West Bend, WI – Over the last 15 years, Dave Bohn has been writing down memories of his childhood, growing up on the family farm just south of West Bend on Hwy P. He hopes his writings will preserve the often-overlooked stories of ordinary farmers and everyday farm life in rural Washington County during the Great Depression through the eyes of a local farm boy.
Christmas was different back when I was growing up during the Great Depression. It was just a simpler Christmas, but it was still a pretty big thing for us kids at that time. As a kid, it didn’t matter if we got one toy or four or five toys.
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We weren’t any less excited about Christmas than kids are now. Even though I’m 92 years old, I think kids probably still feel the same way we did in the 1930’s.
The excitement of Christmas started for us on St. Nicholas Day on December 6. That was the beginning of the Christmas season for us German Catholics. The whole week before St. Nick’s Day, we would be thinking about him. We usually hung our stockings up in the living room the day before, and St. Nick would come overnight and leave a few treats for us. It wasn’t much, just a piece of hard candy and maybe a few nuts. It was just a reminder that we should be on our best behavior. If our stockings were hung, he’d put the treats in there. Otherwise, he’d leave them on a small table in our living room. My parents told us that he might leave a piece of coal if we were naughty, but I don’t remember ever getting one, even though I wasn’t the best of kids.
A couple weeks before Christmas, WTMJ radio out of Milwaukee would have Santa’s helper, called Billy the Brownie, give a daily update on how Santa was getting ready and how the reindeer were doing. Billy was usually on the air around 6:00 each night. He would read the letters that kids wrote to Santa. On Christmas Eve, our family would be in the kitchen listening to the big radio. Billy the Brownie would let us know when Santa left the North Pole and would give us progress reports on where Santa was at any given time. My brothers and sister and I were always excited to listen to these reports because we wanted to know exactly what Santa was doing and where he was.
When we were kids, Mom and Dad would always get a Christmas tree a few days before Christmas. I’m not sure if they would get it in West Bend at a tree lot or if they would cut one from someone’s woods. Usually, the tree would sit outside for a few days until Santa Claus set it up in the living room on Christmas Eve night. It was usually about a 7-foot-high pine tree.
One time we almost didn’t have a Christmas tree. It was during the Great Depression when I was 5 or 6 years old, so maybe my parents were short on money and couldn’t afford a tree. It was Christmas Eve day and Mom was a little excited because there wasn’t a tree. So, Dad decided to crawl up one of the evergreen trees that lined the road in front of our house and saw off the top. My brother Tom recalls that Mom wasn’t happy about that as it was one of the trees that lined the road and it probably looked odd with the top off, but we did have a nice tree for Christmas that year.
My parents would also hang green wreaths in the windows with a red bow on the bottom of the wreath and a candle in the center of the wreath. We had about three or four of them hanging in the kitchen and living room windows. They were a nice decoration for the inside of the house (not the outside) but we never lit the candles as fire was always a concern.
We always had a Christmas program at our little one room schoolhouse. Rusco School was located just down the hill on the SW corner of Hwy P & Rusco Road. At Christmastime, some of the fathers would build a stage in the front of the classroom, maybe 6’x 20’x 1’ in height. We performed Christmas plays (some religious, some just Christmas stories) and students would play an instrument if they knew how.
We would have to learn our parts and practice for a few weeks before the program. But it was a sure thing that some kids would forget their parts and the teacher, who was behind the scenes, would have to prompt the kids with their lines. Since the stage was small, the kids would have to rotate on and off the stage, depending on their part. The kids would stay in the little library room until it was their turn to go on stage. Some kids recited a poem and of course, there was always singing by the entire class. Everyone would have a role to play in the Christmas program. I would get a little nervous if I had to recite something by myself, but I always did get through it.
At the end of the program, Santa Claus would come and give out a gift to each child. Before Christmas, we all had to draw names and buy or make a small gift for that person. Those were the gifts Santa handed out. I’m pretty sure the teacher also gave each of us a small gift or maybe it was just a popcorn ball. The Christmas program was a highlight for the kids and the parents too, as it was a big social event that everyone came to.
Mom and Dad would take us to see Santa Claus at the Cedar Creek Inn (later, Schwai’s Tavern and now Bibinger’s restaurant). We would sit on Santa’s lap, tell him what we wanted for Christmas, and he would give us a popcorn ball or some candy.
Sometimes Mom and Dad would take us to see Santa at Hoge and Gumm’s, which was a general store in Jackson on Hwy 60 that sold dried goods and food. We alternated which place we would go to see Santa each year.
Santa Claus would come to our house every Christmas Eve to set up the tree, decorate it, and leave us a few presents. He was a busy guy! We didn’t have Christmas stockings back then, so we each hung up one of our everyday stockings. They weren’t like the socks are today. Our stockings went up to the top of our thighs and we would wear our long underwear over them, so they stayed up. We hung our stockings in the living room before we went to bed. We didn’t have a fireplace so we’d hang them wherever we could find a good spot. Mostly we hung our stockings on the doorknobs. We would just tie a string onto the top of the stocking and then make a loop to attach it to the doorknob. Santa filled our stockings with nuts, hard candy, peanut brittle, always a popcorn ball, and an orange or apple on top. In those days, nuts were a real treat, as we rarely had them. My grandkids know that even to this day, I still love nuts.
