Steve's Genealogy Blog

At Christmastime in the 1950s and 1960s, my family frequently visited my father’s brothers and sisters and they visited us . I never really thought of these family gatherings as holiday parties although, in retrospect, they probably were.

At these gatherings, one of the favorite pastimes of the adults was cribbage. Being the only children at these events, my sisters and I were expected to amuse ourselves as the adults played cards.

Back when he was in trade school, my father made a cribbage board, and it was this cribbage board that was used for the games held at our house. The pegs were intricately carved and the board itself practically glowed with the rich stain and glossy varnish with which my father finished the board. My father kept his cards and cribbage board in a locked drawer at the base of a small table next to his chair in the living room. Except for a small safe that contained important family documents, this drawer was the only place in the house that was ever locked.

While the adults played cribbage, my sisters and I would invariably get bored and hover around the card table, watching the adults. These efforts were often short-lived, since we would ask questions like, “Is it good that you have so many Aces?” and be promptly banished from the room.

But, as we grew older, my sisters and I would find ways to involve ourselves in the family gatherings by putting on impromptu shows: singing songs, lip-synching to 45s, and reciting poems. Our efforts were somewhat less than professional, but occasionally we would bring the house down.

On one particular Christmas, my older sister and I taught our younger sister a song, a variant on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”:

Randolph the redneck cowboy
Had a very shiny gun,
And if you ever saw it
You would turn around and run.

All of the other cowboys
Used to laugh and call him names.
They wouldn’t let poor Randolph
Join in any poker games.

Then one foggy Saturday Night
The Sheriff came to say,
“Randolph, with your gun so bright,
Won’t you lead my posse tonight?”

Then all the cowboys loved him
And they shouted out with glee
“Randolph the redneck cowboy,
You’ll go down in history!”

The only problem was that my sister stumbled on one of the lines. Instead of singing “Randolph, with your gun so bright, Won’t you lead my posse tonight?”, she sang “Randolph, with your gun so bright, Won’t you shoot my wife tonight?”.

Wherever did she get that line?

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 9 . 

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

Mom rarely baked cookies. At the holidays, there really was no need . Everyone seemed to give us cookies at Christmastime, so there was never a cookie shortage in our house. At one time, Mom kept the cookies in a round, ceramic cookie jar decorated with images of cookies of every kind. Even the knob on the lid was a cookie.

But the cookies I remember best at Christmas were Danish Butter Cookies presented in a tin. At Grandmother Danko’s apartment, there always seemed to be a supply of these cookies with the different varieties – round, pretzel-shaped, rectangular, or swirly - stacked neatly in paper dividers that reminded me of cupcake wrappers . When the cookies were gone, someone would always save the tin.

Grandmother Danko only spoke Polish and my sisters and I only knew a few Polish words. When she would offer us cookies, we took our cues from her actions since we couldn’t understand what she was saying and, because we couldn’t have a conversation with her, during most of the time at Grandmother’s apartment we’d read the funny papers, work the puzzles in Highlights magazine, or watch television.

Grandmother enjoyed watching television, especially Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, The Lawrence Welk Show, Sing Along with Mitch, and The Ed Sullivan Show.

We’d watch with Grandmother as Marlon Perkins sent his sidekick Jim Fowler to wrestle an alligator on Wild Kingdom. We’d watch as Lawrence Welk introduced the Lennon Sisters (our favorite act on Lawrence Welk). We’d watch as Mitch Miller instructed us to “follow the bouncing ball” and sing along. We’d watch as Ed Sullivan bantered with tiny Topo Gigio and laugh when Topo Gigio would shyly ask “Eddie… kiss me goodnight!” We’d watch, and we’d eat Danish Butter Cookies.

YouTube – topo gigio.flv

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 8 . 

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

Sister Marie DeLourdes gave our first-grade class an unusual assignment in December 1961.

Each student was to bring in one wire clothes hanger and a supply of tissue paper in whatever colors we wanted.

My mother looked at the list, went to the front hall closet, chose a wire hanger, and dug out a bag of tissue paper in the required colors. Somehow, she always had the supplies we needed for school squirreled away somewhere, ready for any eventuality. Need No. 2 pencils? She had them in her desk. Need a spiral bound notebook? There was a supply of those, too. Need blunt-nose safety scissors? Absolutely. But how did she know I would need colored tissue paper?

