CHRISTMAS MEMORIES
FROM DODDRIDGE COUNTY
PART – 2
DODDRIDGE COUNTY COURTHOUSE
Christmas is past and New Year’s Day is around the corner. Last week’s article on Christmas memories in Doddridge County was a great success. I received numerous calls and messages telling me how much they enjoyed reading about other Doddridge Countians Christmas memories that it made them begin to remember past Christmases of their own.
I have received so many stories to tell that I decided to include a few more of them this week. Again, I am not including their names to protect their privacy.
The Search For Hidden Treasures
Our next story is about two young boys who went on a quest to find their gifts without the knowledge of their parents.
“My older brother and I were quite explorers as youths. This one year we made it our mission to find where our parents had hidden our presents.
We had already outgrown the Santa Claus thing. Our mother had tried to keep the story alive without telling a lie. She said that Santa was alive as long as he was alive in our hearts and our memories. We knew that just meant the truth was that there was no Santa and that was that.
We decided that we were going to find our gifts, if indeed, they had gotten us anything. We searched the basement and all the expected locations that they could be. Then, my brother said that the hall closet was locked and that it wasn’t normally locked. That had to be the place where they were being kept.
‘I can get in,’ I told him.
‘How?’ said my brother.
‘I can pick the lock. I’ve seen it on television. I can do it.’ I said confidently.
‘Okay. Do it.” He replied.
It was not as easy as I thought it would be, but in a few minutes, I had it opened and sure enough, there were the presents. We had a look and as we had hoped, we did indeed get the gifts we had asked Santa for.
You can bet on Christmas Day; we were the greatest performers you ever witnessed as we acted so surprised and happy with everything. Our parents never knew that we checked things out every year after that.
In hindsight, that first year as I explored the entire house with my brother, we had become a real team and the bond we developed only grew through the years.
He’s gone now, but that year was the greatest Christmas I ever had.
CHRISTMAS IN THE 1950S
No Place For The Tree
This last story is such a unique one that I saved it for last. The person who told this story was about eight years old at the time.
As most of you know, the times in Appalachia have been hard for its residents in the past and are still difficult for many today. They often had large families and a very small house in which to raise them. Such was the case for the following family. Her beautiful sky-blue eyes glittered with happiness at the recollection:
She began, “Like everyone else on our road, we were dirt-poor. There were ten of us kids and mom-and-pop living in a two-bedroom house that only had a kitchen woodstove and one in the small living room. It got pretty cold in the winter and the Christmas I’m talking about was an unusually cold one.
Christmas was almost upon us, and we knew we weren’t going to get any gifts, but we really enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree with homemade decorations. We made the garland out of old newspapers that we had gotten from some of the neighbors. (We couldn’t afford to buy the newspapers.)
This was our first Christmas in the small house. We had moved from the large 2-story farmhouse up on the hill that summer. My father had become very ill, and we needed to be closer to our grandfather if my father needed to be rushed to the hospital in Clarksburg.
At any rate, my older brothers were always the designated tree fetchers. We never gave it a thought, but we would have our tree as we had always had in the past.
However, our mother had to break the news to us that there simply was no room for a Christmas tree in the small living room. Our father’s sickbed took up a great deal of the space.
We, the kids, were disappointed, to say the least. No gifts and no tree. It wasn’t going to be a very good Christmas for us, we all thought quietly but didn’t say it out loud.
It was about then that our oldest brother, Ray, came up with this brilliant idea to have a tree decorated outside. We were ecstatic at the idea. The project Christmas tree was on. Now we simply had to find a location to put it up.
Why we chose to put that Christmas tree up where we did, I’ll never know. But we proudly placed our tree inside the now empty hog pen. (The hogs were butchered that fall.)
All ten of us children went to work making all sorts of fine ornaments and garlands. We even cut some old handmade candles into small pieces and used them for the lights.
I believe it was the most beautiful Christmas tree I ever saw. That tree was made with good ‘ole’ Doddridge County ingenuity and the teamwork of some of the richest poor kids in the county. It was the best Christmas I ever had.”
Mother’s Last Christmas
I want to add this Christmas memory as my own. It was always noisy at my parents’ home on Christmas Eve. There are six children listed here in birth order: Ray, Jane, Joe, Mary, me (Patty), and David. Between us, we had thirteen grandchildren for our parents to love and dote upon, which they did often. The grandchildren’s names are Ray III, Tina Jo, Eric, Janet Lee, Elaine, Jimmy, my son Danny Carl (deceased), Leann, my son Harlen, David Lee, Justin, Cody, and Rosanna.
Our mother was not going to see another Christmas and we all knew it, as did she, I believe. Still, she wanted to look nice, and we changed her bed gown for a beautiful red silk blouse. We laughed and gave her our precious gifts as though we had a lifetime to enjoy her smile. I gave her a gold locket that held a photograph of her and my father on their wedding day.
It was a wonderful, beautiful Christmas. She died a few months later. I buried the locket with her.
THE RICHARDS FAMILY
Don’t forget to hold your loved ones close this holiday season. Hold them like it might be your last opportunity because it just could be.
God Bless and Merry Christmas
Patricia Richards Harris