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“WHAT WAS CHRISTMAS LIKE WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD, GRANDPA?”

“Did you have Santa Claus and presents and a tree and   lights and songs and big dinners and candy canes?”

Christmas was exciting. Sometimes it was too exciting. Before describing it, I have to tell you what our world was like in those days so you can understand my story. We lived in a part of New York City called Brooklyn, and in a quiet part of Brooklyn called Bay Ridge.

Things were slower in that time, even in New York . The Horse and Buggy days were not over yet. Milk for the table and ice for the ice box were delivered by horse and   wagon. Horses have nothing to do with the story but they give you some idea of what things looked and felt and smelled like. I used to pet the horses and feed them sugar. I got to ride on the backs of the wagons as they went slowly from door to door. I still miss the horses. My family was poor like nearly everyone else then, because of the “Great Depression.” One year during the depression, we were afraid we wouldn’t have Christmas. It was in 1934. I was about seven years old.

The “Great Depression” had begun in 1929, when I was two, and was still going on. It lasted for years. It’s hard to explain what it was, or what caused it, but I can tell you what it was like. All over the world, a lot of people were out of work.  Many farmers lost their farms. There wasn’t enough money for food or clothes or housing for everyone. Lots of people were homeless and starving.

“Did your family have a house, Grandpa?”

  Yes we had a house. Our family was better off than a lot of others, but even so, things were not easy for us. My parents owned the house we lived in. Our house had three stories with one apartment on each floor, and also a basement. We lived in the first floor apartment and rented out the upper two floors. Sometimes the tenants were able to pay the rent, but sometimes not. All the apartments were tiny, but our family used the basement for extra space. Most of the basement was taken up by the furnace, the water heater and the coal that was used for fuel. We used the remaining space for a kitchen, in spite of the dust from coal and asbestos. We could put bread on a fork and make toast over the open fire of the water heater if we lifted the lid. That was fun. We could roast marshmallows too. That was even more fun.

 Besides the house we owned, my father had a real estate business and owned some other houses nearby. He bought houses when he had money, before the depression started. Dad also had a coal business, which involved getting coal from the mines in Pennsylvania and selling it to people in Bay Ridge, where we lived. He used to go to the coal mines himself to bring back the coal in an old truck he rented.

He also owned a car, which he needed for his business. Most people couldn’t afford cars. Neither could he, but he had to have one. It was an old car that broke down a lot.

“If your father owned those things, how could you have been poor, Grandpa?”

We were poor, because there wasn’t enough money to buy things we needed. Why did we have so little money when my parents owned houses and things? The biggest reason was that my father’s tenants and customers didn’t have

the money to pay him. But he still had expenses to run his properties and his business, so he had to spend money for these things. Another reason is that he felt sorry for people and let his tenants live rent free if they said they had no money. My mother said that some of these people were taking advantage of him, especially the ones who disappeared, owing him for months of rent. Dad also brought home stray dogs.

They usually were nice and we were glad to have them around to keep us and the cats company. It didn’t cost much to feed them. We thought that maybe he did these things because he had been an orphan and had to be taken in by relatives after his parents died.

We liked animals. One year, my big sister Lolly got a couple of baby chicks for Easter. My parents let them run around the house. As they grew, the little cock took over. He chased the dog and the cats and sat on my father’s shoulder and read the newspaper with him. But that’s another story. 

Upstairs in our house, one of the apartments was occupied by my Aunt Rose (who was Mom’s sister) and uncle Cyril and our three cousins, Rosemary, Frank and the baby, Gigi. They had moved to Bay Ridge from Lafayette , Indiana when uncle Cyril’s blanket manufacturing business had to close down because of the depression. He still had a lot of blankets that he couldn’t sell and when they couldn’t pay the rent he gave us blankets. It was sort of like the way Indians used to  pay for things with blankets out in the far west. We loved having our cousins there. My cousin Frank was my best friend.

To own and manage houses and to run a business, Dad had to pay mortgages and taxes. He also had to pay other men to provide supplies and to repair things. He was far too trusting to be doing business in New York , and was often overcharged.  When he owed people money they never listened to excuses the way he did with his tenants. He had to pay, even if he had to give them the money we needed to live on.

“Did you have enough money for food and clothing, Grandpa?”