The day for the wire hanger and tissue paper adventure arrived and I dutifully brought my supplies to school. I hung my coat in the cloak room, removed my galoshes and toted my bag of tissue paper into the classroom.

After our morning prayers and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, Sister Marie DeLourdes gave us our instructions.

“All right, students, take your wire coat hanger and stretch it out so that is forms a circle,” she said, demonstrating the process with a coat hanger she held in front of the classroom. “Now, cut your tissue paper into strips, about an inch wide and eight inches long.” She held up a sheet of tissue paper so we could see how to cut the paper.

“When you’ve finished cutting the tissue paper into strips, wrap the strips around the hanger so that the middle of the piece of tissue paper is tied to the hanger and the ends are free, like so…,” and she showed us how.

One student raised her hand.

“Sister, mine doesn’t look right,” the student said.

Sister Marie DeLourdes inspected the situation. Rather than bringing tissue paper, the student had brought toilet tissue.

“Well, do the best you can, dear,” Sister Marie DeLourdes told her, reassuringly.

We all worked industriously to add more and more strips of tissue paper to our hangers. Some students worked with green tissue paper, some with red, and some with white. Some even alternated the colors so their hangers became kaleidoscopes of color.

Some time later, when everyone had finished and the hangers were covered, Sister Marie DeLourdes asked us, one-by-one to bring our finished Christmas wreaths to the front of the room to show the class.

Every one was different, each a work of art. Even the toilet tissue wreath looked wonderful.

“When you take your wreaths home, you can hang them up using the hook at the top of the hanger,” she told us. “I’m sure these will be a wonderful addition to your Christmas decorations.”

And they were. My mother was so impressed that she asked me to make two more so she could hang one from each of the three bay windows in the living room. Our relatives and neighbors were so impressed that they offered to pay me to make tissue paper wreaths for them. And so, I took orders to make wreaths in custom colors and patterns.

At the age of six I had become an entrepreneur.

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 7.

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

My sisters and I poured over the Sears Catalog and the Montgomery Ward Catalog and whatever other holiday shopping catalogs we had in the house. In the 1960s, most of the large department stores distributed huge catalogs with pictures of all their wares and, it seemed, we had every single catalog available.

Of course, for my sisters and for me, the most important parts of the catalogs were the toy sections.

We thumbed through the catalogs and made extensive lists of the toys we wanted for Christmas, carefully noting any available options for size and color. Finally, we presented our lists to our mother.

“Santa’s not bringing you all that!” Mother exclaimed when she saw the multi-page lists we had prepared.

“But how do you know Santa won’t bring it all?” we asked.

Despite our protestations, Mother made us pare down our lists to a reasonable size that we could mail off to Santa.

“But we need a stamp,” I commented, as we sealed the envelopes addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole”.

“You don’t need a stamp on a letter to Santa Claus,” Mom answered.

That sounded reasonable, I thought.

We bundled up in our warm but bulky winter clothes and headed to the Post Office, just a short block away from our house and, after posting our letters, we boarded a bus to go shopping on “The Avenue”.

Central Avenue was one of our favorite places to shop. Central Avenue was home to much more interesting stores than was Downtown and, with the holiday decorations and lights, was also much more festive.

Central Avenue was the location of Woolworth’s, one of our favorite stores. We liked Woolworth’s because we could visit our Aunt Statia who worked there, and we were sometimes allowed to sit at the soda fountain and order banana splits, the price of which was determined by picking one of the balloons that hung over the soda counter. If you were lucky, you might select a balloon with a price as low as a penny.

Christmas shopping also afforded us the opportunity to visit Santa and tell him, in person, what we wanted for Christmas.

“How will he remember what I want for Christmas?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, he will,” was the reply.

“But how?” I asked again.

“He just will.”

My sisters and I waited in line to talk to Santa. We noticed with some alarm that, once propped on Santa’s lap, several of the children in front of us were so frightened of the old man that all they could do was cry. Hmmph, I thought. That won’t happen to me.

Then came my turn.

“What’s your name?” Santa asked.

“Stephen”, I replied.

“And what do you want for Christmas, Stephen?” Santa asked.

