By Christmas, we were so destitute, Mother waited till the last minute to buy a scrawny tree for a dollar and we girls sat around making paper-chain ornaments out of cut-up magazines or the Sunday funnies (courtesy of our grandparents). On the last day of school before Christmas break, we arrived home to discover a marvelous thing.
Mother, a child of the Depression, had learned to be clever and creative. She had scrounged through the junk in the basement and found partial cans of paint – including red enamel and metallic gold. She had painted the wall behind the tree scarlet and dabbed it with shimmering gold dots. She set a small lamp on the floor behind the tree to illuminate her art work.
It was gorgeous!
Once again, I wondered later if the bulldozer operator who razed the house right after we moved out stopped to admire its uniqueness – and wonder who the heck had lived here.
Daddy had come home briefly for Thanksgiving, arriving on the train one frosty Saturday afternoon, but didn’t stay long. He cursed the cold and left again the day after Turkey Day. I think he just wanted a good meal. He didn’t come back for Christmas and he didn’t send presents.
Somehow, Mother found the means to get us each a new doll. Grandmother Mares (her mom) always sewed us new pajamas. And our Aunt Olive (Daddy’s “rich” sister) always sent us new slippers. We needed them in this house for sure!
Through the long winter, Mother turned hardship into a game. We huddled in the kitchen at night – it and the adjacent dining room being the only rooms with a source of heat.
We got really good at the game of “Let’s Pretend.”
“Let’s pretend …” she would begin, and we’d all lean forward in anticipation.
“We’re in a giant cave during a blizzard,” Motherwould say, setting the stage. Or, “We’re on a ship at sea during a storm.” It became a lovely game, the cold seeping into our bones to lend a remarkable touch of reality.
But even Minnesota winters come to an end.
Easter and spring were welcome, as they always are in the North Country. The frozen ground seemed less stiff beneath our leaky boots. The smell of thawing earth scented the still-chill nights, and birds we hadn’t seen in months were making their way back to our part of the world.
Mother made us ruffled organdy Easter Sunday dresses, using fabric our grandmother had given her. I don’t know why – she hated sewing. Mine was blue; Cindy’s was pink. Andrea said she was too old for organdy, and wore a hand-me-down navy-blue polka-dot dress from our cousin, Dixie Pigg.
We walked into church that Sunday so proud of our finery, too proud to wear the bulky sweaters the chilly day demanded. Our slightly cracked, too-small patent leather shoes were Vaseline-shined and displayed nicely the white 9-cent socks with tiny ruffles on them. (A bargain-bin buy at Atlantic Mills.)
That morning, we girls had been thrilled to find the Easter bunny had visited our waiting baskets, and had added sugared marshmallow bunnies, jelly beans, even a piece of chocolate, to the hard-boiled eggs we’d colored the night before.
After church, Mother stopped to talk to Mrs. Sherman (not her real name), who lived down the road from us. When we got in the car, she said our neighbor had been crying, because the Sherman kids were disappointed that the Easter bunny hadn’t come for them.
Silence permeated the old Studebaker as Mother navigated the rough, rutted road home. When we got there, we girls knew what she would want us to do. We each took part of the candy from our baskets, and made up a shoebox of goodies, complete with wisps of shredded green paper grass, for the neighbors’ six children.
We took it over to their house, about a quarter mile up the road, and Mrs. Sherman cried once again at the kindness. The children were shy, but their eyes shone brightly at the rare treat. Mother explained that the Easter bunny had accidentally left their candy at the wrong house.
“We don’t have a lot,” Mother said, on the drive home “but we’ve got more than some people.”
And she wrestled the blue car down the rutted, muddy lane toward home.
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