Christmas Memories …

 

In December of 1955, I was five and a half years old. A few days before Christmas that year, my family and I went to visit my maternal grandparents at their farm. Even though it was less than 15 miles from our home in the town of Powder Springs, the area where the farm was located was still a very rural area of the county. We had to drive most of the way there on a bumpy, unpaved dirt road. Thinking about that trip today, it feels like I visited a different world.

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My father was driving, and my mother sat in the front seat beside him. My younger sister sat in the back seat, and I reclined in my favorite area inside the car … the back ledge under the rear window. During the drive, the weather was chilly and damp that morning, with occasional misting rain. Even today, a cool morning mist during the fall will make me say, ‘This is Georgia Christmas weather.’

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I could hear my mother talking to my dad on the way to the farm, telling him that a large group would be coming to her parent’s farm today. My mother said all eight of her brothers and sisters would be there for this Christmas celebration, and those who were married would be bringing their spouses. My mother was the third oldest of her siblings, but she was the first of them to have a child. Six of her siblings were less than nineteen, still single, and still living on the farm.

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Since I was the oldest grandchild, I always got special attention. When I close my eyes, I can still picture that farm … the house, the variety of outbuildings, and the large barn where my grandpa stored hay and had stalls for his mules and a cow. The farm was located on a dirt road in a rural area of Cobb County. Just as countless others in rural areas of Georgia in 1955, the farm had no access to public utilities or electric power lines. The house was old and constructed in a time when, in that region, farmhouses were built with no insulation in the walls or ceilings and drafty wood-framed windows that had only simple single-pane glass. Outside, the unpainted clapboard siding was a weathered dark gray, and the roof was covered with rusted tin. Inside, the floors, walls, and ceilings were all wood shiplap.

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I still remember the smell of the kerosene lamps used for lighting, the lingering smells of the breakfast cooked earlier, and the warmth from a wood-burning cast-iron heater in the large living room. Grandma was very proud of the wool rug she had put on the living room floor to help keep the room warm in the winter. Like many in that period, the house had been built on an open foundation without any underpinning. That helped keep the house cool in the summer months, but in winter, it allowed cold air to seep in freely from underneath the house. I remember seeing areas of her rug move slightly up and down as the wind blowing outside found its way underneath the house and up through small cracks in the wood floor.

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Water for the house came from a hand-dug well under an open-sided shed just a few steps from the back porch. You could only get water from the well by using a galvanized water bucket lowered by a rope into the well. The rope went through a pulley hanging from the shed rafters, which made it easier to lift the filled bucket up and out of the well using a hand-cranked windlass.

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Once we got to the farm, everyone in the family was expected to do assigned chores while the meal was being prepared. Since drawing water from the well was a task I had learned to do on previous visits, my first chore was to bring in water to fill the cistern on the side of Grandma’s large wood-burning cook stove. Once the water was heated, Grandma would use it while cooking, and later for washing dishes. One of my uncles had chopped firewood for the stove, and after I filled the cistern, I brought in some of the wood. I stacked it in an embossed wooden box close to the stove in the kitchen, being careful not to let the open hinged lid close and pinch my fingers. 

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After finishing my assigned chores, I went outside to spend time with my Grandpa. I found him at the corncrib that he had built years ago. Grandpa was sitting on a split log bench and I sat down next to him. I helped him and one of my uncles shell some ears of corn they had gotten from the crib. As we shelled, my uncle put the corn kernels into a burlap bag. Grandpa told me they would take the bag to the mill tomorrow to have the corn ground into cornmeal.

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Once the bag was filled, my Grandpa asked me to gather the stripped corncobs, get some dried corn husks from the other side of the crib, and take them to feed the pigs in the pen beside the barn. I knew that the husks had been saved when the corn that was grown here on the farm was shucked at the end of the last growing season. My grandparents got married and had just started their family when the Great Depression occurred. With a family to raise during those difficult times, finding a purpose for everything and never letting things go to waste were not just sayings for Grandpa. They were values ingrained in him as a necessity of life, and he tried to instill these values in his family through his actions and the things he asked us to do.

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 One of my aunts came and told us the food was ready, so we returned to the house. We stopped at a wash basin on the back porch to wash up, and I can still recall the slight burning sensation when I used the homemade lye soap to clean my hands. During the meal, I got the honor of sitting at the large kitchen table with the grownups. I listened to the talk and the laughter and could sense the true happiness in this Christmas gathering.

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Once the meal was finished, I went outside with my dad and some of my uncles. They were setting off firecrackers and Roman candles, taking care not to let a firecracker explode in their hand and not to set fire to the dry leaves under the oak tree that shaded the front yard. I remember the thrill I felt when my father allowed me to hold a lighted sparkler.

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After the fireworks, we all gathered back inside and small gifts were exchanged. I was most excited by the stocking I received from my grandparents. Inside the stocking was an orange, a banana, six cat’s eye marbles in a handmade cloth drawstring pouch, some homemade peanut brittle wrapped in wax paper, and a pack of Juicy Fruit Gum. These may seem odd, simple gifts by today's standards, but not so in 1955. As for me, I thought those were the most extravagant and fantastic presents anyone could get, especially the orange and the banana.

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After a long day of celebration, it was time for us to leave. The kitchen had been cleaned, and any leftover food had been distributed to the guests to take home. I don’t recall much about the ride back to our house. As soon as we left in the car, and in spite of the bumpy dirt road, I went to sleep … tightly clutching my Christmas stocking with all the treasures I had been given tucked inside it.

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1955 … it was indeed a different world...               ~ Clyde Verhine, December 2024