Amanuensis Monday: O Christmas Tree (Elsie's Christmas book part 3)

To read from the beginning of Elsie’s Christmas book, click here.

It’s time for part 3 of Elsie’s Christmas book. This time Elsie discusses her Christmas tree and the things under it, as well as some activities in the snow.

I remember the first real live tree we had, I wasn’t very old then. Mom decorated the high branches and Bill, Walter and I did the lower ones. This was a special event. We weren’t used to such luxuries, but I must say greatly appreciated.

Dad had bought some clip on candles. The candles could be lit. The holders were clipped on the boughs. He had a pail of water handy in case of fire. He saw to it we were all together around the tree. Then he lit the tree. How beautiful we were spelled bound for a few minutes.

Dad didn’t leave the candles burning only a few minutes. The tree was still pretty and smelled so good, we kept it until New Years night. I still like to keep my decorations up until New Years.

Our stockings were filled with a orange in the toe some hard candy and a lot of peanuts in the shell. We liked the evening and shell peanuts and eat them. Once in a while we would get mixed nuts. Maybe a stick of peppermint. A small doll, a cloth book, pictures to finish with yarn, a toothbrush, anew comb, maybe some kind of a book. We got what Santa could afford to give us, but he never forgot us.

One Christmas I got a bake set, the set contained flour, salt, baking powder, and you had to add some water to mix so you were able to roll it out a little thicker than pie crust. The set contain the rolling pin, a cutter and a pan to bake them in. So my brother Bill and I decided to make these crackers. We used Mom’s oven to bake them. We were proud of them, but no one wanted any so we were happy we ate them all. I had helped Mom but not really to bake anything from the beginning, this time was my very first. My brother and I were pretty proud they turned out as well as they did. We used a fork to make the holes in them.

One year my brother Walter got a race horse set. He had been very ill that year, so Santa was very good to him. He shared it with our brother and me. We spent many of hours watching which horse would win. That was one of the joy of sharing.

I always wanted a doll even if it was a very small doll I enjoyed sewing for it and made many clothes for it. Mother never sewed but our neighbors did and I was given a lot of pretty pieces of material. My doll was the best dressed doll in the neighborhood.

Sometimes we got paper dolls that had their paper clothes to cut out They were fun too.

One year I got a big doll with brown curly hair, that went to sleep. She didn’t sleep long My little sister poked her eyes out. Mother fixed the eyes but the doll don’t go to sleep again.

 

I don't know what ever happened to Elsie's childhood dolls, but this one belonged to Elsie's sister, my Grandma Aileen. She has had a visit to a doll hospital in later years, and is thus in tolerable condition despite her age. (Before the doll hospital, she was rather terrifying.)

 

One Christmas Santa forgot to bring me a doll. I was unhappy that I cried but no one ever knew. That year Santa brought me a comb and brush set. I was always breaking the other combs my hair was so thick. I guess that was the sign I was growing up.

In Idaho Christmas always seemed to be a beautiful day. There was clean white snow everywhere. On every thing a winter wonderland. It was pretty but very cold. Icicles hanging from the roofs of all out buildings, including the house. The icicles hung from six to twelve inches long. The sun during the day would melt the snow as it ran off the house would freeze making more icicles and adding length to the other icicles there. The warmth of our stoves made the roof warm, which made the snow melt.

Some of the mornings I would get up and seeing my mom looking out the window, I would ask her what she was looking at. She would answer me “Oh, I was just looking out to see if we are going to be snowed in.”

Sometime we knocked the icicles doun and made ice cream, of course we had to break the icicles up and add salt to it. It freezes faster with salt.

We made ice cream in the snow, by using a tin bucket with a clencher lid (so the lid couldn’t come off and let the snow in the ice cream.) We used eggs, milk, and sugar. Of course we flavored with vanilla. We’d find a big drift of snow, then place our bucket in the snow. After a while we would lift the lid and see how it was doing. We took turns, turning the bucket. The ice cream was like our ice milk we have now.

Christmas after the chores were done we could do what ever we liked. We loved to play in the snow, making angels snowmen and making forts. We would have two forts a small distance apart then we would get in one and some of the others would get in the other. One would throw snowballs back and forth. It was fun snowballing but some of the boys would get water soak them, then they hurt when they hit you.

Even with wool mittens our hands would freeze, it was so cold. We had to change clothes when we came in to the house Mom made us soak our hands in cold water first than warm before we went to the stove. She was afraid chilblains. If they got warm to fast they would hurt. Mother never like to have us eat the first snow as she said all the germs in the air was in it.

The description of making ice cream in the snow reminded me of someone I knew years ago. Beginning in high school and on through college, I worked in an old-fashioned ice cream parlour, complete with a soda fountain. We had a number of regular customers, and I got to know some of them pretty well. We would chat while they enjoyed their ice cream treats. To this day I can still remember the usual order of a number of these people—as in, they could come in and say, “I’ll have the usual,” and I knew what to make.

This particular person’s favorite was caramel butter pecan ice cream, but how he wanted it served would vary. Sometimes a cone, sometimes a dish, sometimes a sundae… if he’d ever said “I’ll have the usual,” I wouldn’t have known what to do. We often chatted about many things, but one of the things that has stuck with me through the years is his memory of making “snow cream.” His description of the process was rather similar to the process Elsie described for making ice cream, except for a couple things. Firstly, I was under the impression (whether correct or not, I cannot say) that the snow cream used snow as an ingredient as well as a way to chill it, and secondly, the snow cream was flavored with maple syrup.

