“We
promised to have a regular tree and we’ll all be children and have a lot of fun
out of it.” Ina Dobson, Christmas 1932
I’m a firm believer that without toys,
Christmas isn’t much fun. Certainly this is true for a child, but it may be true
for adults as well. Yes, I know – it can be overdone. Still, parents have to find
ways to manage the flow so that children are not deprived. Deprivation at any
level isn’t fun.
The following Christmas memories
were written by my mother, Dorothy Dobson:
When I was five we moved to a farm six
miles from Weippe. Christmas Eve was the time my dad went out to get the tree.
It was set up and decorated after we went to bed. We knew my brother would get
the pop gun he wanted the Christmas we heard someone playing with it. Santa
always brought the presents and they were under the tree in the morning. That
same year I got the doll I wanted. I would like to have had it be a girl doll
but my brother said he wouldn’t play with me if it wasn’t a boy so I named it
“Albert.” 
We moved back to Orofino when I was
eight. That was during the First World War and there was a scarcity of
everything. My best memory of the next few years was Christmas in the [Orofino]
Mercantile. There was a long table near the center of the store filled with
toys of every description. As soon as school was out we hurried down town to
“play with” the toys. There weren’t any decorations in town but that toy table
was enough.
5 comments:
One Christmas gift(s) sticks in my memory. I was a teen and had asked for a pair of boots. I just wanted some rubber boots but my folks had misunderstood and had purchased a nice pair of leather boots. They got the picture before Xmas and I ended up getting two pair of boots. I had the leather boots for many years but the rubber boots were destroyed in a boating accident when I was 19.
That's an interesting note by Grandma. Did they actually farm or were they just living there?
They were farming, but Papa (her father, my grandfather, your great-grandfather) might have been doing other work as well, such as timber cruising. Unfortunately, my sense of what he did prior to starting the Ford garage in Orofino is hazy, and Harriet isn't here to help. However, I do have other written material.
Maybe Uncle Chuck will happen by and offer some info.
Chuck always says he doesn't remember much. Seems like he shares impressions rather than memories, and that's helpful, too.
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