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Growing up in traditions of Quakers
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Approaching the Christmas season in my eighty-third year with
our beautiful eleventh great grandchild here for her first year, and the world so
troubled, my thoughts have turned down memory lane.
I grew up on a farm in Ohio, part of a conservative Quaker household. At that time
those Quakers still observed a teaching which denied observance of Christmas. They
believed we should be equally thankful for Jesus coming every day of the year. Observing
his birth on Christmas was inappropriate for various reasons, one of which included
pagan overtones and the materialistic emphasis on gifts.
In those early years at our house Christmas was just another day in the week. No
decorations. No gifts. We children heard talk from our friends about the holiday
and so felt somewhat left out. One Christmas a favorite aunt sent an orange apiece,
a rare treat in the early twenties, and a pair of mittens for each of us. What a
thrill that was. She was a member of the same Quaker Meeting and we youngsters were
intrigued that her family observed Christmas. Several years later I worked as the
operator at a small telephone switchboard. At that time Aunt Amelia made cookies
and candy for their service people such as postman and switchboard operator each
Christmas.
By the time I was a teenager with a job and cash income, one year I bought gifts
for my parents and siblings at Christmas. One present I remember was a softly fleece-lined
nightgown for my mother. She had worn homemade gowns, often made of bleached and
pieced together cotton flour sacks all her life up to that point. It gave me great
pleasure to see her warmed by something soft and luxurious for once.
A couple of years later we kids daringly
brought a hemlock branch into the house and decorated it with strings of popcorn
and colored paper chains; our very first Christmas tree!
The years slipped away. I married and came to live in Oregon with my husband who
is native to this state. Our family grew. We managed those early years on a limited
income supplemented by milk, eggs, meat, fruit and vegetables from a small orchard
and a big garden. We've been on this old homestead now for fifty years.
There was always enough cash to buy a few items for the kids Christmas stockings.
A tangerine went in the toe. Pencils, toy cars, small puzzles, a pocket knife, kewpie
dolls, a yoyo, a popcorn ball. It was a challenge to find small inexpensive items
that would provide entertainment for, eventually, eight youngsters. We had a tree
with presents under it, but that part of the observance waited until breakfast and
morning chores were completed.
The stockings were fair game as soon as the kids woke up. I can still remember the
soft giggles and stealthy footsteps on the stairs as early as 5:30 am. It might have
been midnight before we parents finished stuffing and hanging those stockings along
the mantel above the fireplace. The kids anticipation bubbled all night and when
one woke they all came down together from an unheated second story in this old farmhouse
to the relative warmth of the hearth where a fire burned around the clock.
In my memory those were the good old days when our congenial family unit shared small
pleasures untroubled by Nintendo and other sophisticated diversions so prevalent
in children's lives today. Caring for livestock and keeping the wood boxes full filled
part of their time with instructive and useful activities that were a required aspect
of daily living.
One Christmas morning when I went to the barn to milk the family cow she was wearing
a big red ribbon around her neck. Our daughter and son-in-law, who lived next door,
were joint owners of this big Guernsey-Holstein. They had decided to simplify the
situation by presenting us with their half interest. The cow kept much of the neighborhood
supplied with milk by her daily output of around five gallons. A family photo album
includes a picture of Charlotte with the red bow prominently displayed.
Not all memories are heart warming. Another Christmas morning I went out to the chicken
house to fill the watering container and check on the feed supply and eggs. The flock
of 24 hens and one rooster was always shut in at night to protect them from predators.
An open window near ground level was covered with chicken wire screening. Sometime
during the night or early morning marauding dogs had ripped that screen off and killed
the flock except for two hens that escaped to hide in a rough pile of lumber nearby.
There were feathers everywhere and bloody chickens all over the floor and the ground
outside that window. A few had been partly eaten. The rest were victims of an unrestrained
killing spree. What a shocking discovery that was on Christmas morning.
Now our children are long gone from home.
I feel inadequate to deal with sixteen grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren
in a meaningful way. We have the gang together on Thanksgiving day, leaving Christmas
free for our children's families who all have their own observances. Our need for
material things is very limited. The last two years we have put a wreath on the front
door to welcome visitors, and some greens and candles around but no tree inside.
I make some fudge for my husband and he may find some attractive stationery or a
good book for me. We enjoy a quiet day together, puttering as octogenarians will,
content with what life has given us and thankful for the gift of God's love.
© 2001 Lois Barton
Lois Barton is an 83 year old mother of eight children. She has lived on the same rural acreage just south of Eugene, Oregon for more than 50 years. All their children learned to milk, to keep the woodboxes filled, to do their share of household and garden chores. Her first book, Spencer Butte Pioneers, was published in 1982 when her youngest started to school. Since then she wrote five other books: Daughter of the Soil, now out of print; One Woman's West; A Quaker Promise Kept; and Through My Window, autobiographical sketches, sequel to Daughter Of the Soil. Through the years Lois has been a 4H leader, president of the neighborhood association, a precinct committe woman, election board clerk, editor of the Lane County Historian, and a life long Quaker. She spent a month in Southeast Asia in 1974 as a member of a church peace mission, after working for ten years as director of the Eugene Chapter of the World Without War Council.
Some of Lois Barton's West By Northwest On the Sunnyside of Spencer Butte articles and/or check the Archives for more:
Charlotte's Overdose - Just who is Charlotte and what did she take?
The Midwife - The midnight call awoke an unusual midwife.
The Mystery of Fox Hollow - Fact and fiction meet in this story of the origins of Faith Rock.
Trees, Tame Trees and Squirell
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Books by Lois Barton
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