Citation:

Elsie Crocker, "Christmas on the Farm when I was a Small Child" (typescript, 1990); copy in possession of Amber Brosius, 2020.

Amanuensis Monday: The Schoolhouse and Santa (Elsie's Christmas book part 2)

Last week I discovered that Aunt Elsie really had written a Christmas book and I transcribed the first two pages. Now it is time to transcribe a couple more pages.

You may remember that she was telling about how they would prepare for Christmas in the one-room schoolhouse she attended. Here she continues:

The last school day before Christmas we would have a party. All the children were looking forward to it. We were to ask all our parents to come and enjoy our labors of preparing for the special day.

 

This is the second of the two photos I have showing the actual school room Elsie describes. Elsie is sitting in the front row, second from the right, in a white dress. Her brothers are also in the photo. Bill is in the second row on the very end, wearing overalls. Walter is standing behind him, on the very end of the third row, also wearing overalls.

 

I think all the parents were there, dressed in their best. We had a small program, then a sing along where every one joined in, parents and all. Some of us had to recite poems. My poem Dad told me. I was in the first grade. It was like this.

“The first time I stepped upon the platform”
My heart went pitty pat
For I thought I heard
Someone say Who’s little girl is that?

Refreshments were much the same as ours now: coffee, cookies and a mince ham bun sandwich. The children got lemonade. The very last thing the teacher would hand out a red mesh stocking, she had made out of the red mesh, she had bought for maybe five cents a yard. She sewed these stockings by hand or on a sewing machine she peddaled with her feet. Those days men worked for fifty cents to a dollar a day.

In the toe of the stocking was a apple or a orange, a little candy and a few peanuts with the shells on. Sometimes a small candy cane. Gee! We were happy we could hardly wait to get home to see just what we had. We’d put everything back in the stocking to admire for a while. Little things meant so much.

We got our chores done early that evening. Of course the chickens had to be fed, eggs gathered, woodboxes filled, the cows milked, horses beded doun. See that all gates closed, feed the dog. The dog always slept under our porch outside. We also helped Mom with the dishes.

Sounds like a lot of work but we had a lot of hands. Many hands make light of the work. We all had our jobs to do If we got thru our jobs we would help the others get theirs done. Then the evening was ours to do what ever we wanted to do.

I liked to sit on my dads lap and comb his pretty hair. At one time Dad had a mustache, I loved to curl his mustache. It curled up on the ends just like Grandpa Gene’s. Dad had some wax he used on the tips.

It was time to hang up our stockings for Santa to fill. We each hung up our own clean stocking. We didn’t have a fireplace We laid them on the couch all in a row. We called the davenport a couch those days. Dad would smile seeing three different size stockings all in a row. I was afraid the boys having the largest stockings would get more than I but Santa saw to that. But I was mistaken, we all got the accurate amount.

The excitement of Santa and his eight reindeers, with his big sack of toys, kept my brothers and I wide awake.

We had a lot of snow, so we were expecting to hear his sleigh bells. It seemed so long before morning, we tossed and turned, so hard to settle doun. Wondering what he would leave us.

My brothers room was next to mine, so we could holler back and forth, making it more difficult to fall a sleep. We listened real hard for his sleigh bells in the snow.

This was a long night however we finally fell asleep Early the next morning we were awake. The first one awake would wake the others. One of us would tiptoe doun the stairs, to see if our stockings were filled. Then he or she would tip toe back up the stairs and tell the others. He had been there, what a rush, everyone jumped up at once. We ran doun the stairs into Mother’s and Dad’s room to a waken them. Of course they were already awake, with all this excitement going on, how could they sleep? They seemed as happy as we were, with our gifts.

Looking back we never received much but no one could have been happier.

Our stockings were filled with nuts and candy, not so full you couldn’t take a hold of the top and carry them around.

Sometimes we had different kinds of candy allways wrapped in tissue paper, when it was put in our stockings. There was no waxed paper, aluminum foil or saran paper. Plastic was unheard of.

 

 

A platter of ribbon candy, a favorite of my mom's as well as Elsie.
Photo by Travel Photographer from StockSnap

We had peppermint sticks or hard candy with soft fillings, with different fillings and colors. We always liked these soft fillings, it was a surprise to see what color was inside. There was some round, round and flat with a pretty flower in the middle of it. These we never could [figure out] how they got the flower so perfect in the middle. We also had ribbon candy, it was different, it had different color stripes, it was about one and half inches wide and looped and pushed together like soft according pleats. This ribbon candy is still sold in the special stores today, at Christmas time. Also the candy sticks of different colors and flavors.

We didn’t get all this candy all at once but what Santa wanted us to have or what he could afford. Sometimes Santa gets short of money. He has a lot of children to visit.

When I was a little girl we were told, if we had been bad we wouldn't get any thing. He was supposed to have fairies to help him check up on us, if we had been naughty or not.

 

This time it is a little easier to choose a stopping point, as the subject changes slightly after this.


