Christmas memories
What wasChristmas like 75 years ago? Iremember
By Clare Westcott
Saturday, December 23, 2006
I was seven years old. It was 1931.
The video camera and the tape recorder had not yet been invented. Sure, we had the odd old box Kodak, but not for taking pictures at night. So the only real record of Main Street on the Saturday night before Christmas 75 years ago are the pictures tucked away in the mind of the fewof us still around – and lucky enough to have been there. I really thought I was trading-up at the timeI left my town for Toronto, 50- plus years ago. It was more than another time - it was another age.
The treasure of remembering the sights and sounds of the cutters and sleighs on the snow covered street, and the cheery jingle of harness bells is very precious.
Imagine teams of snorting heavy horses, tugging at their loadedsleighs and blowing their steam-like breath into the freezing air. Some, heading home after a day in town, heavy with bags of freshly chopped grain from Bob aberharts mill. Shopping done, last minute presents bought, and bodies all wrapped up cozily for the bitterly cold ride home. The inner warmth of a bit of Christmas cheer and the rattling harness and jingling bells might lull some into a quiet doze on the long ride home. But it didn't really matter - for the horses knew the way.
In recallingthe names, the ageless faces become real in my mind, as if I was still there.
From where I stood in the doorway of my Dad's jewelry store, I could just peer over the top of the piled up snow. The tiny Salvation army group led by Captain John Dougall, with a horn and a bass drum and a tambourine, played and sang Christmas carols on the corner in front of Charlie aberharts drug store. On the other corner was Tom Dicksons Purina feed store - a gathering place for farmers while the ladies made the rounds of the stores. Most fascinating for me were the two big salmon hanging in front of Nellie Pryce's grocery store. They were frozen stiff. One looked as if it would come up to my shoulder. Thehead was still on and its mouth was wide open.
Two stores up was Beattie's butcher shop, crowded with town folk buying their freshly killed Christmas turkey or chicken. Mr. Beattie would sometimes give me suet to hang in our back yard for the birds. But the place for special Christmas treats was Tom Phillips fruit store, across from the Commercial hotel. Oranges and bananas and nuts and hard candy were the eagerly prized stocking stuffers of the day. For many of us, it was a once-a-year treat.
Most crowded were the grocery stores up and down Main Street where farmers and town folk were stocking up on holiday food. In every shop the smells of Christmas hung sweet in the air. Stores like Hutchisons and Cleary's on the east side and on the west, Nellie Pryce, Cardno Brothers, Smith's, and Dick's. about the center, next to aberharts drug store was one of Canada's first Dominion Stores. and a half-mile south, in Egmondville, was Finnigans General Store.
My favorite place was the Cheiros family restaurant. Chris Cheiros was as much an artist as he was a candy maker. He created a feast for the eyes and the palete at Christmas, with his skill at making chocolate Santa's and ornaments and candy canes. His nativity scene made entirely of chocolate and brightly colored candy drew crowds of salivating kids - including me. as we pressed our faces to the cold window the luscious aroma of chocolate seemed to leap out into the icy air each time the door opened.
I remember the many winter sounds, made sharp and clear by the icy, bitter cold. "Jingle Bells" is still one of our favorite holiday songs but the real jingle is gone. as the horses left, so did the bells - now hanging somewhere with the harness, dusty museum pieces discarded and silent. Somehow the sound of church bells seemed to bounce and echo more through the town over Christmas. The clock atop the Cardno block and the Post Office clock rang the hour and the half-hour. I know, for I felt the proud thrill of climbing to the clock towers of both when my Dad wound them each week – for $25 a year.
There were other familiar sounds. Like the town constable, big Jim Ryan tolling the town hall bell at 12 noon and 1 o'clock to mark the lunch hour - and again at 6 to announce it was time for supper. and every day but Sunday, four giant CNR steam engines came through town, bringing people home for the holiday and announcing their arrival and departure with loud blasts of the steam whistle. Not to be outdone, the shrill sound of the Robert Bell Engine & Thresher Company whistle blasted four times each and every work day. So many of those lovely old sounds are gone. Sounds that orchestrated a kind of musical backdrop to the festive warmth and spirit of our small-town Christmas - a distant 75years ago.
The last big musical event of the year was always the Public School Christmas concert held to a packed house in Cardno's Hall. I would like to believe they all turned out to hear albert Venus and I sing our well rehearsed duet, "The Twelve Days Of Christmas". I sensed we were more loud than sweet, but the choreography and coaching from the producer of the show – our grade 7 teacher,turned us into stars and brought on great applause from proud parents. .
We were so very lucky. Too young to know we were living in hard times. We knew Santa would seek us out wherever we were on Christmas Eve and there would be something under the tree with our name on it. We just knew it. Our tiny frame house was on the edge of town across from the High School. I was five before we had electric lights or a telephone. I was seven before we had running water. We never did have a furnace and our toilet was a fifty-foot walk from our back door. I recall these things as if it was yesterday but I don't remember ever thinking of them as hardships. My fondest memories are there.
I have carried an amazingly clear picture in my mind that will be a bit over 75 years old come Christmas morning. That its clarity has not dimmed could suggest it is my own personal icon. My measure of the greatness and the innocence of so long ago.
So well I remember. It is about 6 a.m. My four-year- old sister and I are quietly tiptoeing down the stairs from our bedroom. The narrow stairs turns at the bottom and opens on to what we then called "the front room". We sit in the dark at the bottom - behind the closed door. Our parents are still asleep. We know we are about to take part in something wonderful and exciting. We haven't the slightest idea what adrenaline is, but it quivers in our bodies and speeds up our pulse and heartbeats. I slowly lift the latch and open the door just enough for us both to peek through and see the Christmas tree. The thrill of that precious moment will never be replaced. Because those few seconds it took to get to the bottom step holding my sister's hand, then slowly opening the door and looking wide-eyed at the colored packages under the tree was one of the most joyous trips I ever took.
Memories of Christmas? That's about as good as it gets..
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