ADVENT 2024 – HARD TIMES CHRISTMAS ON THE FARM

 

INTRODUCTION

I live mostly in the past now and remember some things that I would not forget and many others that I would willingly forget. – Great-aunt Ida Dickson Patchen, 1924 

I so agree with Aunt Ida. As I move through life, even some of the things I would not forget are poignant and even painful. But loved Christmas comes again, so I lay aside the stress and uncertainty of these times to listen to my Grandma Ina’s wisdom as she prepares for an understated “skimpy” Christmas at her farm home. The visit is imaginary, of course, but mostly based on Ina’s letters written to my dad during the Depression. With a vague plan in mind, I write as I go, so I don’t know what (if anything) will happen next. Vintage Christmas cards serve to Illustrate the posts. It’s a trip to a past long gone – a past that was never mine.

The year is 1931. Ina has just turned 61, and Jack is 67. They have been married 40 years and have farmed here for 35 years.

Longtime readers might recognize the names of my players, but here’s a roster if you need it:

Ina Dickson Dobson, my grandmother

Julian (Jack) Dobson, my grandfather

Their children, now adults:

·      The eldest, Pearl, lives in northern Alberta where she farms with her husband, Albert Sanders. They have one son, Stanley, who was 11 in 1931.

·      Myrtle, also called Lynn, is a photographer’s assistant in Portland, OR.

·      Earle and his wife Bernice live in Idaho Falls, where he is a junior high math and shop teacher.

·      Ethel and her husband, Ernest Robinson, live in Montana, where he is in law enforcement. They have a six-year-old daughter, Shirley Jean.

·      Vance, who won’t become my father until 1949, is a private piano teacher and musician living in Raymond, WA.

·      And Shirley, the youngest at 21, still resides at home.

Additional players are:

·      Ina’s sister, Bertha Dobson, affectionately called “Aunt” by the children.

·      Junius (June) Dobson (“Uncle”), Jack’s twin brother. (Sisters Ina and Bertha were married to twin brothers and lived parallel lives on adjoining homesteads.)

Daily Advent posts begin tomorrow. KW