Sometimes if it wasn’t too cold, Mom and Dad would go to Midnight Mass at Holy Angels. Grandma Bohn, who lived upstairs, would come down and stay home with us kids, as we never went to Midnight Mass. If the car wouldn’t start for Dad on Christmas Eve, or the weather was 10 degrees or lower on the thermometer, they wouldn’t go to Midnight Mass. They had to wait until the weather warmed up on Christmas morning or, if it was still too cold, Dad would have to heat the motor with a torch of some kind to warm the engine up enough to start the car. We had a 1935 Plymouth in the late 1930’s and before that, a Model A Ford. Neither would start in the cold weather, so you just had to stay home when it was cold.
Even though we didn’t have a fireplace for Santa to come down, he was pretty smart and found a way into our house on Christmas Eve. Santa would decorate our tree with lots of tinsel (little silver strands that looked like icicles) and glass ornaments of different sizes that Mom had. We kids would thread popcorn on a string with a needle before Christmas and then Santa would wrap the popcorn strands around the tree. We always had a star on top of the tree that was like a glass ornament.
Santa would also clip candles onto the tree branches, maybe around 15 candles. We didn’t have electricity until 1937 when I was eight years old, so there were no Christmas tree lights, except if a person wanted to light the candles. Mom and Dad didn’t light the candles, though, as it was too much of a fire hazard, but they were put on the tree for decoration. One time, Mom did light a couple of the candles just to show us what they looked like lit on the tree but that was the only time. They put them out very quickly after we saw it, as it wasn’t good to leave them burning. Once we had electric power put into the house, the candles were never used again, as electric lights took over.
Santa left a few presents under the tree, but not too many. He left us clothes and we always got a toy or two. We got one big present like a sled, skis or scooter. There was always sports equipment under the tree, like a basketball or baseball glove. Santa also brought us coloring books, trucks and cars, and usually a game like Old Maid and things like that.
I don’t remember how old I was, probably nine or ten years old, but one year, I got a little blue accordion. One of the neighbor boys, Robert Hosp, played accordion at Rusco School for the Christmas program. So, I got it in my head that I wanted one. We did write letters to Santa back then, so I must have asked Santa to bring one and he did. I never really did learn how to play the accordion though, but I still have it.
Another Christmas, I got a little iron horse and wagon to play with. My sister MaryAnn would get dolls and books. None of the presents from Santa were wrapped, as that was not his custom back then.
On Christmas Eve, we would go to bed around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. and wake up early the next morning because we were so excited. The living room was never used much at our house, and we were never allowed in there except when Mom and Dad had company. We had an oil burning stove in the living room for heat, but it was only lit when we had company. The living room doors were always closed to conserve heat in the house but on Christmas morning, the living room doors were open. When we kids woke up, imagine how very exciting it was for us to see the living room doors open and the decorated Christmas tree sparkling with tinsel and all the presents Santa left for us.
Dad would’ve already been up milking the cows and getting wood in the kitchen stove to warm the house. He probably got up early on Christmas morning so he could be back in the house before we awoke. Mom would tell us which gifts were for each kid. My mom and dad would watch us with all our gifts for a while and we would play with them until Mom said we should have some breakfast. For breakfast, Mom would make hard boiled eggs and sweet rolls. We usually didn’t have sweet rolls, so it was a real treat for us on Christmas morning. I can still remember those sweet rolls that Mom used to bake with frosting and coconut spread on top. They were really good. Sometimes we would have bread and homemade jelly, too. Mom usually bought the bread from a guy in West Bend who purchased day old bread from a bakery in Milwaukee. So, a loaf of bread only cost Mom 2 or 3 cents.
My Grandma usually came down on Christmas morning to spend the morning with us before going to church with us. Then one of my aunts or uncles would take her after church to their house for Christmas day.
When it was time to get ready for church, we would get dressed in our Sunday clothes, and my dad would drive us to Holy Angels for the nine o’clock Christmas morning Mass. On Christmas morning, the nine o’clock Mass was a High Mass for children. The High Mass is a special Mass and always lasts longer than normal. Back then, it was celebrated in Latin, even though it was a Children’s Mass. Mom and Dad would always visit with people after church, including on Christmas morning.
When we got home from church, we would play with our toys a little longer and then at about 12:30 we would have our Christmas meal. There was always a lot of excitement and Mom would have a hard time getting us all in the kitchen to eat at one time. We always had a big Christmas dinner of roast chicken with all the trimmings. The day before Christmas, Dad would go to the chicken coop and some rooster would go to chicken heaven for our Christmas dinner. Afterwards, we always stayed home. On Christmas night, we would just have leftovers for supper.
Christmas was a very busy time of the year, especially for Mom. On the days between Christmas and New Year’s, we would have visitors and we would go to other people’s homes. My aunts, uncles, and cousins on my dad’s side lived in the area and would always come for a visit when we were kids during the holiday season, or we would go to their house. Mom would have some cookies, coffee, and milk for the company. The adults would all visit in the living room and the kids would all be in the kitchen playing and eating. We didn’t go to my mom’s relation in Berlin because it was too chancy in the winter to drive that far when we didn’t know the weather. Berlin was 85 miles from our home. Later in life though, if the weather was good, some of Mom’s relation would come for dinner sometimes and stay overnight. But that was later, when cars had improved and were more reliable.
I just turned 93 and I still have lots of good childhood memories of Christmas with my family. Even though I grew up during the Great Depression and we didn’t have a lot, Mom and Dad always tried to make it a special time for us.
