Tell Me A Story: CHRISTMAS 1893 and 1915: THE SANTY CLAUS TRICK

Mary Marcia
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

Link: http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/2015/11/christmas-1893-and-1915-santy-claus.html

Ever wonder what Christmas was like for your mother or grandmother when they were children?

How about your father's or grandfather's Christmas memories?

Why not ask them before it's too late?

My Granny Lucille went to Heaven in 1990.
She was the single most important woman in my life, and I miss her. I have her photos, her glasses, her real fur cape, her desk and chair, her recipes...and I have her stories. I retell her stories to my children and grandchildren, and now to you.

Sometime in the 80's, I recorded Granny Lucille while she told me a Christmas story from her childhood. I wrote the story just as she told it in her own words with her quaint phrases. I didn't interrupt her storytelling, but I did ask questions at the end of her story - for clarification, and to get extra details.

I replayed the tape at home, stopping and starting the tape recorder, so I could type the words on my Smith-Corona typewriter.

Granny Lucille was born - as she always said - in Nineteen and Five. She remembered coming to Missouri in a covered wagon. She was married three times. The only grandfather I ever really knew and loved was Grandpa Ike Hargrove. They married in 1970 - the same year that I got married. They were married for 20 years.

Grandpa Ike signs the guest book at Marcia's wedding. Cousin Tandra is at the guest book. Granny Lucille (in the teal and white) stands between Grandpa Ike and Tandra. Tandra's other grandmother, Ethel (in red) and her Aunt Vera (nicknamed BOOB) are on the right. Copyright 1970 Marcia Norwood

I made copies of Granny Lucille's story, The Santy Claus Trick, in the 80's, and gave them to Granny as a gift. She mailed her story out to all her friends and family.

Kansas City Star published my guest editorial with Granny's story, The Santy Claus Trick, and her 1915 family photo for their Christmas edition.

It is with great JOY that I share Granny Lucille's story in her own words with you today.

It's a a story within a story which begins in 1915, and lets us peek inside Christmas 122 years ago...in 1893.

THE SANTY CLAUS TRICK

By Mary Lucille Hargrove

As Told To Her Granddaughter, Mary Marcia Lee Norwood

Marcia's Great-Grandparents: Marion and Kathryn Culbertson (center front) and fourteen of their children. Circa 1915. Marcia's Granny Lucille (10 years old) is in the right center just behind Kathryn, with ribbons in her hair.

      When I was a little girl, probably about ten or twelve years old...(about 1915) I got to believin' that there wasn't no Santy Claus. Some kids didn't know. Their folks didn't play Santy Claus trick on them, and they would like to tell the little kids, you know.

   Well, my mother really enjoyed Christmas. She worked for days preparing everything you could want to eat. She wanted to prove that there was a Santy because she had more fun out of it than they did!

   My mother, Kathryn Culbertson, had sixteen children. Fourteen of them lived until they were grown, and had their own families. Two of them died when they was babies.

     I was born in Nineteen and Five. I'm pretty close to the last bunch of kids she had, and when we got to believin' that there wasn't no Santy Claus, she told us this story about what happened to the older children. She said that they didn't believe in Santy until he came a-walkin' down the road!

     We said, "How was that, mother?"

     She told us our older brothers and sister put their shoes out Christmas Eve. There was Leland, Henry, Alfred, Goldie and Buck. His name was Stanley, but we called him Buck, like a buckin' bronco. He was a wild little kid.

     I suppose it was in 1893.

     Come Christmas morning there wasn't any presents around their shoes. They was all a-cryin' around, and wanted to know why they didn't have any Christmas.

     Mother said, "Since you don't believe in Santy, he didn't leave you any presents."

     Leland, Henry, Alfred, Goldie and Buck said: "You have our presents."

   "I haven't got none of your presents. Santy Claus brings the presents," Mom told them.

   "There ain't NO such thing as Santy Claus," they said.

   It was a warm morning, and they had a fire going in the house. They opened the door, 'cause it got so hot. Now they had a pet goat that they hitched up to a wagon that my dad, Marion Culbertson made. Something scared that pet goat, and he came through the screen door - right in the house.

thegraphicsfairy.com

     They all went to the porch to see what happened -- what he got scared at. Lo and behold - they seen Santy Claus comin' down the road with a sack on his back! They couldn't believe their eyes.

   And they said, "There must be a Santy Claus! Here comes old Santy Claus!"

     He came right in the house. He asked each of the children if they had been good boys and girls, and of course they said, "Yes!"

   My mom could hardly keep her mouth still. She wanted to tell him, "No!" but she didn't say nothing.

   So they began to talk to Santy Claus, and he talked to them. And when they called him Santy, he began to hand them out presents. Goldie got a great big, sleepy-eyed doll, and that was sure some present for her!

   Mom finished telling us us the story about what happened to the older children, so we believed in Santy Claus for another year or two, 'til some of the bigger kids at school would make fun of us. Then we decided that we knew there wasn't a Santy.

   But every Christmas there was always a Santy Claus at our house. There was always little one a-comin' on, and my mother still had somebody to play this trick on!"

Mary Lucille Hargrove

Thanks for stopping by!

Come back often, and invite a friend!

Mary Marcia
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking