NEW YEAR'S EVE

 

Grandma Ina seemed offhand about Thanksgiving, but she appears to have enjoyed celebrating the New Year. As she was writing to her son Vance (my father), she often said, “My first of the New Year shall be to you,” or some such phrase. As 1932 turned to ’33, she described greeting the New Year from the east coast to the west through the radio. “They began at 9:00 at New York City,” she wrote, “when pandemonium broke loose on Broadway till we could hardly hear the chimes from the great Trinity Church. Chicago ushered it in on Central Standard Time. We bathed while the New Year was crossing the Great Plains and getting into the mountains to be heralded at Denver. I curled up on the couch and took a nap while 1933 was crossing the mountain chains and reaching the city which sits by the Golden Gate. There again was great sound and we could hear the steamers bellowing and such a confusion of sounds [so that] we could hardly hear the bell tolling out the midnight hour.”

Traditionally, Ina's sister Bertha prepared a big meal on New Year’s Day, as this one in 1934, which Ina described: “We were at Aunt’s for New Year’s Day. And oh! The lavish dinner! Oyster soup – very good, fried chicken, gravy, potatoes, corn on the cob, cabbage salad, Jell-O fruit salad, fruit cake with thick icing, mince pie, pumpkin pie, apricot Jell-O pie, etc., etc., etc. – and then Aunt said, ‘Why Ruth! We didn’t put any citron preserves on the table.’ Also, popcorn balls, nuts, candy, and gum.”

Of that same year, 1933 to ’34, Aunt Shirley wrote: “New Year’s Eve the Harold Powells asked Henry, Myrtle and myself over for the evening and we had a most enjoyable time listening to their good radio and playing anagrams. They really are delightful people. We didn’t come home till after 2 a.m. so we were somewhat sleepy at Aunt’s the next day. She had the usual big dinner which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.”

In 1938, the New Year’s Day dinner at Aunt Bertha’s was less lavish. Ina wrote: “We were at June’s today for dinner and had a good one, but Aunt had said it was not to be much so all we had was oyster soup (“Willapas,” by the way), roast back bone of pork, a platter of sausage, potatoes roasted with the meat, lettuce salad, pickles, chow chow, not more than four kinds of jelly and preserves, only one kind of pie (pumpkin), and only one kind of cake (fruitcake). Of course, you know there was tea, coffee, milk, grape juice, bread, butter, crackers. This is all I can remember. The nuts and candy were on top, too. We came home in good season to avoid the dark.”

 

I’m sure Mike and I will celebrate by being sound asleep by 10:00. That’s what we usually do. KW