Great Grandpa’s Christmas Eve surprise
Jen Mielke – Ladysmith
It was Christmas in the late 1920s, when my great-grandfather, William Mielke, set his heart on giving my great-grandmother, Mathilda, a special gift – a brand-new gramophone. They didn’t have much money in those days, but he had been quietly saving, determined to bring a little magic into their home. The afternoon of Christmas eve, he hitched the horses to the sleigh and set out through the snow toward Verner Bretzlaff’s store in Ladysmith. At the store, he picked up the treasured record player and tucked it carefully under blankets, a secret nestled in the sleigh. Then he made the journey home, guarding his surprise all the way. When suppertime arrived, he finally carried the bundle into the house. As the blankets fell away, my great-grandmother and their children were delighted by the gift of music. In that simple, humble kitchen, with snow falling softly outside, the surprise landed just as he’d hoped. The gift may have been for my great-grandmother, but the story has lived on, shared within our family and with friends. Today, the gramophone still sits proudly in what was once their home, a cherished reminder of love, simplicity, and Christmas magic.
A New Year’s Sleigh Ride
Mike Lamothe – Calumet Island
After World War II my parents moved from Hull to the family farm on Grand Calumet Island. They decided one New Year’s Eve to go visit my Uncle Hormidas and Aunt Viola Brousseau for New Year’s Eve. Three farms down the road lived my Uncle Adrien Turgeon with his widowed mother (Mémère to us) and her father Napoleon Paquin who was about 95 years old. My late grandfather never owned a car so the family owned buffalo robes to keep them warm on the sleighs and cutters for winter travel. Napoleon also had a big beaver coat and hat so everyone would have been quite comfortable for a cold sleigh ride. Adrien, who always loved horses, came by our house to pick up Mom, Dad and my sister Judy who would have been eight or nine years old. My brother Ray and I who were younger were likely babysat by Dad’s parents who still lived with us. Then they all went across the road to Uncle Eugène Hamelin’s farm. Here they picked up two of my mother’s cousins Aldas and Théo Hamelin. Instead of going back out to the road, they went past the barn and towards the back fields. The snow was above the horses knees. Adrien, at 20 years old, would have been right in his glory with the team. He had a special rapport with horse’s and until his death last year at 98 years old, often told me stories about various horses he had encountered throughout his life.
He remembered them with a fondness and vividness as if the events he was describing had happened a few weeks ago. As an example when Adrien was young, Mick O’Hare from Dunraven would go to the LaSalle store at Tancredia to get the mail for the Dunraven Post Office with a fast horse on the cutter. He would go by the Turgeon gate at a gallop. When Adrien spoke of the hard packed snow flying off the horse’s hoofs and striking the shield at the front of the cutter, he was so in the moment that it was as if he could see, hear and feel what he felt nearly 90 years earlier.
My sister Judy remembers being very confused, wondering where the heck they were going through the fields. She had never gone to the relatives this way. There was a gate between the two farms. When they arrived at the house for the party, then she knew exactly where she was. My Uncle Hormidas was delighted because he said nobody ever came to visit him for New Years Eve.
In the group that was on the sleigh, three of the young men could play the violin. They had a great time, enjoying tasty food, some music, singing and a few drinks I’m sure.
When it came time to leave, great grandpa Napoleon couldn’t find his hat. He spoke very little English but he was dancing around and kept saying, “I had a hat when I came in and I’ll have a hat when I go out,” a line from an old traditional Irish song. Everybody was looking for the hat. Finally my grandmother decided to look in the pockets of his coat and there was the hat. They always wondered if he did it on purpose. He was a bit of a jokester. All through my life I kept hearing that little ditty – “I had a hat when I came in and I’ll have a hat when I go out” – but I never remembered the context until my sister Judy pointed it out to me recently. Back then it was common in the country to have many good house parties. This was before people started going to the hotels to celebrate.
A Sunday School Party
Mary McDowell Wood – Shawville
I was probably three or four years old. It was a Sunday School Christmas party in the basement of the Shawville United Church. It seems to be it was about seven o’clock in the evening, and this was not an event of eating nor goodies and things like that, it was just being present. The room was warm, with lots of people around. I knew most of them – didn’t know their names but knew them from Sunday school. There were festoons of tinsel around, maybe some crepe paper red bows. The bigger kids were performing a sort of marching drill. I was going to sing Santa Claus is Coming to Town, but I was too small, they couldn’t see me. So they stood me up on the table. I had practiced a little bit at home. He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’ve been good or bad, so be good for goodness sake. My mother was close by prompting me with the words I couldn’t remember. It is an absolutely beautiful memory. Nowadays we would say it was a mystical experience. But I just knew it was so warm and so right in every way. It was a feeling of community, a great sense of belonging. When I look back on it, it was a sense of extreme quiet, happiness, and wonder. It was full of joy. I think this memory has stayed with me because in today’s secular world, where Christmas has become so commercial, and people don’t even know the marvel of the creator to come and live among us. That’s a concept that is profound for me. As I grow older, and deal with the world and life, that’s my guide, my post, my anchor, that no matter what is happening, God is among us. And thinking of that, makes it happen.
A Christmas Tree Quest
Gail Gavan – Quyon
One time in the 80s, Mae McCann and her daughters Audrey, Sandra, and I went out looking for a Christmas tree back behind Quyon. Mae used to deliver mail back there on the Wolf Lake Road and the Steele Line. So during the week on her route she scouted out where some nice trees were. A couple of weeks before Christmas on a Saturday, we piled into her truck and we headed back to get a tree. Well we stopped at Dominic Foran’s house, we stopped at Clement Foran’s house, we stopped at Stanley Kearn’s camp, perhaps having a little ‘Christmas Cheer’ at each place. We stopped at Isabel and Doug Schwartz’s place. Mae and I loved the fiddle. So next thing you know, Isabel was playing the piano, Virginia and Shawn were playing the piano and Doug was smiling from ear to ear. They had some relatives visiting, so it was only right that we cleared the kitchen table to the side so we could have a square dance! The music was just a-hummin, the feet a-flyin’ and the wood stove burnin’. A perfect setting. But then we noticed the time and said we better hurry up and get a tree before it was too dark. Off we went into the bush. Parked the truck at the side of the road. Jumped a fence. Landed in snow up to our hips. It took everything to get one leg out of the snow and put it forward to get the next leg out. We were all hip-deep in the snow and so stuck that we just lay down and laughed. Some made snow angels. But we mostly just laughed and laughed and laughed and couldn’t move. (The rum and egg nog and Crown Royal and Coke may have had something to do with that.) Finally we got our act together and with Mae’s Swede saw we cut down a beautiful pine. In slow motion through the snow, and falling every few feet, we hauled it back to the truck. Relieved that we got our prize tree, we headed back to Ervin and Mae McCann’s house in Quyon beside the famous chipstand. When we went to take it out of the back of the truck-there was no tree! What the heck? So we figured it had fallen out and headed back right away to retrace our tracks. There in the snow on the Lac des Loups road was an obvious spot where a tree had fallen, but no tree, just some branches. It was right in front of the house of a man we knew. We were going to knock on the door and ask him for it. But we figured if he needed the tree that much, he could have it. The fun of getting that tree was far more memorable than the tree itself. Besides, we would have to go get another one! Yee-hah!
Stories collected by Sophie Kuijper Dickson
