautiful.
Not much was said about presents, except Grand Pa showed me a little rocking chair, and told me it was mine, all mine. There was another one for my sister, but it would be a while before she could sit in it, because of her burns.
Relatives kept showing up. Uncles teased me about how much I could eat. GrandMa's food was so good, and we didn't have stuff like that at our house.
My other Grand Ma lived farther away. Sometimes we went to her house. She warmed the bedrooms (there was no living room) with a wood heater. But what was most fun was that she let me help her build a fire in the cook stove.
Near it was a wooden box she kept kindling in, small pieces of pine we used to start the fire. GrandMa showed me how to light it with a match, put it in the stove, then blow on it to make it burn bigger, and add more pieces of wood, to keep it burning.I just felt so grownup that she let me help start the fires.
As an adult, I think how hard that crude way of life must have been for her. Christmas dinner at her house was baked chicken and cornbread dressing, and not much else, except maybe she would make one of her syrup cakes. I stayed real close by as she stirred it and poured it into baking pans, for she always let me have the stir spoon to lick.
The only things that even resembled gifts or toys at her house were the paper dolls she let me cut from old catalogues. But we had good times. Granny showed me how to sew quilt blocks. She called them "nine patch" blocks, because that's how many you sewed together to make one. It was hard to reach the pedal to push with my foot, but that's what made the sewing machine work.
Many years later Granny died. I don't think she hardly ever had electric lighting, indoor plumbing, or central heat. When it was cold winter you could hear the wind whistling outside her door, and sometimes feel a draft that found its way inside.
The love and courage that little woman showed! It would be many years before I realized the hardships of her life. She was widowed very young, with four small children to raise, way out in the backwoods of East Texas.
I've seen many Christmases, and received nice presents, wrapped in ribbons and pretty paper. But the paper dolls, and making quilt blocks, and especially the helping Granny build cook stove fires, those will always be the very best gifts of all.
Quite a ways from Granny's was my aunt's home in Houston. that's where I saw electric Christmas tree lights for the first time, and It's where I learned more about the war my daddy went away to. But tonight, as this Christmas nears, I just want to remember Granny, and all that she gave me, that wasn't bought from a store.
What Mr. Graham said about how people do Christmas got my literary brain to buzzing, and I wrote a lengthy post about it, how most of the celebrating hardly acknowledges Christ coming to earth.
I've thought a lot about this today, and finally decided maybe it would help if I told you how Christmases were done long ago when I was a little girl, in the 30's and 40's.
As I think on what to write here, I remember what a patient said to me one night, as I worked a nursing shift. We had somehow got on the subject of raising children. I'm as old as some of my patients, so we easily relate about things like that.
She said what our country needs is another depression, so people would have to do with less, and maybe children would learn how to be more responsible, and as they became adults, be more able to take care of themselves.
I'm not advocating a scrooge mentality attitude about Christmas, or about raising children, but I can tell you what both were like in my childhood.
Down the road was my grandfather's big, two story house, but Mom and Dad and a sister and I lived in a smaller place.
A heater that you built a wood fire in barely kept us warm, and you had to turn from side to side as you stood near it, because it was nothing like today's central heat. If one side of you was warm, the other side wasn't, and there was always the danger of a fire, which had happened.
My sister's nightgown had caught on fire, and it burned her pretty badly. I remember that the doctor got Mom and Dad to put table chairs on each side of her in the bed, so the covers could be draped, and not touch her burns.
It was Christmas time, so Mom put cookies or something out, and told me not to eat them, because they were for Santa Claus. Christmas morning they were all gone, except for some crumbs. Dad showed them to me, then took me outside and pointed to tracks in the dirt. "Those are Santa's" he said, and I believed him. I still didn't know much about expecting Santa to deliver toys and things.
Dad said maybe Santa left me something at GrandPa's.
I loved going to GrandPa's house. It always smelled like something was cooking, and usually it was. Aunts and uncles would arrive, and the tree, it brushed the ceiling. It was beautiful.
Not much was said about presents, except Grand Pa showed me a little rocking chair, and told me it was mine, all mine. There was another one for my sister, but it would be a while before she could sit in it, because of her burns.
Relatives kept showing up. Uncles teased me about how much I could eat. GrandMa's food was so good, and we didn't have stuff like that at our house.
My other Grand Ma lived farther away. Sometimes we went to her house. She warmed the bedrooms (there was no living room) with a wood heater. But what was most fun was that she let me help her build a fire in the cook stove.
Near it was a wooden box she kept kindling in, small pieces of pine we used to start the fire. GrandMa showed me how to light it with a match, put it in the stove, then blow on it to make it burn bigger, and add more pieces of wood, to keep it burning.I just felt so grownup that she let me help start the fires.
As an adult, I think how hard that crude way of life must have been for her. Christmas dinner at her house was baked chicken and cornbread dressing, and not much else, except maybe she would make one of her syrup cakes. I stayed real close by as she stirred it and poured it into baking pans, for she always let me have the stir spoon to lick.
The only things that even resembled gifts or toys at her house were the paper dolls she let me cut from old catalogues. But we had good times. Granny showed me how to sew quilt blocks. She called them "nine patch" blocks, because that's how many you sewed together to make one. It was hard to reach the pedal to push with my foot, but that's what made the sewing machine work.
Many years later Granny died. I don't think she hardly ever had electric lighting, indoor plumbing, or central heat. When it was cold winter you could hear the wind whistling outside her door, and sometimes feel a draft that found its way inside.
The love and courage that little woman showed! It would be many years before I realized the hardships of her life. She was widowed very young, with four small children to raise, way out in the backwoods of East Texas.
I've seen many Christmases, and received nice presents, wrapped in ribbons and pretty paper. But the paper dolls, and making quilt blocks, and especially the helping Granny build cook stove fires, those will always be the very best gifts of all.
Quite a ways from Granny's was my aunt's home in Houston. that's where I saw electric Christmas tree lights for the first time, and It's where I learned more about the war my daddy went away to. But tonight, as this Christmas nears, I just want to remember Granny, and all that she gave me, that wasn't bought from a store.