My mind went blank. I couldn’t think of a single, blessed thing. Memory of the list I had so recently made had simply vanished from my head.

“Ummm…” I stammered. “Ummm…”

“Yes? Go ahead,” said Santa, gently.

“A FIRE ENGINE!” I blurted out.

I disengaged myself from Santa’s lap, readjusted my jacket, and walked over to my mother. She looked at me quizzically and said, “I didn’t know you wanted a fire engine.”

“I don’t,” I said, matter-of-factly.

“Then why did you ask Santa for one?” Mom asked, a bit perplexed.

“I couldn’t think of anything else!” I told her.

Mom helped my sisters and me with our scarves and mittens and hats and we all headed back outside to the street.

There was no wind, and the temperature was mild. It had just started to snow . Big, fat, lazy flakes were tumbling down onto the street. As we stood at the bus stop, we marveled at the sights and sounds around us.

The snow was gently falling - a wonderful, wet, just-before-Christmas snow. Bright holiday decorations and colorful lights were everywhere. And the sounds of Christmas Carols drifted around us, as if carried on the snowflakes themselves.

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 6.

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

My sisters and I stood, just inside the front door of the house, watching our father as he hung the decorations on the front porch.

The wind gusted and tried to snatch away the aluminum garland Dad was trying to affix to the eaves of the porch. The storm door shook from the force of the wind. We shivered. Even though the storm door was closed, cold air still found its way around the edges of the door and into the house, something that wouldn’t happen once Dad finished his work outside and closed both the main door and the storm door.

The three of us huddled closer to the front hall radiator which had just started its knock knock knocking, our clue that the furnace had come on and hot water would be circulating through the pipes.

With the aluminum garland finally in place, its silver and green leaves rustling in the wind, we watched as Dad reached for the lights. The bulbs were huge! Nowhere near as big as a regular light bulb, but much bigger than the bulbs on the tree or the yellow bulbs of the electric candelabra in the windows. We watched in excitement as Dad replaced the bulb in the front porch light with a device that converted the screw socket to a plug socket. He plugged the strand of lights into the socket and… nothing.

Dad grunted.

“A bulb is burned out!” he called to us. “I’ll have to figure out which one it is!”

“Hurry!” we called back. “We can’t wait!” My younger sister hopped back and forth from one foot to another in her excitement.

Dad selected a new bulb from the box and replaced the first bulb. Still nothing. He continued on down the strand of lights until, finally, the whole string lit up with reds and greens and blues and yellows.

“Hooray!” we shouted, almost giddy with holiday excitement.

Dad pulled the ladder over to the corner of the porch closest to the electric socket and began securing lights to the hooks already holding the garland in place. As he continued around the three sides of the porch, the sun began to set, making the lights seem to burn even more brightly. The aluminum leaves of the garland reflected the light and made it seem as if many more bulbs were in place than really were. The wind blew through the garland, making a rustling noise and causing glints of reflected light to dance across the floor of the porch like winter fireflies.

Dad finished his job just as the sun set completely. The garland was in place and all the lights were burning brightly. He picked up the extra bulbs and the empty box that had once held the strings of lights. He opened the storm door. The wind blew in.

“Brrrr!” We all shivered, and Dad closed the storm door firmly behind him. “Now, let’s see if it all works.”

He flicked the switch to the front porch light and the lights went out. Another flick and the lights came back on. I thought my Dad was a genius for connecting the lights so we could turn them on and off with a switch from inside the house.

“Boy, Daddy! You sure know how to do everything!” I exclaimed.

“OK! I’m going to take the ladder around back and put it in the cellar. You kids close the doors behind me and I’ll meet you in the kitchen. I think I’m ready for a nice hot cuppa coffee!” he said in reply.

Dad opened the storm door once again, picked up the ladder, and headed around the house to the south. My sisters and I closed and latched the storm door, and then we closed the heavy front door. The cover to the mail slot in the door rattled as we pushed the door closed.

I peeked through the front blinds at the lights, and then I flicked the light switch off. Then on. Then off again. Then on again.

“Just leave them on, Stephen!” my older sister demanded, exasperated. With that, both of my sisters turned and headed to the kitchen.

Flick – Off. Flick – On. Flick – Off. Flick – On.

“STEPHEN!” 

I ran to catch up with my sisters.

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 5.

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko