Note: You can read the first set of stories here.
The Grays and the meaning of Christmas
We are all familiar with the saying, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Through my life I have experienced troubled times, but usually the event somehow gets changed around, and it becomes a happy experience.
The Depression Years in the larger Canadian cities and elsewhere during the 1930s affected everyone in one way or another. Some professional people managed to get along with a reduced income while tradesmen in our district were either on Working Men’s Relief or perhaps 10 days a month working for the Canadian Pacific Railway.
My Scottish parents had arrived in Winnipeg during the prosperous 1920s, with my father, a painter, being employed by the CPR. When the Depression years lasted longer than most people expected, the CPR kept a skeleton crew with their longest employees working 10 days in each month while the company maintained three daily shifts.
The newer employees, such as my father, were laid off.
There was very little help for anyone in Winnipeg until July 1931, when the federal government established Working Men’s Relief. In the meantime, most men and their families were trying to pick up odd jobs as they eked out a livelihood.
Once registered for Working Men’s Relief, my father worked in and around the city, doing whatever was required. In the summer of 1933, he was working at Polo Park.
During this period, my mom and we four youngsters returned to the city after enjoying a 10-day holiday at one of the Fresh Air Camps on Lake Winnipeg that were operated by the United Church or the Salvation Army, for under-privileged families.
My father met us at the CPR station, and I remembered seeing one of his eyes all inflamed and almost shut. It took no time for this itchy skin disease to spread to his entire body. Our family doctor at that time recognized and diagnosed his condition as Mustard Gas poisoning that had remained latent in his body from the First World War, until perhaps an insect had bitten him while working, and brought it all out.
With my dad unable to work, our family was taken off Working Men’s Relief and placed on Social Welfare. On Social Welfare, we did not receive the monthly vouchers for groceries, milk and bread as we had on Relief, but instead we were supplied basic food items such as dried peas and beans, delivered from T. Eaton grocery department.
We received a separate voucher for three pints of milk each day and very little bread. My mother received flour instead, and was able to bake wholesome bread, which we enjoyed.
Mother was a very good cook and baker, but her imagination to make changes in our monotonous diet was limited, as we had the same grocery items given each month, take it or leave it. Another difference between the Relief and the Social Welfare was that we had no clothing or shoe allowances.
There was absolutely no availability to have any money.
During the hot dry summers, with temperatures from 90 F to 118 F, my dad’s face was just one large open sore that was usually covered with lotion to allay the itch. My mother had to walk three miles to a certain downtown drug store for a small bottle of the lotion, although we had two drug stores close at hand.
One application of lotion on my dad’s face and the bottle was empty.
My father fought at Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, but as his skin was clear when he was discharged in 1919, he never received any pension from the British War Office.
We received no hamper during the Christmas season of 1935. Our name was not on any list, because of the late transfer of our family from Relief to Social Welfare.
During this Christmas, my brothers and sister, as well as myself, hung up our stockings on the back of a chair, expecting that there would be something in them on Christmas morning. There was nothing!
My older brother had a piece of wood in his stocking to remind him that he had not done his chore of bringing in the wood for the kitchen stove. My mother had placed it there so we would all have a good laugh.
Shortly after breakfast, the neighbour’s four kids came to our door, to see what we had received for Christmas. Mom invited them in and gave them some homemade bread covered with some of her jam, along with some cocoa. How they relished this treat. They only had store-bought bread in their home.
At school, the Gray kids were in the same classes as ourselves. They felt bad that we had not received anything, and soon left. About 15 minutes later, the four kids were back at our door, each of them bearing a gift. They told us that when they went home and told their mother about our plight, their mother asked each one of them to pick out one of their own gifts, and take it to our home, and give it to us.
What beautiful thoughts we all had that Christmas morning! I always remembered what Eleanor Gray gave me that day. It was a celluloid doll on a swing, that when you pressed the two fragile metal ropes, the doll did a somersault.
The Gray family were on Relief, but that Christmas their mother had taught her children a valuable lesson on sharing and caring.
Margaret Russell
Hands and hearts
Around 1940-41, on the Hupacasath Reserve in Port Alberni, Christmas was looking pretty bleak because no one was working. Jobs were difficult to come by. However, there was this five-foot-nothing, single mom with two young daughters who was building a two bedroom house — on her own. She called the people together in her uncle’s home. She said: “Look, I have lots of lumber and we all have rags, I have this idea. Men, you can whittle some boy’s toys, Ladies, you can make rag dolls.” It was a wonderful gathering. All the “elves” had a great time working together.
Christmas day was very exciting for the children. We loved our gifts because they were specially made by our parents. A very special Christmas.
Juanita Elliott
An unexpected gift
My son, Calum, was a handful when he was three years old. Taking him anywhere was a challenge, but on a whim, we decided to take him to a live outdoor nativity pageant which the Mormon church hosts each year. It very cold that night, and as I stuffed my son into his snowsuit, I worried the outing would be a nightmare. I was sure Calum would get lost in the crowd, or scream his head off throughout the performance. But it was magical.
When the story of the First Christmas began, Calum sat very still. He was entranced by the parade of wise men and llamas (pretending to be camels), Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter and the arrival of baby Jesus. My husband and I were getting cold after the first show, but Calum didn't want to leave. We ended up sitting there for another 40 minutes, to watch the last two shows of the evening. We only managed to drag Calum away after he got to pet one of the llamas.
My feet were freezing, but I remember feeling a warm inner glow as we walked back to the car. The Christmas pageant had given us a beautiful experience as a family that I will never forget.
Cathy Dargie
Victoria
Saskatchewan happiness
It was Christmas Day and I was eight years old. I lived in a small town in Saskatchewan and it was the middle of the Depression. Our neighbor’s boys played hockey and when the youngest grew out of his skates, he gave them to me.
My dad flooded the back yard for ice and I learned to skate by pushing a kitchen chair on the ice. The gift I wanted more than anything was a 50-cent skating ticket that allowed me to skate twice a week at our local indoor skating rink for the winter season.
We opened our stockings before mom and dad got up. I got a pair of socks mom had knit, some hand candies and an orange.
After breakfast I opened my present. I tore the paper off — I held my breath. A sweater mom had knit and an envelope — a skating ticket. I couldn’t believe it.
After lunch my brother and I bundled up walked to the town hall as all children under the age of 10 were given a bag of candies. Supper was a chicken roasted, vegetables and a sweet pudding and hard sauce.
For a treat, mom made double fudge. I went to bed the happiest most contented child in Saskatchewan.
Noreen Stewart
A Christmas unforgotten
I grew up on a farm in Metchosin. Christmas was a time of great excitement. We could hardly wait for the Sears Christmas Wish book to arrive.
My sisters, brothers and I would spend countless hours circling and checking off items from the toy section.
It was a tradition that my aunts, uncles and cousins on my dad’s side of the family, who lived in Victoria, would come to the country for Christmas dinner. Poor Mom! We tried our best to help her prepare the turkey dinner, polish cutlery and silverware, dust and clean up the Christmas-present wrappers and make ourselves presentable. I remember one Christmas, mom had made a beautiful fruit cake and decorated it with a covering of almond paste and colourful candy poinsettias that was intended to be the centre piece on the dinner table.
My dad, when she wasn’t looking, thought it looked too good to resist and took a big piece out of it. My mother was devastated because it was unmendable and she had to think of something else to replace it.
Mom did a beautiful job of decorating the fireplace mantles with pine boughs, cones and candles. Once everyone arrived, the old farmhouse was in a orderly fashion and no one would have guessed what kind of chaos took place. We managed to serve the adults in the dining room at the huge five-leaf oak table, and the kids at a smaller table at the side. A good time was had by all after filling our bellies with turkey and all the trimmings, and singing carols around the fireplace with my aunt Evelyn playing the piano.
When I ask myself which Christmas stands out the most when I was a young child, it’s the one when I was seven or eight years old. My oldest brother, Ray, and my sister, Joan, were already on their own and had jobs in town. There was my next oldest brother, Dick, and my younger brother, Kenny, at home. My little sister, Jeannie, was yet to be born.
It was just before Christmas and mom was busy writing letters, sewing special little gifts to send to faraway relatives. The weather was typically rainy and windy and the old farmhouse was hard to keep warm. Mom was always stoking the fires and going to the wood pile for more wood. We had fireplaces in the dining room, living room and the upstairs bedrooms. My brothers and I were complaining that we didn’t feel well. Our throats were sore and we were really hot. She checked our temperature and it was very high. She called the doctor and he came out right away (that’s when they used to make house calls).
The doctor said we had scarlet fever. He gave us a shot of penicillin in the butt and it hurt. He quarantined us for 10 days. I will always remember the big sign on our back door, warning people not to come in. I felt that I was in jail and had done something wrong. I loved being outdoors even at that young age.
Dad was the only one that was permitted to leave so that he could go to work. He was a logger and had his own sawmill. Mom and dad rigged up a hospital room in the dining room with three cots. Mom slept with us and dad kept the fireplaces going all night. A couple of days after the doctor’s visit, dad came in with the most beautiful fir Christmas tree and placed it in the bay window in the living room. It smelled so wonderful and made me want to be outside. The only thing separating the dining room and the living room were the fireplaces, so I could see it from my makeshift cot.
Even though we were not feeling very well, Mom let us help decorate the tree with her cherished ornaments and lots of tinsel. They would leave the Christmas lights on until we went to sleep. I would half shut my eyes so that the lights would blur into one beautiful mass on the tree.
Our neighbour across the road, who we called auntie Ann, was unable to have children and treated us as her own. She made us a unique Christmas branch tree with all kinds of decorated cookies attached to the branches with red and green ribbons, and left it at the door.
The night before Christmas, my older brother and I were so full of excitement and anticipation that we lay awake unable to sleep. We crept out of bed to see if it was snowing. Lo and behold! There were huge, fluffy snow flakes falling to the ground.
It was an unusually quiet Christmas morning. But there was something comforting about just being cosy with just my mom, dad, brothers and sister. There was no hustle and bustle to prepare a large banquet meal for aunts, uncles and cousins. I remember how excited I was to get a Barbara Ann Scott doll under the tree.
The snow remained for the day. Not being quite as ill as my brothers, I pulled on my boots and coat while mom was out at the barn milking the cow and feeding the chickens.
I crept outdoors to play in the snow. Mom caught me and scolded me about what a silly thing I did.
She pulled off my wet clothes, rubbed me down with a warm towel to get my circulation back and made me sit by the wood stove to warm up. It was all well worth the freedom! Soon it was forgotten and we carried on playing with our new toys. After having a pleasant Christmas dinner, we kids gathered around mom in the living room by the fire and she read us out of a book called The Little Red Train That Could. This was before we had TV. By the time the Christmas holiday was over, we got the OK from the doctor to be released and could take down the ugly quarantine sign on the door.
Freedom at last!
Barb Henson
A is for Angels
On Dec. 7, 1941, I was seven years old and we lived in Louisbourg, N.S. That was the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed. I don’t remember that. But, that Sunday evening I printed my name on the Christmas cards I would be giving to my friends at school, while my mother wrote notes on the cards she was sending. It was a happy evening as we looked forward to Christmas.
What happened the next morning would cast a shadow over the Christmas celebrations of my youth. Our minister arrived as I was finishing my breakfast. He had in his hand a telegram from Ottawa: Ronald, my oldest brother, had been killed overseas.
I didn’t go to school that day. But, the next day, there would be a practice for our Christmas pageant. I was a shepherd and I didn’t want to miss it. So I went to school. Just before recess, the teacher asked me to stay behind. She told me she knew I would be too sad to be in the pageant so she was going to give my part to someone else. That really made me sad.
But, there was still the Sunday School concert. I was the “A” in CHRISTMAS. I would hold up a large “A” card and say clearly, slowly and loudly: “A” is for angels whose voice rang; ‘Goodwill and peace on earth’ they sang.” That evening my Sunday school teacher came to our house with a cake. As she was leaving, she whispered to me: “Everyone knows that your house is in mourning over Ronald, so I am going to find someone else to do your part and you won’t have to come to practices anymore.” She smiled at me and I tried to smile back. Her cake had bright pink strawberry-flavoured icing. Seventy-five years have passed, and pink-strawberry anything still nauseates me.
We never went to any Christmas concerts or celebrations because we were too sad to go to places like that. I did get a bag of hard candy. My friend, Edison, asked Santa Claus at the Sunday school concert for an extra bag of candy.
When I asked about a Christmas tree, my mother told me it wouldn’t be right to have a tree or put up decorations because Ronald was dead. “Is Santa Claus going to stay away from our sad house, too?” I asked. “No, he will come.” “But, where is he going to put the presents if we don’t have a tree? “My mother hesitated and then replied: “He’ll probably put them at the end of your bed.” My older brother, seeing my sad face, asked if he could cut a small tree and put it in my bedroom. My mother agreed to a small tree, “but it will have to go out as soon as the needles begin to drop!” It was a beautiful tree. All my own! But I was not allowed to show it to anyone or tell anyone I had a tree.
On Christmas Eve, my parents were surprised by a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Hiltz. She was the “second” Mrs. Hiltz and she had never been to our house before. She had come from “up in Nova Scotia” and had a reputation of being distant and a severe stepmother. People like my mother, who had been friends of the “first” Mrs. Hiltz, kept their distance. I used to visit Mrs. Hiltz with some of my friends. She was always pleasant and always had cookies for us. My mother tried to discourage my visits because she thought I might be a nuisance and get in trouble, and she “didn’t want to cross swords with that woman!”
Mr. Hiltz had a large parcel. She said the parcel was for me because I was such a pleasant child and she enjoyed my visits. My parents were surprised and pleased. Later, my father said to me: “That gift was a great compliment for you and our family.” He smiled. I had not seen that smile since we heard about my brother’s death. The gift was a wind-up train with some rail cars and tracks.
Later, as I lay in bed listening to Christmas carols on the radio downstairs, I noticed the moonlight shining through the frost on my bedroom window. In the frost I saw the shapes of angels and I said to my-self, “A is for angels whose voices rang: ‘Goodwill and peace on earth,’ they sang. A beautiful peace seemed to settle on our sad house and I went to sleep thinking of the wonderful gift I had received, downstairs: The wonderful smile on my father’s face.
Gordon Cann
Christmas in Singapore
In the early 1960s, my husband was serving on the submarines based with the British base in Singapore. I realized that many of the young men who came to our house were half the way around the world from their families in the U.K. and it was not easy for them to be so far away from their families during the holidays.
Some of them were not even in their 20s except for one very large Marine. A letter may take two weeks to arrive, so I felt they were very lonely although they tried to be brave and brush it off.
Our first Christmas there, my husband suggested that we invite as many young British servicemen as our house would hold to spend the holidays with us. We were delighted when six accepted the invitation.
As they shyly entered the house, I greeted them and told them to make themselves at home and help themselves to the food or refreshments whenever they wanted and, above all, to enjoy their stay.
We couldn’t find a Christmas tree, so a three-foot imitation tree was decorated with tiny Chinese lanterns and tinsel and placed on a coffee table near the patio door. This wasn’t a great location because the monsoon wind blew it over a few times, and our cat chased a house lizard up the tree and also liked to bat at the dangling decorations. But the tree managed to last until New Year’s.
Christmas dinner was interesting because our traditional Canadian food was not familiar to them. It was fairly soon after the Second World War, so they weren’t exposed to TV programs featuring North American dishes.
Jellied salads were popular at the time, but no one touched it because they thought it was a dessert. They hesitated about the cranberry sauce that my mother mailed to me until they noticed that I was putting it on my turkey and then they asked me to “Pass the jam.”
They weren’t at all sure about the carrot pudding with the hard sauce, or the sweet potato pie.
In the morning, I inquired whether they wanted juice or grapefruit and how they wanted their eggs. One boy softly replied, “Grapefruit … just cut it in half, please … by itself.” This made me wonder what he imagined I was going to do with it if I had my way with it.
They were invited to help themselves to the food in the fridge whenever they wanted a snack. We had a stray kitten at the time, so I thought it was rather endearing when I noticed the big Marine cuddling the kitten under his shirt.
A few days later, when the turkey was reduced to bones, he confessed that he had found the kitten wrapped around the turkey in the fridge and he had been trying to warm it up under his shirt, but he hadn’t said anything about it because he didn’t want to “put anyone off the turkey.”
I can’t remember a more wonderful Christmas. The lads brought such gaiety and fun to us that year when we were also very far from our own home in Canada. They told stories, played music, sang, played games and talked of home. We felt honoured to have them as our guests.
Lucille Ross
Help from Hudson’s Bay
The year, I believe, was 1948 or 1949. My mom, Hilda Renee, had been hired by the Hudson’s Bay Co. and had been there three weeks.