The reference to “Grandpa Gene” and his mustache puzzled me. I knew he wasn’t one of Elsie’s grandfathers; she never met either of hers, and their names were William and George anyway. After some cursory research, I am still puzzled. I am supposing that “Grandpa Gene” was a figure in popular culture at some point during Elsie’s life, obviously at a point prior to her writing of this memoir in 1990. Since I could find no mention of anyone with that nickname before 1990, I suspect that it may have been a local figure, well known in the Portland, Oregon area to a certain generation, but without a national audience to remember him frequently online.
 

I also chuckled at “We called the davenport a couch those days,” as one would be hard-pressed to find many people who still call a couch a davenport! Well, at least around here. Perhaps it is still common in other parts of the world.

Citation:

Elsie Crocker, "Christmas on the Farm when I was a Small Child" (typescript, 1990); copy in possession of Amber Brosius, 2020.

Friday Funny: A Strange Christmas Party

Recently, while browsing around at the British Newspaper Archive, I stumbled across a charming tongue-in-cheek article about a Christmas party, with the surprising facet of apparently being a thinly-veiled protest against a recently-passed muzzle law. Although it is long, as a dog lover I enjoyed the copious details and imaginative anthropomorphism. At first I intended to simply amuse myself for a few minutes with reading the article, but something about it has stuck with me, and I have at length decided to share it in this blog post, despite its length. (My fingers will become muscle-bound with the typing!)

A St. Bernard dog
Image by b1-foto from Pixabay

A STRANGE CHRISTMAS PARTY.

BY AN IMAGINATIVE DOGMATIST.

A curious incident happened at the office of this paper one day last week. A large St. Bernard dog, waving his beautiful bushy tail in the air, walked quietly into the front office, and deliberately mounted on his hind legs, putting his front paws on the top of the desk. In this position the magnificent fellow’s head touched the brass rail, and the sudden apparition of a large shaggy face so startled the good gentlemen working at the desk, that, with a wonderful unanimity, they struck a bee-line for safety. “A bear from the menagerie,” thought our cashier, as he doubled up under the counter; an office boy, who had climbed to the top of a pile of newspapers, opined it was a lion broken loose from the same establishment—said boy’s zoological information being hazy. Meanwhile the St. Bernard, with his eyes smiling kindly (and dogs can smile, you know!) got impatient, and uttered a series of muffled barks, which made the accountant barricade his fortress behind the stove with an office stool. While the panic was in full force, I happened to enter the office, and, recognizing the dog as an old friend, cried out, “Hullo, old chap!” At once he bounded towards me, and before I could pat his back, or pass the time of day with him, he with some dignity dropped a package at my feet, and walked slowly out and down the street. Astonished, I picked up what he had dropped from his mouth, against the advice of the clerical staff, who had emerged from their retirement, and now suggested the parcel was an infernal machine—or an unpaid bill. It certainly was mysterious upon examination. The outside wrapping was a piece of old newspaper, so disposed that the headline, “Essex County Chronicle,” stood out bold and clear as the address. This was loosely and clumsily tied over a hard, heavy substance with long silky hair, which subsequently proved to have come from a collie’s tail. Eager now to solve the mystery, I tore open the wrapping and came upon a curved piece of earthenware, which had evidently formed part of a platter, and on the back of which was scrawled a message that, after a lot of trouble, we deciphered as follows:--

The gentleman who kindly attended a meeting held by the canine race to protest against the pestilential muzzle is warmly invited to join them at a Xmas party to be held at—

But I am not going to give my doggy friends away by telling you of their retreat. The epistle was signed “Hugo,” who, as chairman of the committee of management, was no doubt asked, “Will Hugo and invite him?”

 

(I will interrupt here to admit that it took me several readings to realize that “Will Hugo and invite him?” is a pun on “Will you go and invite him?” and I mention it here for the benefit of other modern readers whose abilities are similarly sluggish.)

I took the broken platter to the editor and told him the simple story. Once having satisfied himself that Christmas festivities had not produced cerebral congestion, he said, “Go by all means, and write us something about the party.”

So I went. Following the instructions on my invitation, I presently found myself in a dark and sloppy yard, with all the buildings shut up and gloomy. “No festivities here,” I muttered, as I withdrew one foot from a slimy puddle, “I must have mistaken the place.” Just then, I heard a door open up aloft (not “a loft,” friend printer; let us not wound tender susceptibilities); and I could see the wavy outline of Hugo. “Hist!” he called out in an undertone (once again I could understand that mysterious dog-language!) “Come up these steps.” With some difficulty I climbed up a steep ladder, and shook him heartily by the paw. Drawing a heavy curtain aside, he led me into a warm and well-lighted room, where I was welcomed with a multitude of happy barks and tail-waggings from the assembled canines. It was a hearty spontaneous greeting, quite free from effete conventionalities, as I recognised when a large black retriever licked my face in the exuberance of his feelings and a crowd of smaller dogs spoilt the symmetry of my pants with their forepaws. A French poodle caught hold of my right hand and hung on with his teeth con amore; with the other hand I restrained a spaniel and a terrier from pulling off my coattails. Ah! it was a cheerful welcome, and very jolly—when one got over the first shock. A number of puppies—curly black balls of retrievers and pert little rough-coated terriers—curved their tiny backbones at my presence and uttered barks of defiance, which were at once sternly checked by their angry parents. At last I was able to retreat to a friendly corner and survey the scene.

