TIME MACHINE ... Christmas Time- 1878, 1970, 1888, 1941, 1970, 1924

(Reader Friendly Viewing Of Newspaper Archive Material)

TIME MACHINE ... 1878
Forest and Stream

(Excerpt)

(A spirited former Christmas Eve on the Eastern Shore of Virginia's Hog Island)... there was a grand fashionable ball, where all the elite, beauty and style of Hog Island attended. Every gentleman was in full dress, which consisted of the boots greased with shark oil until they shone again. The ladies' costumes were short calico and homespun, with brilliant pinch-beck ornaments. Everybody had washed their face and combed their hair for the occasion, and it was a very respectable assemblage indeed. The festivities soon commenced by two musicians opening the ball. They sawed persistently on their ninety-nine-cent pine fiddles, and raised the tune, and all pitched in. Everybody danced to suit themselves: there were no partners nor figures, but each tried his own step in his own way. The cabin rocked and trembled from roof to foundation-stone; but still the fiddles' strains rose above the uproar, and the steps kept time in a rhythmical rhyme to the music. In an evil hour Edmund had his keg brought to the room and opened. The consequence was that the fiddles got too high and above their business to play any longer, so they dispersed somewhere. Seeing the position of affairs, I commenced to draw the bow, and away went the company again. I tried some weak-kneed people there that night; if there isn't any crippled Hog Islanders it isn't because I did not try to make them so. I let out the fastest of all known tunes on them -- the "Devils' Dream" -- and I thought that the plastering was coming down. The natives spread themselves, and discounted the Jardins Mablians. Then Colonel Burke became ambitious. He must have a waltz. I played one of Strauss'; but who was he to revolve with ? That dizzy dance had never yet reached the fashionable Hog Islanders -- and even the ambitious maids would not attempt it; but at last one more determined than her sisters, and carried away by Edmund's importunities, asked him to let her see the step, and so he gyrated alone over the floor to the tune of the deux temp I was playing. Then hurrying back he claimed her for the dance, saying that he could easily teach her; but the fair one was dubious, and at last to Edmund's entreaties replied, "Well, stranger, I can't; I can go the front step and go the back step, but it will make me puke sure to turn around so." Edmund was a changed man after that reply. He gathered up his keg and beat out to his quarters.

Footnote: (source: Wikipedia): Hog Island.. "is a part of the Virginia Coast Reserve of The Nature Conservancy. Starting in the mid-19th century the town of Broadwater, Virginia was located on the southern end of the island, but had to be abandoned in the 1930's when rapid beach erosion made its continued existence untenable. However, many of the houses and other buildings were floated by barge to the mainland and can be found in Willis Wharf, Virginia and Oyster, Virginia."



 (MAILBOX .. from Kathy Horney)

At Christmas time, my mind always goes back to about 1970.

I was young (20) and doing Christmas shopping in downtown Pocomoke City.  The air was crisp and cold and a light snow was falling.  The downtown area was lit up with Christmas lights in the storefront windows and Christmas carols were playing over a P.A. or loudspeaker system (I don't know what the technical term is) but I remember that it was beautiful.

At that time, you could do ALL of your Christmas shopping downtown - didn't have to go anywhere else. There was a 'five & dime' store, a 'dollar' store, a couple of department stores, a couple of shoe stores, a couple of dress shops, a men's clothing store, a couple of jewelry stores, a couple of catalog stores, a couple of hardware stores, a couple of pharmacies, a couple of banks, and a car dealer by the river.  Just turn the corner off of Market St. and go just one block down Clarke Ave. and there was a soda fountain shop, a couple of mom & pop grocery stores, and a fish market (I think). There may have even been a beauty salon on Williow St. between Second & Clarke (memory is fuzzy here). If you proceeded on to the next block down Clarke Ave., there was a second-hand store (clothing, etc.), a deli, and a small mom & pop clothing store.  Unbelievable isn't it?  Yes, all of those businesses were in the downtown area (at the same time).

I miss it when I get thinking about it.  It was different shopping like that than when you go into these huge chain stores and have to fight the crowds. Whole different atmosphere - the magic of Christmas has gotten lost in greedy commercialism.  Well, maybe that's a bit extreme, but right now I am savoring those wonderful memories of times gone by.

P.S.  You could shop without worrying about getting your purse snatched, or getting mugged or carjacked, etc.

 

December, 1888 (Time Machine archive)
(Dispatch- Richmond, Va.)
Onancock, Va., December 26, 1888.

This is the mildest, prettiest, quietest Christmas ever seen on the Eastern Shore within this generation. The weather is so mild that fires are uncomfortable, and people are going about in spring clothing.

FOOTNOTE: A month earlier, November 26, the same area experienced a blizzard.


December, 1941 (Time Machine archive) 
 
Town Tavern in Pocomoke was advertising informal dancing for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with music by Slim Marshall's Orchestra. Admission 75-cents per person.


December, 1970 (Time Machine archive)

The Fantastic Mystics were providing the dance music for the public two days before Christmas at the Pocomoke Holiday Inn's annual Pocomoke Christmas Party.

December 25, 1924 (Time Machine archive)
(The Lubbock Morning Avalanche- Lubbock, Texas)

(Excerpts)

Childhood's Christmas Memories

"Backward, turn backward, Oh Time in your flight, Make me a child again just for tonight."

How many of us tonight are wishing that old poem might come true just once more in our lives? Of all the days in our childhood, none stand out so vividly in our memory as those mysterious Christmas times. There is something about our Christmas memories that reach the heart of every one of us who were so fortunate as to grow up in a happy home. We did not say a big, luxuriant home, but a HAPPY HOME. A home where sympathy and LOVE, and a family understanding of one another's hearts fills the atmosphere of the whole home. A home where each member of the family believes in and rejoices with every other member of the family in their ambitions and their hopes and their accomplishments. That's the kind of home we mean when we say a happy home. It may be a humble little cottage or it may be a mansion. It is the spirit in the house and not the shell in which we live that makes happy homes. And it so happens that most of our happy homes are humble homes because we have so many more humble homes in America than any other kind.

What are your first memories of Christmas? Can you bring them back through the long years and tell them over again to the children? There is nothing children love to hear so well as Christmas stories of their own fathers and mothers. "What did Santa Claus bring you when you were a little boy Daddy?" "And what did he bring to mother?" "Did he travel then just as he does NOW? And what kind of toys did little girls and little boys send for in those days?" 

It is the unusual, the impossible, and the mysterious belief that it will happen that puts the thrill of expectancy into the heart of the little child at Christmas time. It is their faith in the spirit of Santa Claus that is so beautiful.

But if the memories of Christmas time in the old home far away are among our most treasured memories of childhood, what is our greatest privilege at Christmas time now? Is it not storing up other Christmas memories in the lives of our children to be recalled a generation from now when we are no more and other little ones yet unborn are begging for Christmas stories of long ago? This is one of our greatest opportunities and privileges for Christmas, 1924. Creating Christmas stories and Christmas memories to be retold by the generations of fathers and mothers in 1950, 1975, and even up to 2000 after the first Christmas story was ever produced.

...fill the childish hearts and childish minds around you with those Christmas memories you would be proud and happy to have them carry through their lives and tell over and over at the Christmas tides of the future to the little heads nestled near their hearts.


Do you have a Christmas memory or other local memory to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher, a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about? It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish. Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on a future TIME MACHINE posting!