We usually could buy food, because Mom helped make money too. Since there wasn’t enough money coming in from Dad’s business, Mom did sewing.  She was very good at making dresses. Many ladies came to see her at our home for this. One difference between her and my father was that she only worked for people who would pay her. They didn’t pay much, but one good thing about the depression was that you could buy food cheap. A loaf of bread or a quart of milk was a nickel, except when they were on sale for two cents. Potatoes sometimes could be bought for a penny a pound.  Despite these cheap prices, we often would have gone hungry without the money Mom brought in.

A couple of years later, when I was ten, Mom got a job working as a ticket agent in the New York subways every night for twenty five cents an hour. That adds up to getting paid two dollars for spending the night underground in a cold subway station. Altogether, in a good week, she got paid ten dollars for the week. She didn’t always get that much. Each night, she had to go downtown to the main office to find out if they needed her as a substitute. If they didn’t, she got no work and no pay.

Jobs were very hard to get in the depression, especially for a woman, and she had to use political pull to get even this job. As little as it was, that was good money for a woman to make during the depression. After she got that job, we depended on her earnings and were eventually able to move to a nicer place.

“Please tell us about Christmas, Grandpa.”

Okay, now you’ll be able to understand what I’m going to tell you about Christmas in 1934. The morning of Christmas Eve came and there was no money. This was before my mother had a job in the subway. It looked like we wouldn’t have a Christmas, at least not the fun parts. Nobody had paid my father the money they owed him for a long time. We had nothing to pay for food or presents or a tree. We were saved at the last minute. On Christmas Eve, a small check arrived from my father’s sister Cara, who lived in Baltimore . Aunt Cara and her husband, Uncle Axel had money and always helped us. The check came just in time. They also used to send us clothes too. I wouldn’t have had enough to wear without them. As little as we had, our family sent our own used clothes to relatives who lived on a farm in South Dakota , and who were even poorer than we were. All the relatives helped each other as much as they could to get through the depression.

After the check from Aunt Cara was cashed, we piled into my Dad’s car and went to shop in the cheapest part of town, where there were people with pushcarts in the street, selling turkeys, vegetables and most of the other things you might need for Christmas. There were no trees there though. We’d have to get that later if we could, with only fifty cents left.

On our return home, as we approached the front door of our house, there at the top of the steps was a man to whom my father owed money. He stood blocking the door, looking like a big, mean Grinch. Dad had paid him a lot already on a bill that had been too high, but he had signed a contract and couldn’t get out of it. So there we were, in another tough spot, after thinking Christmas had been saved. All we had was fifty cents and some food, and we didn’t want to let go of that.

“What did you do, Grandpa?”

The man hadn’t seen us. We drove about a block away and waited for him to leave. It took hours and it was cold, but eventually he gave up and left. We went into the house and started getting ready for Christmas.

There was still a tree to get if we could. As midnight approached, my Dad, my big brothers Barry and Freddie and I walked up the street to Fifth Avenue , where our local stores were. Most of the Christmas trees had been sold out, but, as we had hoped, there were still some left, but no other buyers. Everyone had gone home but us and the man with the trees. We picked out a six foot tree with full branches and asked the price. It was three dollars, but when we said we only had fifty cents he let us have it, since no one else wanted it.

The tree was set up in the living room and decorated.  Since our home was small, my sister Lolly and I always had to sleep in the living room on a couch that made into two beds. That night we got to stay up late to help decorate the tree. We left room in front of the fire place so Santa could come out of the chimney. 

Next morning we were up early, hoping for presents. Even though we went to bed late, we saw that Santa had been there. Somehow he managed to come in without waking us. Our stockings over the fireplace had candy in them, and there were toys under the tree. I got a toy truck and a book. By today’s standards, that wasn’t much, but it seemed like a lot to me. I was happy. In the afternoon my cousin Frank and his family from upstairs joined us.  We had a big turkey dinner and apple pie for dessert.  I ate too much, but I wasn’t sorry. Only a day before, we didn’t know whether there would even be a Christmas dinner. I felt very lucky.

Christmas is a Christian holiday, celebrating the birth of Jesus.  But it is more than that. It is a celebration for all children and about all children. That’s why people of other religions often celebrate Christmas too. I was a lucky child, because we lived in a house and I had parents who loved me. That was better than being rich. What I like best about Christmas now, is being with my children and grandchildren.

They are the best presents I ever got.