The room—I again refrain from saying the loft—had apparently been used to stack hay in, for there were little wisps here and there on the uneven floor, and in the cobwebs which were spun from the rafters above.

 

(I interrupt again to declare that I have no idea why the idea of a loft might be offensive, and plead that if anyone can enlighten me, please do!)

Not much of the roof could you see; for the walls and cross-beams were hung with a curious collection of rugs, shawls, coats, and table cloths, white and patterned. The lighting was also peculiar. In one corner glimmered a horn stable lantern; here and there dips were stuck in their own grease, and these dips, I noticed, were all scored with teeth-marks; a bedroom candlestick stood on a box; while from the centre beam hung a large brass drawing-room lamp. About thirty ladies and gentlemen were present, all most smartly got up in their cleanest and best fur. Several black and brown retrievers with white shirt fronts strutted about with that conscious full-chestedness that is sometimes noticeable in the ballrooms of other orders of animals. As for the plum-pudding dog, by nature so very Christmasy, he quite took the shine out of several lady pugs and the black poodle, whose curls had been most artistically treated.

(I looked it up: a plum-pudding dog is another name for a Dalmatian.)

They all sat or reclined in characteristic groups. Here was a lady fox terrier talking about sporting prospects to a beautiful setter, her two little pups peering out from over her haunches with sharp, black eyes full of astonishment. A group of young sirs were lolling and sniffing about near the door, casting doggish eyes at the girls the other end, whose coquettish barks and the smart [illegible] of whose caudal appendages were invitations sufficient to warrant a walk in that direction, had they but the courage. A couple of Great Danes were conversing in sonorous tones with a diminutive Dachshund, who had pronounced views on art. Near several dogs who were [discussing?] with much animation the price of Spratt’s biscuits and the relative merits of their flavours, reclined an immense Newfoundland, looking up adoringly into the eyes of his sweetheart, just as Hamlet glanced into Ophelia’s face during the acting of his play before the King. Watching the couple were a group of matrons who spoke in cautious voices. “A great pity,” I heard one whisper, “she might have had young so-and-so, who is in charge of his master’s yard, and has a kennel all to himself, with no limit as to perquisites. And yet she throws herself away upon that lanky fellow there, who hasn’t a bone to sharpen his teeth upon, and sleeps on a sack in a cart!” She looked disparagingly at the Newfoundland, and scratched her head with a hind leg in a contemptuous manner. With a suspicion that I had heard something of the sort before in human society, I hastened to meet Hugo, whom I saw approaching with stately tread.

“Yes, I’ll tell you all about it with pleasure,” he remarked, as we sat down, I on a box and he on his haunches. “We all bring what we can lay our teeth upon in the matter of decoration. Rather an odd assortment to deal with, but I flatter myself they are hung with some taste,” and he cocked his head on one side with a look of conscious merit. “You see, we always have an annual gathering of this sort—a social tea, we call it, and by the way, I see you people have imitated us in that way lately. Helps to unite the community? Well (doubtfully), not much, I think. It brings the youngsters together—let’s ’em flirt, you know, under proper guidance. But the women get so jealous. Ever since my mother died—you’ll pardon this tear—”

“Take my handkerchief,” I asked sympathetically. But he did it with his left paw.

“She used to see to the catering, you know, but when she succumbed to circumstances—was killed because she bit off a child’s finger in play—it was agreed that the ladies should share the expenses and bring what each could. You never saw such jealousy! Perfectly disgraceful! Notice the smug smile on that lady retriever’s upper jaw? Not the one who is picking her teeth with a herring bone. The other. Yes, that one. Well, she brought that leg of mutton there—the best joint of the evening. Such pride, my dear fellow! Quite astonishing. I am afraid to ask the name of her butcher. It would be too personal and might lead to painful exposures. Then that black-nosed pug on the right. Her share was a bag of chicken bones and a lot of beautiful gravy all in a jelly. That’s why she looked at the ceiling so much. It’s her way of showing her ineffable conceit. But I see the time is come for our tea. Pardon me”—and he trotted off.

We all sat down together, and were as jolly a Christmas party as you could wish. It is true that a sharp-nosed terrier upset the things by jumping up in haste and running to a corner. She apologised, however, and said she thought a rat ran across and she could not withstand the temptation. There was a little difference of opinion between the Pug and Great Dane, and I heard the former mutter something about the invasion of poor Germans to live on the fat of the land. To my surprise, also, an Irish terrier showed a glistening set of teeth at me and said I had reported his speech at the meeting of protest in a manner that was ridiculous. But everything was settled amicably. I squatted cross-legged on the floor so as to be on an equality with my four-footed friends. It was a trifle awkward and productive of cramp in the knee-joints, but I said nothing. First of all Hugo handed round a bone each, the size varying with the size of the recipient. I was rather alarmed at the idea of gnawing a bone, but Hugo passed me a package of buns, which I understood had been borrowed by a confectioner’s dog. How they spread themselves luxuriously on the floor and held the bones in their front paws while they worked away with their teeth! And the puppies, who had the tender chicken-bones! Presently, when that course was finished, a miscellaneous collection of crusts and pickings was distributed, and then came the chief joint—the leg of mutton. How their eyes glistened, how their great red tongues licked their mouths in anticipation. As dogs despise knives, Hugo decided, after some hesitation, to let each one worry the joint while he counted ten, the turn to go by priority of breed and station. I was surprised to learn that they had a strict code of precedence and caste distinctions as minute as you ever heard of. The joint was soon gone. It was wonderful to see the way they tore off the flesh while Hugo gravely counted ten. As an instance of the loving generosity of the race, it may be mentioned that a poor old collie, whose teeth were almost gone, was unanimously awarded a large strip of meat torn off by Hugo, to be eaten at leisure! The pot of gravy was eagerly lapped up, and the only other liquid refreshment was water, all the gentlemen carrying little round tins of the liquid in their teeth to the ladies. Before this was done I produced a flask of good old Scotch, and obtained Hugo’s permission to flavour—just flavour, you know, the water with it. He said they were strictly temperate as a rule—but this was Christmas time—he had no great objection, and so on. The spirits had a great effect upon the bow-wows. Their eyes sparkled, their ears cocked up, and the conversation at once became more general and more animated. When the dancing was announced, loud barks of approval were heard on all sides, and all the young fellows secured the best partners.