My dad had been in a terrible work accident. It was now the day before Christmas and they were waiting for a compensation cheque. My mom said: “Don, come in at 3 p.m. when I get my coffee break to let me know if you get your cheque as we have nothing for the kids for Christmas.” There were four of us children.
Dad arrived at 3 p.m. and mom could tell by his face — no cheque. When dad sat down, mom was crying softly and said: “What are we going to do? We have nothing for the kids for Christmas.”
There was a woman sitting at another table and overheard my mom. She went upstairs to the office and told them.
It was now 5 p.m. Mom was putting on her coat and one the employees in the cafeteria said to her: “Hilda, can I see you for a moment?” Mom walked around the partition and there were the managers and staff from the different departments with tree, turkey and all the trimmings for a Christmas dinner plus presents for all of us kids.
They had looked through mom’s application for employment to get the information they needed.
Someone offered to drive mom home as she took the bus to Esquimalt as we lived in Macaulay Camp. I have spoken of this to my kids and grandkids, asking them to step in if they see someone in need and can help. If that woman who overheard my mom had done nothing, what a different Christmas story that would have been for four very young kids.
Jacqueline Westwood
Victoria
A childhood Christmas
That year, snow began falling during the Christmas Eve service. Afterward, groups of men worked to shove each car through the nearly 12 inches of heavy white stuff. Fortunately, a snowplow had passed along the Island Highway while we were inside, and carloads filled with excitement-crazed children made their way home without too much difficulty.
In our house, presents waited until morning. I awakened around 6 a.m. when I heard the furnace turn on and our mother moving about as she stuffed the giant turkey. Then the oven door opened and closed. I lifted the corner of my bedroom curtain to reveal a grey-white coverlet over the still-dark world. During the night another 12 inches had fallen.
I slid deeper under my covers knowing we would have to wait until 8 a.m. before being allowed downstairs. I knew the drill. Dad would read from the Bible and pray before one of us would be selected to hand out the presents. Only after they were distributed were we allowed to open them, one gift at a time. No mad ripping chaos allowed in our house. Might as well settle in and stay toasty.
After a short time, I overheard the phone call telling dad that church was cancelled. Hooray! This year we would have all morning to play with our presents.
Then a loud thunk as a transformer blew. The power was out. I heard my mother shriek: “The turkey!” Always pragmatic and unflappable and with phone lines still operational, dad called grandma. She was the lone holdout in the family who had not given up her faithful oil stove for electric. Could we cook our turkey and eat at her place instead of ours? Of course.
Dad loaded the turkey and anything else requiring an operational stove into a large box. He strapped it to the toboggan, and set off on the half-mile walk to grandma’s place.
With the furnace also out, on dad’s return we didn’t dawdle over breakfast or focus long on our new toys. We took one thing to play with, bundled up and walked over to grandma’s, where the oil stove soon warmed our skinny, numb bodies. After a while, our cousins came as there was no power at their place either. Fourteen of us crammed into her 500 square-foot kitchen and living room.
We opened grandma’s presents — always a new pair of hand-knit slippers. We played games. We sang. We ate. And ate. The turkey. All the trimmings. Tarts and pies. Mountains of nuts. Piles of Japanese oranges. Rosebuds and hard candy. No one counted a calorie or cautioned anyone to stop. We simply refilled the bowls when they ran low.
As the afternoon’s moody skies deepened into night, grandpa lit the kerosene lanterns. We carried on in their glow and the warmth of the old oil stove. Thankfully, my cousins and siblings — seven rowdy boys — bolted to the attic for a good part of the time. The men sat in the living room and talked.
Women washed and dried the dishes. Afterward we sat down to chat and relax around the table. Was anyone still hungry? No. We ached and groaned and insisted we couldn’t eat another thing. Before long, my aunt reached for the nutcracker. I popped a couple of rosebuds as I peeled another orange. Soon another pile of nutshells grew as we chucked them into the centre of the table. We looked at each other, laughed and shook our heads. Tomorrow we would be sensible again.
After the power came back on, we reluctantly made our way home to our own frigid houses. Except for two dolls at ages four and nine, and at six my letter to Santa Claus that was read over the radio, I remember few specifics of the happy haze of childhood Christmases. However, this charmed day remains indelible.
Lynda Grace Philippsen
Victoria
