McLEAN COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY NEWS
By Euleen Rickard
Most of us have enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday and are looking forward to the Christmas season. Throughout the county the decoration of homes and businesses gives evidence of the coming of Christmas. This got us to thinking that the museum should add “Observing Holidays” to its list of McLean County Historical Subjects. There must be wonderful stories of fun at Halloween and family gatherings and traditions of Thanksgiving and Christmas and other holidays that many can tell.
In the days of the 1920s, 30s and into the 1940s (the days before television) many families observed Thanksgiving with the men of the families getting together in the morning for hunting quail, rabbit and squirrel while the women gathered and prepared the meal, usually chicken, dressing, dumplings, vegetables from the canning of summer, homemade bread and hickory nut and pumpkin pies. The kill of the day was usually breakfast on the following morning.
Then, immediately after Thanksgiving the stores would be decorated with the Christmas colors of red and green. I remember the Island Mercantile Company store was decorated with red and green crepe paper streamers crisscrossing the ceiling from corner to corner with big red honeycomb paper bells hanging where the streamers met in the middle. The windows displayed red wagons, BB guns, bats and balls for boys and dolls, miniature dishes and other things for girls, things shown only at the Christmas season. In that era Santa rarely brought more than two toys. Children would receive a little bag of candy, fruits and nuts at Christmas programs in the churches and in the schools the students exchanged gifts.
Recently we found a newspaper article of a Christmas program held in December 1932 at Dughill, a one-room school east of Island. The program featured a reading of scripture, monologues, poetry, music, a pantomime and a Christmas play with nine characters. It was a lengthy program with most of the children and some of the parents participating. In his account the writer wrote, “The program was enjoyed by all, but most of all, the visit of Santa Claus was most appreciated by the children.”
In a interview with Maude Blades Howell, who attended the one-room Drake school, she recalled, “ Every year the big boys went out and got a big cedar tree and the older children decorated it. We all drew names and brought a gift for the one whose name we drew. I remember one year I didn’t get a gift and I went home feeling sad. After Christmas when we went back to school the boys took down the tree and found the present that had been brought for me. It was a little comb. I will always remember how happy I was to have that little comb.”
A memory of mine was a Christmas tree at the home of my grandparents Tom and Amy Blades. The tree was cedar and its fragrance filled the house. A few days before Christmas the women of the family popped and strung popcorn and made ornaments to trim the tree. It was in the days before electricity came to the Buttonsberry community and along with the strings of popcorn and ornaments, there were little red candles in metal holders clipped to the branches of the tree. Two of those little metal holders have survived and will be in the museum.
Do you have old Christmas memorabilia? Do you have a holiday story to tell? Write and tell us of your holiday times and traditions.