While they were promenading the room on their hind legs, Hugo came to me with an air of perplexity which wrinkled up his broad forehead. “We’re in a fix,” he said, “a dog of our acquaintance who has great musical tastes, tastes of no mean order, indeed, has not turned up. The fact is,” he continued, with some hesitation, “he—he travels about the country and turns an organ while his master beats the drum. It appears he is much hurt at being asked to bring his instrument. It wounded his dignity. A dog of delicate sensibilities. Very delicate, indeed.”

“If that’s the trouble, friend Hugo,” I replied, “say no more! I play a little on the piccolo myself, and brought it with me in case it should be of use,”

So while I played they danced, oh! so comically! They had a polka and then a waltz, dancing the latter on all fours, the partners revolving round each other with delightful gravity. Fired by the excitement, added to certain libations from the tin pannikin, Mickey, the Irish terrier, volunteered a real Irish jig, which he gave amid immense enthusiasm. Not to be outdone, a young Collie followed with a Scotch reel, after which refreshments were served (sweets for the ladies) and biscuits, scraps, &c.

Hugo remarked that it was getting late and they must indulge in a final howl and take their leave. First of all, however, he thanked me for coming round, and said some very handsome things about the way I had supported their fight for liberty from the obnoxious muzzle. [Applause.] Thank God, he said, they had thrown off the yoke, they had rid them of the muzzles for ever.

A sudden thought came into my mind. “Is it possible, ladies and gentlemen,” I cried, “that you know not the news?”

“What news?” growled the Danes, and all perked up their heads in alarm.

“Why, don’t you know that the Board of Agriculture has issued an order requiring all dogs to be muzzled in public places? That order, alas! applies to nearly all England, and will commence with the new year!”

Never saw I such happiness changed to suddenly to dismay and gloom. All sorts of wild schemes were proposed, and one bold deerhound suggested that they should march in a body through the land and devastate the towns en route.

At last Hugo stilled the confusion with a deep chest note, and said:

“Alas! my children, there is no help for it. You must submit. Now go home quietly. This is a sorry ending to our Christmas party. Good bye.”

Obedient to the word of command, they all slunk home, a sorrowful set of dogs, with their tails between their legs and their heads hanging down. Who will relieve them of this dreadful incubus?

A sorry ending to a Christmas party, indeed. Not all Christmas tales have a happy ending. I shall think with pity of these poor Victorian dogs, and delight in the freedom to walk my dog, muzzle-free, through the town.

Citation:

"A Strange Christmas Party," Essex Newsman, 31 Dec 1889, p. 3, col. 7-8; digital images, British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 6 Dec 2020), Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Amanuensis Monday: Christmas on the Farm (part 1)

I can’t believe it. I can not believe it. After all these years…

I have always been a festive person, of the type who not only doesn’t mind, but actually enjoys hearing Christmas carols and seeing tinsel and holly long before Thanksgiving. So it should come as no surprise that I spent a portion of yesterday watching holiday videos on YouTube. With a renewed interest, I watched histories and recipes regarding a traditional English Christmas. I contemplated attempting a plum pudding, despite having never seen one in person, and was fascinated with the game of “snapdragon,” in which children snatch raisins from flaming brandy. To any British readers, this may seem a natural and ordinary part of Christmas, but to a plain Oregonian like me, it seems exotic and frightening. I wondered how my British ancestors celebrated Christmas and whether they had ever played snapdragon. I thought about Aunt Elsie’s typescript, remembering that she had written “My Christmas book is separate form this one,” and I wished that such a book actually existed.

Yesterday, when I should have been strapping on my face mask and heading to the mall to finish up my Christmas shopping, I opened up my cedar chest and began flipping through the family files that Dad and I had hurriedly organized a few months ago, with the intention of scanning some of the more interesting items. And I did. I found some of my grandpa’s Army records, including his discharge papers, which I will examine more closely later. I found the pages torn from the Wade family Bible. I found the missing Civil War pension papers for Allen C. Wade. And then I found about a gazillion copies of Elsie’s typescript, all bound. (I will finally be able to make sure the pages of my copy of the typescript are in order!)

Curiously, only one of the bound volumes was in the blue cover I remembered. The rest had red covers. I opened one up, and a chill ran up my spine.

