Christmas traditions

[TC Chris]

My Dad used to tell us about hearing Madame Schumann-Heinke sing "Silent Night" on the radio every Christmas eve. I didn't really believe him until the internet came along and we could look things up easily. Turns out he was right. Wikipedia says this:

"In 1926, she first sang Stille Nacht (Silent Night) (in both German and English) over the radio for Christmas. This became a Christmas tradition with US radio listeners through Christmas of 1935."

It was a network event. Even in a small northern lower Michigan community, people could hear Madame Schumann-Heinke sing. Just a moment ago a public radio show on famous singers doing Christmas songs played a recording of her 1934 broadcast. Dad graduated from high school in 1935. It all fits. My grandfather's first radio, so far as I know, was a Radiola 17 (1927). I've still got it. That's likely what they heard her sing on. Then Grandpa bought an Airline 62-167 (1935), a big console. I'll bet Dad heard her last broadcast on that one. Still have that one too.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

On Thanksgiving Day, when all the family was assembled for the annual feast, we would all hop on a sled that grandpa and Uncle Fort made especially for the occasion. It was basically a sled made on 6X6's for rails that had old church pews for seats. There would be as many as 30 people on that sled going to cut the "Santy Bush". It was too heavy for a tractor to pull it, particularly if the ground was thawing or slick. But Grandpa's team of Percheron mares would pull it like it wasn't there. The two lead mares weighed 2300 pounds apiece, the two "girls" the two trailing mares, weighed 2100 pounds apiece. They all had four wheel drive, so they would pull way more than a tractor. Grandpa would spend a week getting those mares all gussied up for the occasion. He had fancy harness. He would cut and curry their hair. They had tufts over their feet that he would trim just so. He put lamp black on their hoofs. Their hair was long and curly in the winter. We would drink hot chocolate and sing Christmas carols on the journey to the "Monon 40" to cut the tree. Uncle Fort would cut it with a crosscut saw. We would drag it over the ground on the way home. We set the tree up at the "big house" the house grandpa and his siblings were born and raised in. Aunt Helen still lived there and would host the Christmas festivities. There was a high-ceiling parlor in the big house that would accomodate a 12 foot tree. Great memories of a simpler time.... Thanks for sharing your memories, Chris.

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

Thanks guys for such evocative histories from your
families.

As I get older, I find more and more truth to the addage:
"In the End, all you have are memories".

And I know having memories of all kinds is very
human.

[TC Chris]

It's really easy to long for the good old days; we sometimes forget that life was harder then as well as different. Here's a link to a memory of life as a child at a lighthouse about 30 mi. north of me at the very end of the Leelanau Peninsula. It's actually still pretty remote but in the 1920s it was much more so. And for the seasonal holiday in the darkest days of the year, being remote is actually an attractive notion. So check this out if you want to read a 1920s memory of Christmas:

https://mynorth.com/2021/12/a-1920s-chr ... cf7812e914

Just remember that they lacked electric lights, central heating, running and heated water, and indoor bathroom facilities. But check out the photo of that sturdy structure that still stands there, built in the days when public buildings were supposed to be a source of pride and an example of serious work.

Chris Campbell

[William]

Thanks for sharing, Chris.

Bill

[Firedome]

Wonderful memories of traditions and life past. My own are rather ordinary, probably typical of most suburban post-war kids in the '50s, big department stores with elaborate displays and visiting Santa there, I guess even that is a fading practice now. One unusual memory is of our Scotch pine tree with it's fluted C-6 bulbs, when I tell our kids that tinsel back then was really tin and lead they are amazed that was even allowed.

My Mom's family were dairy farmers on a hillside farm in central Vermont and I enjoyed hearing stories of her visiting my Grandmother's people in the '20s/30s/40s/50s. Some of the family are still there. Mom's cousin Arthur was the last to farm with 20 Jersey cows. When I was a kid visiting he still pitched loose hay up the elevator and into the mow for the winter, I think he did finally get a square baler but cows were on pasture as long as grass was growing then. Some pastures were usually so rocky that plowing them was difficult so little corn was grown on hill farms, and would have to be "bought in". He sent his milk in cans via the train to Boston but when the state mandated refrigerated bulk tanks he sold most of the cows and went to work as a mechanic at the small town VW dealer. VWs were actually popular there because they were well made, good in snow, and above all... cheap. Vermonters are notoriously creative at reusing things and living on little. The old saying there is. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!" SAABs were also popular, it was not at all unusual to see a tiny SAAB garage in small rural towns in New England.

Arthur's childless brother Clyde and his wife lived across the street from the family 1880s farmhouse in a small apt above a wooden garage with 2 gas pumps that he ran from 1922 to about 1968, from the Model T and Model A era to late Postwar. I still have the plaque that Texaco awarded him in 1947 for 25 years of service and a sign off his pump. My late Uncle Don who recently died got a lot of the old Ford stuff when Clyde died in the early 80s. They all heated and cooked with wood then and made their own maple syrup in the wood-fired evaporator in the "sugar shack" that most hill farms had, a Vermont tradition to this day. Of course they cut their wood and Christmas trees from up on the hill, where the cows sometimes grazed only when the rocky pastures became sparse enough that they'd range up into the woods.

Not many hardscrabble hill farms left in Vermont, many eventually left for the Midwest where farming was easier, and the farms now remaining are mostly in the river or lake valleys and are much bigger. Some of the flatter pastures of my Grandparents farm became part of a golf course, sadly, but the old farmhouse is still there. One old VT Christmas tradition is "sugar on snow", where maple syrup is poured over a dish of snow making for a sweet home-grown holiday treat that's often accompanied by a mug of warmed hard cider with nutmeg and cloves. Arthur had a donkey cart that I rode in but his father had left the sleigh out behind the barn in the pasture where it had rotted beyond repair by my time.

[hermitcrab]

once you mentioned the name and song , I went and looked through my 78's ... sure enough I got the German version sung by her...

[TC Chris]

I just sent Firedome's Vermont memories to my brother who lives there.

Chris Campbell

[William]

I know Christmas is over, but, I came across this ad and thought of what Chris posted under "Christmas Traditions". I guess Madame Schumann-Heinke not only sang, but also advertised for Hoover. Be sure to read the ad.

https://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/pict_of_day.cgi

Bill

[TC Chris]

Wow,great ad! But maybe Ms. Schumann-Heinke should have suggested a Hoover plus a fun gift like some jewelry. Just a vacuum cleaner? Sounds like more work!

Odd that they chose an old person instead of a movie star. But last week I sent my family and friends a link to piece about the actress Marie Dressler. In the early 1930s, when she was in her 60s, she was Hollywood's biggest box-office draw. A few years earlier a studio magnate had rejected her because she was too old, and audiences only wanted the young and beautiful. She proved 'em wrong. My favorite is "Dinner at Eight" (1933). There's a scene in which she gives the young and beautiful Jean Harlow a little speech about life. At the time, Ms. Dressler was dying of cancer, and that scene is especially powerful.

Chris Campbell

[TC Chris]

Sorry about the underlining. I can't figure out how to make it stop.

Chris Campbell