We left Pawhuska in early October of that year and moved to Alba to live with my grandparents. I was 7 and brother Bob was 3.
I had started in the second grade in Pawhuska and before the school year was over I had attended five schools.
I attended the fourth school for two weeks before we moved to the fifth school. The Great Depression had started but I’m not sure my family would have used the word, “Great.”
We lived with my maternal grandparents to learn the “ins and out” of the general grocery store.
Dad had never lost a job before and this had to be very difficult for him.
My memory, however, has nothing to do with sadness or difficulties. I loved living with my grandmother and visiting with my favorite cousin, June.
We were living in Golden City during Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember both of those holidays.
I see in my mind’s eye grandmother plucking the feathers from the goose we were having for our Christmas dinner.
She told me about her childhood and the death of her mother and baby sister when she was 10. I treasured her stories and being the dramatic young girl that I was I cried when I should have and laughed at the other times.
I remember that Christmas very well. I am not sure why it stands out so loud in my memories.
Cousin June and her family joined us and for the first time my brother and I hung stockings.
We had a fireplace for the only time in our childhood. We had rented a vacant hotel building and had our store and living quarters in the first floor of the building. Christmas Eve night, June, Bob and I slept on the floor next to the room with the fireplace.
The two rooms were divided by sliding doors and during the day we played elevator. That night, however, grandmother told us a story and told us to go to sleep.
And when she caught us peeking between the two doors she told us that good little boys and girls would not do what we were doing.
The next memory is of June, Bob and I being out of doors and my watching her play with her new doll and doll carriage. I have no memory of what I received.
But I do have warm fuzzy feelings about that time.
It was in the early 1970s that mother came for Christmas. And we swapped family stories as we always did. Mother began talking about the Golden City Christmas and when she talked of the Christmas event she began crying.
She told of not having the money to give us the gifts she wanted to and how she felt when she saw June’s presents.
I was stunned!
I, quickly, told her of my pleasant memories I had of that time and I never thought about the gifts of that year.
I told her everything I remembered and how I treasured the stories from grandmother. She looked at me in amazement.
It had never occurred to her that being with family had brought joy to me and we both realized that we shared the feelings of family togetherness in the same way.
I learned a vital Christmas lesson. I learned how parents often make gift giving the important aspect of that event and how we are called to plant the real message.
I learned that we need to live the “real” Christmas for us and our children. All of the people in that Christmas are gone with the exception of Bob and me.
June was two years younger than I and she died five years ago. I miss her. Bob and I have one cousin, Margaret, still living.
We miss our Missouri family. We are both in touch with Lynn who is the daughter of our late cousin, Dixie.
Dixie lived to be in her 90s.
I am so glad to have been able to share, with mother, my memories about that Golden City Christmas.
It is one of my favorite memories of my Missouri family.
Christmas can build memories for us. I wish for you the joy of remembering some of your Christmases past and are aware that you are helping the young ones in your family to do the same.
Christmas is more than wrapped gifts although that has become a real part of it.
I haven’t always, in my adult years, had that message in my heart.
Well, it’s never too late and I’m living that message this year.
Happy Memories to you and yours!
Wyrick is a Sharpsburg resident and a regular columnist for this newspaper |