CHRISTMAS ON THE FARM WHEN I WAS A SMALL CHILD

read the first line. Was this truly the missing Christmas book? I read on… and on… and on. I closed the book with an exhaled “huh!” and a chuckle. I had actually found it. The lost Christmas book really did exist.

Naturally, the next step is to transcribe it. The same policies I used for the original typescript will apply to this one, namely:

• I intend to retain all of Elsie’s original spelling and punctuation except in the case when it is an obvious typographical error or when the meaning becomes unclear. Most of the manuscript was typed with the caps lock turned on, so the choices in capitalization are mine.
• Elsie used few titles or divisions in her manuscript. All titles (i.e. title of the blog), except those included in the text, are my own. The divisions will be at my discretion and seldom original to the manuscript.
• The original typescript was just that: a typescript. I hope to sometimes include relevant pictures. Any comment or caption to a picture is my own, and not original to the manuscript.
• Once or twice there are stories or names that would not measure up to today’s standards. Remember, this was nearly a century ago, when people had different notions about what was and wasn’t acceptable. I do not believe in revising history to suit modern tastes. This does not imply approval of the old attitudes, but rather an idea that we cannot deny our past and must be able to face what we were in order to move forward.

Now I will present the first couple of pages.

Christmas on the farm when I was a small child

Elsie Crocker

This farm was located ten miles from Boise Idaho and six miles from Meridian Idaho. Right in the middle of the fertile valley of Boise, Idaho. The place my dad had been looking for.

This ranch was called “Shaw’s and Dorr’s Orchard”. It was owned by two families, that lived in Boise. They visited the ranch often. They each had a family. The Dorr’s had a boy my age. The Shaw’s had a girl, whose name was Inez Shaw, whom my sister Inez was named for.

We stayed on this ranch for five years. We had a new house and all the necessaries when we moved in. They had a well dug and had it run by a motor. This was great, lots of nice pure water to drink. It was used for the animals and gardens.

Dad had hired men to help build the sheds, barn, and pig pen. We had two horses, one cow whose name was Queenie. One horse was coal black, his name was “Nig” The other horse was named Dick He was a pretty roan, with a white star on his forehead. Dick was a high spirited, but Nig was slow and easy. My mother thought Dick had a lot of “spunk”

We finally got turkeys, chickens, a couple of pigs, and our first big black and white dog, which we all loved. We called him Blackie, he would wake us up every morning.

Dad planted all kinds of fruit trees. The trees were small, so we had to wait a few years for their fruit.

Dad’s real job was to plant eighty acres of prune trees.

We finally got a root cellar where we kept our milk, eggs and fruit cool. The summers in Idaho were very hot Things spoiled fast in the heat. We never had an ice box, refrigerators were unheard of.

We felt fortunate to have a real nice house to live in. Lots of good pure water to use anyway we needed. Good rich soil to grow vegetables, chickens for all the eggs, we needed, and Queenie to give us milk and enough to feed the animals. Milk to drink and whipping cream for cakes and goodies. Yes we made our candy and pop corn balls. Money was scarce but money isn’t everything, Dad would say. We had each other and we were very happy.

Dad liked to see things grow, therefore we always had a lot of vegetables and flowers. Dad always planted violets close to Mothers bedroom window, she loved the scent of violets and always did.

Dad would plant a lot of popcorn between the rows of squash, pumpkins, and melons. The summers are real hot and dry just the right for growing melons. Oh! How good they are right off the vine. We had enough to share with neighbors and school friends.

We dried the popcorn on a spread out canvas or by twisting the tops together and hung up by the tops on a nail in the woodshed.

The popcorn had to be real dry to pop good. The ones that didn’t pop we called “old maids”. I think we still call them that.

My brothers and I had to shell the popcorn. We’d take two ears and rub them together. After the first kernels loosened up the others would come off easy. You had to be careful shelling the corn, because the popcorn had sharp points as sharp as a needle. That’s the way we could tell the popcorn from the regular corn. I think they have popcorn different now, without points.

A few days before Christmas we would pop a lot of corn getting ready to take it to school, where we would thread it with cranberries to make garlands. We used a needle and a strong thread. The red and white was very pretty.

Our tree wasn’t fir or noble as we have now. These kind of trees were scarce in Idaho. They had a few shipped in. I suppose they have all kinds there now.

The school was a one room school with all eight grades one teacher for all eight grades. My brothers went there with me or I with them. It was nice to have some help making our decorations, from the older students.

Our school Christmas tree was one the older boys, cut from the vacant lot next to the school house This tree was a willow or a shrub bush, no matter we loved it just the same.

We made ring chains and cranberry and popcorn garlands. We made other ornaments out of what ever we had to work with. The teacher had a beautiful honeycomb big bell in the middle of the room. She kept this always for the next Christmas. It was snowy white.

We would make paper doll strings, folding the paper many times and cutting a string of paper dolls, and holding hands.

Of course we had to clean out our desks to be all clean for Christmas.

This was a special day!

 

This is one of two photos in my collection showing the actual schoolroom Elsie describes. Elsie is sitting in the front row, closest to the camera, wearing a white dress. Walter is in the front row closest to the teacher, wearing overalls. Bill is, from the camera's perspective, directly in front of Walter, in the second row, also wearing overalls.

