Monday Memories--Christmas in the 1940s

When I remember Christmas 1944, I'm aware that at that time, I remembered Christmas back in Illinois and I knew it was different, but 1944 is really the earliest clear memory. In 1944 Mother had moved her family of four little children in a 1939 Ford to a foreign land filled with people of many ethnicities and strange customs--California. It even smelled funny to me--Alameda and Oakland--you could smell the Bay and the ocean. My father was in the U.S. Marines and the country was at war.

On the one hand, it was a scary time for a little child, but on the other, it was fascinating. Ribbons of highway, miles and miles of flat land, eating in restaurants, sleeping in camps, strange bugs and animals, mountains, desert, the great Salt Lake, picking up hitch hiking soldiers to help with the driving, and always our strong Mother who seemed to have everything under control (but who was only 32 and had probably never driven outside of a few counties in Illinois.

We lived in a stucco ranch house in Alameda. We went to school with children of many types--Filipinos, Chinese, black, Oakies and Arkies, visited local sites like the San Diego Zoo (although that's certainly not close to Alameda--maybe it was San Francisco), and played with neighborhood friends. I can't remember a Christmas tree in that house, but I suppose we had one. I do remember Christmas caroling in the fog--that's how I know I had memories then of earlier Christmases--because I remember thinking how odd we didn't have snow. I recall going to a community gym where I think we had church, and hearing a group sing "White Christmas," which in those days, was a "new" anthem of nostalgia. Somewhere in the mix my mother's brother Clare was killed in China and my father shipped out so our reason for being there was over.

Dad came home when the war was over (to our house in Illinois) shortly before Christmas 1945--I seem to remember an announcement that he would be home for Christmas. What I remember are the glorious presents Mom had wrapped--and I do remember that tree and the excitement. A doll house and a sled--to be shared by all--but it seemed to me that she must have "broken the bank," and indeed, 30 years later my daughter and all her cousins had played with that same 2 story doll house in mother's basement--having been "redecorated" many times.

For Christmas 1946 we must have been in Forreston in the little farm house that didn't have a bathroom until Mother installed it, because I remember receiving my first Bible, a KJV which I still have. I think I remember going back to Mt. Morris and possibly Franklin Grove to have dinner and presents with my grandparents, but we did that many years, so I've sort of put those memories through a blender and filter. We were attending Faith Lutheran Church so it's possible we were in a Christmas pageant. We weren't Lutherans, but that church took us in and made us feel welcome.

Norma in 1946
By Christmas 1947 we had moved to a lovely 4 bedroom brick house with a big porch and yard. We girls all had paper routes, and it seems to me the snow was very deep. Christmas 1947 meant spending hours near the tree with my brother, shaking and handling presents, trying to guess what might be in them. The tree was real, and I recall some of the ornaments were Disney characters. I remember clothes hand made for my dolls from scraps left from the dresses Mom made for me. I still have some of them. The four of us sang in a quartet for community groups with my oldest sister the accompanist--Frosty the Snowman, Winter Wonderland and White Christmas. I don't think we had a lot of talent, but the Cuteness meter was off the charts, especially with my charming little brother.

At Christmas time at the Forreston school which contained all 12 grades, all the classes would gather in the hall and the principal, John I. Masterson, would read the Christmas story from the Bible--the Luke passage. As one of the younger students, I thought being together with the high school students was more awesome than the actual celebration.

Good times, good memories, thanks for reading.