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Archiver > APPALACHIAN-LIFE > 2004-12 > 1104092094


From: "charles friedly" <>
Subject: Re: [AppalLife] The weather is simply frightful.....
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 15:14:54 -0500
References: <20041225.123449.1372.4.askgranny@juno.com> <000d01c4eb72$871adbe0$0f6494ce@computer>


Carson,

After reading your message, I had to stop and reminisce and of course cry a
little at the memories it brought back. The memories of how I overheard my
stepfather say to my mother just before an early 1930s Christmas; "Did you
get anything for her"? She answered; "Yes". I don't know why that stuck
in my mind all these years but it has. I know they could have put the money
to a better use, but they didn't.

When my daughter came along much later, of course they doted on her and
there never was a better Granddaddy and MomMom and they wanted to keep her
at their house and they did part of the time while my husband and I worked.

I don't remember too much about early Christmases except the time I found my
Santa Claus things in a closet in a room we did not use. I was sorry I was
so nosy.
I know we had a live cedar tree each year with no lights because we had no
electricity and probably could not have afforded to buy them anyway.

One year in the 1930s, we got a battery operated radio from Montgomery Ward
and that was a big present for all three of us. It had more than one
battery and when one ran down, you had to buy another one. No recharging in
those days. I think some radios ran off of a battery similar to those in
cars and they may have been rechargeable. Maybe someone else remembers.

Well, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and will have a prosperous and
Happy New Year.

Maxine

----- Original Message -----
From: "oldtimer" <>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [AppalLife] The weather is simply frightful.....


> Jeanne,
> In answer to your question about hurricane damage I have finally gotten
> everything repaired and back in place, I skimped on repairs and got by on
> the check that the insurance company sent me rather than hassle with them
> for more I just wanted to get it over with, now I look forward to the
> hefty
> increase in my home owners insurance, life goes on. There are quite a few
> over the state that have not repaired their homes and are still haggling
> with the Ins.
> companies and some homes were completely destroyed, so I guess I should be
> thankful that I'm not in that category.
>
> As for the way I remember celebrating Christmas I came from a large
> family,
> my father
> worked in the coalmines in Lee County, VA. and Harlan County, KY. for 30
> years he
> died from black lung disease at the age of 61.
> From the early thirties into the early forties which covers my younger
> days
> our family
> just barley got by from week to week but my parents always managed to
> scratch up
> enough money from some where on Christmas to make it a memorial day for us
> children. My sisters always got a doll and sometimes a dish set would be
> added.
> As for me I always got a cap gun with holster, after all what's a cap gun
> without a holster
> to show off and act like Tom Mix, Tex Ritter, and the rest?
> At the age of ten or twelve ?? I begged my dad and mother for a 22 Rifle
> for
> Christmas, I
> seen it in the Spiegel mail order catalog...probably while sitting on the
> throne in the outhouse...
> I guess my months of begging paid off, A rifle size box lay under the
> cedar
> Christmas tree on
> Christmas morning and I opened it to gaze at a Mossberg 22 Rifle. Can you
> see that happening
> today?
> I reckon the parents would be sent off to jail. But nothing bad ever
> happened to me because of the
> cap guns or the rifle, I would trudge the woods hunting squirrels and
> shoot
> at rabbits in the sage
> grass fields, didn't have much success bagging either one but had a lot of
> fun. Packing cap guns and later
> a 22 Rifle never caused me to do anything on the bad side in fact I
> believe
> acting and pretending to be
> Tom,Tex, Ken.Crash Corrigan, and all the rest up to and including John
> Wayne
> who became my hero
> in my later years set me in stone to always line up with the good guys.
> But back to Christmas in the thirties I guess the biggest thrill was when
> I
> would go with my dad to the
> Penn Lee Coal Company annual Christmas party that they put on for the
> miners
> and their families.
> I will never forget the large brown grocery bags, we called them pokes
> filled with oranges apples, nuts,
> and candy, passed out by a miner in a Santa Claus suit, not one bag per
> family mind you, but one bag for
> each child in the family which meant several bags or pokes HA! went to my
> family it was the highlight of
> Christmas.Compared to today and the gifts that most children receive it
> would amount to zero and mean
> little to them, but back there in the thirties never did so little mean so
> much, but sadly that time is in our past
> and little by little as the years roll by is slipping from our memories
> taking the appreciation and true meaning of
> Christmas with it. Happy New Year to all of you. Carson



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