 

I will arbitrarily end there, as this memoir is difficult to divide into chapters. 

 

To continue with the next installment of Elsie's Christmas book, click here.

Citation:

Elsie Crocker, "Christmas on the Farm when I was a Small Child" (typescript, 1990); copy in possession of Amber Brosius, 2020.

52 Ancestors Week 20: Travel

This prompt is a week late, and there is a substantial gap since the last post. Although this quarantine theoretically provides more time, it has been hard to establish a routine. (It’s hard even to remember which day of the week it is.) In addition to that—or perhaps because of that—I have been finding most of the prompts uninspiring. An idea may spring to mind, but then I realize either that it has already been written about, or that there is a lack of information to support my ideas. However, this theme of “Travel” brings definite ideas to mind, and ones on which it is currently quite pleasant to dwell. Aren’t we all longing to travel?

Last summer my parents and I took a road trip to eastern Washington state and into the Idaho panhandle, and the previous year we took a similar trip farther south. In the summer of 1911 my great-grandfather, John S. Brosius, also took a trip to Idaho, and saw some of the same country that we would see over a hundred years later. His impressions were reported in the Sedan Times-Star upon his return to Kansas.

Reading that article, it is clear that he and I were looking through very different eyes. I was looking for beauty in the landscape and novelty in the sights. John S. Brosius was looking through the eyes of a farmer, judging the possibilities of planting, plowing, and harvesting. “The farms are mere hilltops… and a team must be driven corkscrew fashion around the hills. No team could begin to pull a load straight up the hill or hold it back going down,” he says of the land around Weiser, where he visited John Walker, Ben Steinweden, “and other Chautauquans,” relocated there from John Brosius’ own home of Chautauqua county, Kansas.

My memories of the Weiser area are of a cute Old Town containing a decent music store and an offbeat furniture store, among other things, in the midst of picturesque velvety hills. To me, the rounded hills contributed to the charm of the place, and their steepness entered my mind only as adding a gratifying briskness to a jaunt, had I been given the opportunity to climb them. To me they appeared quite gentle. 

John S. Brosius lamented that “he does not believe the Snake river country, where many are taking claims, will be irrigated for years and years if it ever is.” I cannot speak to whether it has been irrigated in the last 110 years, although I suspect it has, because we drove over a dam, but the Hell’s Canyon area must have looked much like it looked to Great-Grandpa. While I admired the landscape, my mom’s comments were more reminiscent of John’s, if expressed in different terms. “It’s too dry,” she complained.

“Mr. Brosius says the Blackfoot country looked better to him than any other part of Idaho,” offered the Sedan Times-Star, but “He would not live there, he says, on account of the dust. It is something awful.” My family’s road trips did not extend quite so far to the east. I will be curious to one day compare my impressions of that area to my great-grandfather’s.



Here is a transcription of the entire article of John S. Brosius’ unflattering description of Idaho:

BACK TO SUNNY KANSAS
IDAHO’S LURE TOO WEAK TO TO HOLD JOHN BROSIUS.
SEES MANY DEFECTS THERE
“Corkscrew Farming” on Western Idaho’s Hills Has No Attraction for Him—Back Here to Stay.

John Brosius returned this week from a trip to Idaho and the northwest and that he very much prefers Kansas to that country is very evident from his conversation. He saw most of the Chautauqua colony in Idaho and says that nearly all of them, if not all, are satisfied and happy. But as for him, he will stay right here at Sedan. The lure of the west is not strong enough to pull him away.

Mr. Brosius visited John Walker, Ben Steinweden and other Chautauquans over near Weiser, iin the west part of Idaho. He found them happy and well although he says he would not like to farm such land. The farms are mere hilltops, he says and a team must be driven corkscrew fashion around the hills. No team could begin to pull a load straight up the hill or hold it back going down. The land is so steep that the grain is hard to harvest. Yet it produces good crops. Mr. Steinweden says he “cussed” his farm when he first went there but now he admits he “would not trade it for half of Chautauqua county.” Mr. Walker raised quite a lot of fruit last year but had difficulty in selling it as under the Idaho law fruit that is damaged cannot be sold at anything like a full price.

Mr. Brosius says the Blackfoot country looked better to him than any other part of Idaho. He would not live there, he says, on account of the dust. It is something awful. He found Chautauquans there doing well for the most part, although some of them are still hunting work.

As a whole, however, Mr. Brosius saw many drawbacks to the Idaho country. For instance, he does not believe the Snake river country, where many are taking claims, will be irrigated for years and years if it ever is. He says the farmers over at the other side of the state are likewise crying for water right now and can hardly get enough for any purpose. The whole country, he says, has a man for every job and in most cases, several men for every job. Some of the last delegation to Blackfoot are still out of work while others are in the beet sugar plant which will run only until Dec. 1. Mr. Brosius saw many men on the trains coming out of Idaho and most of them had, like himself, concluded that other countries were just as good if indeed not much better.

Citation:

"Back to Sunny Kansas," Sedan Times-Star, 7 Sep 1911, p. 1, col. 4; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020), World Collection.

52 Ancestors Week 15: Fire

The Stroesser home, at 417 N. 40th, Omaha, Nebraska.

