I was the middle child. Not the middle child of one family, but in between aunts, uncles and cousins on my father’s and mother’s sides of the families. All three families were close, and we celebrated holidays in East Lewis County together, taking turns being the host family.
No one had a table large enough for the crowd, so we children had a separate table, a card table, where we were served after the adults had their plates loaded with the abundant, mostly home-grown food.
No one ever thought of turkey during those Depression days, because all three families raised chickens. Two or three roasting hens were a treat.
Without enough chairs to go around, we sat on the piano bench, end tables and apple boxes on end. Because we kids knew we could depend on cousin Barbara spilling her milk, we never relaxed completely, but were ready to jump up to avoid the food.
After dinner, if it wasn’t pouring rain — a frequent occasion in Western Washington — we played cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians. The boy cousins supplied the fire power with their cap guns, although we seldom had “boughten” caps.
We didn’t need them with all the loud “bang-bangs.” The only arguments were over who was dead at the time.
If the weather was bad, the cousins got out the Monopoly game. We played it seriously with some cheating, but we never wanted anyone to go broke and be out of the game, so we did all kinds of manipulations to keep everyone playing.
Christmas gifts were few, but we never would have expected multiple gifts like we exchange today. My best present ever was a delightful surprise. Even though I had caught my mother at the sewing machine after my bedtime, she had been able to hide her work.
Under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, I found a muslin doll with an embroidered face, black yard hair and a pretty dress. I called her “Raggedy Ann” even though she did not resemble the popular doll of the day.
I learned to sew my making dresses for my doll. Now more than 75 years later, my Raggedy Ann doll sits on a dresser in a red taffeta dress I made for her when I was about 11 years old.
Raggedy Ann was definitely a special gift from my mother, but the most disappointing gift I ever got came from an older boy cousin. He was so excited about his gift for me that he could hardly wait for me to open it.
Thinking it must be fabulous, I tore the wrapping off to find two of the popular 78 rpm records. So far, so good, but for someone who disliked what we called “cowboy” music (now called country), it was a shock to see they were Ernie Tubbs records. In my estimation, he was the worst singer of all.
Shirley Temple, of course, was at the height of popularity. A few Christmases after my home-made doll gift, my mother managed to squeeze enough money in those hard times to buy me a beautiful genuine Shirley Temple doll that was the size of a 6-month-old baby. She had a hard head and legs, a soft body and rubber arms, which did not survive, but have been replaced with harder material.
We no longer have big family dinners, Barbara isn’t here to spill milk, and the cops and robbers long ago grew up. But the memories live on of those Christmas times in the good old days.