The first thought that came to mind upon seeing the prompt "Fire" was of the burning of the Hoyt house in 1948, but I already wrote about that for "Disaster" in Week 9. So this week I am going for a more lighthearted approach. (With what is going on in the world right now, I'm not exactly in the mood to write about my 2great-grandmother who burned to death.) I'll write about a different sense of the word fire. This post will be about the time that shots were fired at my Stroesser great-grandparents' house. That would be Harry and Mary Stroesser of Omaha, Nebraska.

Shots in the Night Send Watch to Jail

A shot pierced the stillness of the early morning hours in front of the home of Harry Stroesser, 417 North Fortieth street, Friday. Stroesser awakened, saw a man staggering towards the rear of his yard. Then came another shot. Police were notified.

William Pickens, block watchman living at 2014 Farnam street, was found near Thirty-first and Farnam streets, his revolver showing four empty shells which had recently been discharged. Pickens was charged with drunkeness and discharging firearms in the city.

Luckily the firing of these shots seems to have had no negative consequences, apart from the legal charges against the intoxicated shooter, which seems only reasonable.

If the newspaper article were the only source to share for this event, it would be interesting enough. But there may be more. In 2002, I received a copy of the oral history as remembered by one of my cousins, a grandchild of Harry and Mary Stroesser. An incident, heard second-hand, is recalled in that typescript. It is possible, but probably not provable, that the information given in the newspaper article is only part of the story. There may have been more to the story, which would have been inappropriate to share with the authorities at the time.

The date of the newspaper article was 26 Aug 1933, about three months before the repeal of Prohibition. "With...prohibition the rule of the day, Grandpa turned to a form of bootlegging," my cousin reveals. 

Aunt Clara’s husband Tudd Hill says he remembers a still in the basement at the family home at 417 North 40th Street, but he says Grandpa never sold the drink. He would trade it or serve to his friends who came over for hours of cribbage in the basement, while Grammy stayed in the kitchen with the kids.

My dad (Joe) remembers men coming to the side window at night and sneaking away in the darkness. One man while sneaking away, bumping into the tire swing in the backyard and, thinking it was someone apprehending him, shot the tire with his pistol.

Could this be the real story behind the drunk block watchman firing shots outside the Stroesser house? His inebriated condition could be the logical conclusion of an evening of cribbage and bathtub liquor. The friendship between the shooter and Harry Stroesser might have caused them to change a fact or two around for the authorities: i.e. say that he was approaching the house rather than leaving it, so as not to implicate Harry as a possible source of the alcohol in his system.

Of course, this is all pure speculation on my part. I have no proof, and scarcely any evidence, that the incident reported in the newspaper and that recalled by my cousin are the same. It does seem unlikely, however, that there would have been two such similar events. But if there were, it only adds to this week's prompt of "fire," with more shots fired!

52 Ancestors Week 14: Water

Grandpa Red, Vinis Brosius, spent a lot of time in the water. My dad mentioned to me the other evening that he remembers Lowell (Red's brother) telling him that Red had been a champion diver at (he thinks it was) Vancouver Pool. I myself remember hearing that Red used to high dive at Jantzen Beach Amusement Park, a much beloved icon of Portland's past. Although I have seen no photos of either of these accomplishments, there are photos of him in his swimsuit, playing on the beach with his brother and future wife and in-laws.

Lowell Brosius, Inez Underwood, Elsie (Underwood) Jones, Red Brosius, Flora (Amos) Underwood.
This would be Red with his brother and future (or current, depending on the date this photo was taken) sisters- and mother-in-law.

There are also stories of the time he saved a man from drowning in the Clackamas River. Once my dad showed me a newspaper clipping of that heroic event, but subsequent requests to see it again have resulted in the discovery that no one knew where it was anymore.

Until just the other day.

My dad opened up a box we had thought filled with photos, only to find stacks of letters, documents, charts, and more. The two of us spent a few hours rapidly sorting them into folders. Many of the items turned out to be things I have been seeking, such as the newspaper clipping about Grandpa's rescue, while others were things I didn't even know existed. It will be a pleasure to thoroughly examine each and every page later, but for now I can finally share that story.

I don't know in which newspaper the article originated, but I imagine it was the Oregon Journal, because I have been unable to find it in the Oregonian archives. However, this clipping most conveniently preserves the date: Friday, August 28, 1931. It also consistently misspells Grandpa's name as Vinas.

While Vinas Brosius, 6105 73d avenue and Aaron Babcock, 75th avenue and 63d street were swimming in the Clackamas river near the fish hatchery last Sunday they did some good rescue work in saving the life of a man named Fred Wilson, about 25 years old. Vinas first saw the man go down, went to where he was and brought him to the waters edge and called Aaron to assist him in taking him out of the water. Others assistance was summoned and the man was soon restored to normal. Vinas and Aaron are both about 16 years old.

This story is slightly different than I remember it. As I recall, it happened near High Rocks, a few miles downriver from the fish hatchery, and involved diving from a bridge. According to Dad, there were actually a couple of rescues that appeared in newspaper clippings, and perhaps it is the other one that I am recollecting. My quick search through the folder of papers we sorted out for Grandpa did not locate another article, but the folder is rather thick and it is possible I passed it without knowing. It is also possible that in our fast-paced sorting we accidentally mis-filed it, and I may later find it in someone else's folder.