A SPECIAL ZEPHYR EXTRA CHRISTMAS BONUS POST. MOSTLY FOR ME…
This is really just a personal reminiscence, and probably of little interest to most Zephyr readers. But it occurred to me recently that this is the first Christmas, where I am the only surviving member of my immediate family. My father died in 2009. My brother passed away two years ago, in December 2020, and my mother died in February at the age of 94. I’m the last Stiles standing. And of course my grandparents all left us decades ago.
Also I read today that a recent “survey of 2,000 Americans who are traveling to visit family for the holidays found respondents can spend an average of three hours and 54 minutes with their family before needing a moment to themselves.” ( click here for the link)
While families have always managed to find something to argue about when pushed into confined places, it was certainly different for me as a kid. As I got older, issues like civil rights and the Vietnam War, and my desire to live a different kind of life “out West,” became points of contention and acrimony within my immediate family. But in the first decade of the second half of the 20th Century, there was still a certain family harmony that trumped differences of opinion. We have since somehow lost that, and in most cases, never got it back.
When I think back on my childhood and those first ten years, it occurred to me that it was our grandparents — they were the real glue that kept the family connected. I grew up with all four of my grandparents, alive and relatively healthy, and all of them within five miles of our home. So we saw Grandma and Grandpa Montfort and Grandma and Grandpa Stiles on a regular basis. We had Sunday dinner with one or the other almost every week. In the summers I pedaled my bike from our home to my grandparents’ house in Crescent Hill to cut their grass. Grandma Montfort always kept her fridge stocked with those little 6 ounce bottles of Coke and Canada Dry ginger ale. Grandpa Montfort sat on the steps and watched; he was always afraid I’d somehow get hurt. Holidays were always like family food festivals. In fact, for a decade, I would guess that Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and the 4th of July were all holidays in which attendance was mandatory. And none of us minded. We loved it.
I was probably closer to my grandparents, and especially my mother’s mother and father, than any other adult. Grandpa Montfort was the rock I needed during some rocky parts of my childhood. It was always him that would hug me and say, “I don’t always understand you, but I always love you, and I’m always behind you 100%.”
Who could ask for more than that?
So…this is my Stiles Family Christmas Album, going back to the time I was about two. My father started working at Sears, then known as Sears Roebuck & Company, at its Louisville store at the corner of Broadway & 8th Streets. He had graduated from the University of Louisville, just two years after his honorable discharge from the US Army Air Forces. He was an officer and the navigator of a B-24 Liberator in the Pacific at the age of 21. (You can read that story here).
Four years after he began his career at Sears, Dad became the manager of the camera department; subsequently he was able to buy, probably at cost (!). an excellent single lens reflex 35 mm camera, and only shot Kodak’s new Kodachrome color transparency film, the most extraordinary film ever created. So while most of my peers have little or nothing in the way of their photographic histories, except a faded black and white snapshot or two, I have a treasure trove of images … thousands of them, all taken by my father over the course of the next two decades. This collection includes a decade of Christmas gatherings, mostly from the 1950s, until it seems like everything and all of us changed. It was a different world then.
It wasn’t perfect, and there were terrible injustices to be overcomes and wrongs to be righted. But it feels to me like we threw away all the good aspects of that time to correct those wrongs.
Like I said, I’ve put this album together more for myself than anyone else. But if you enjoy the images and especially the brilliant photography of my father, then it was worth the effort…Merry Christmas to all the Zephyr readers out there, and to everyone who still finds value in our country’s past, with all its faults and fumbles…JS
From atop the Sears Roebuck building at Broadway & 8th Streets. I believe these are some of the first images my dad took with his new camera, on a very snowy day in downtown Louisville. 1952
Jim Stiles, Sr., as the new manager of the camera department. In other photos from the time, Sears even sold enlargers and film development supplies
This is my father’s camera, an “Exakta Varex” 35 mm single lens reflex. Below it, the inscription on the camera body reads, “Jhagee Dresden.” It didn’t have an eyepiece. You opened the shutter on the top of the camera and viewed the image looking downward and into the screen, I still have his camera; it sits here on my desk all these years later.
This is the first Christmas my dad recorded Christmas with his new camera. I am flanked by my paternal grandparents, Susie and Ogden. I look pretty excited.
The same shot with Mom and Dad. I seem to be lacking the same enthusiasm with them. They had informed me that Santa might not be able to afford a beautiful pedal fire truck that I had seen in the Sears toy department. They had advised me that I might have to settle for a cheaper wheeled foot-powered vehicle. I was crushed.
But my father decided quietly that they could afford the extra ten bucks. Even with slow film, my dad captured the very moment when I came into the living room, to the Christmas tree, and saw the red fire engine truck. In this picture you can see the silver bell atop the fire engine in the bottom lower corner of the photo. I was ecstatic
My beloved Red Fire Engine.
I was the first born grandchild and for three and a half years, I was perhaps the most spoiled kid in Kentucky. With a mom and dad and four grandparents all in the same town, I was smothered with love and attention. Then when I was three, my mother told me that I was about to have a new brother. I had no idea what she meant. But sure enough, in late April, my brother Jeff was born. This picture is of his first Christmas, being doted on by my Grandma and Grandpa Stiles. I was not too pleased with this change in the family dynamic. My mother told me later that at one point, I went to her and said, “So how much longer is he going to be here?”
Christmas morning started early. Extremely early. Before dawn. You can tell by looking out the window. Pitch black. We were just too excited to stay asleep. The look on my father’s face says it all.
I love this picture of Jeff as we both wait for Mom to open her present from us.
Well…this is embarrassing. I have no idea why we’re decked out like this. I’m guessing maybe we were in the children’s choir at Buechel Methodist Church. In any case, Dad had us restage our performance and, for reasons unknown, we agreed.I especially love the red bows…yeesh
These are my maternal grandparents, Frank and Susan, with my mother in the middle. That’s me on the left and Jeff to my left, on Grandpa’s lap. As you’ll see, for reasons I could never understand, you could not get my grandfather to smile for a photo. He did smile otherwise and often, but in almost all these images, he always looks quite severe. In fact, he was just the opposite, with the heart and soul of the best man I have ever known. He was gentle and kind; yet his looks in photos often betrayed his true self. Grandma Montfort was always the same—sweet, kind and generous. A heart of pure gold.
This was Christmas dinner at the Montforts’ with all the grandparents together. From left to right, Grandma Montfort, Jeff, Mom, Grandpa Stiles, Grandma Stiles, me and Grandpa Montfort. Obviously my dad took the picture. Note the look on my brother’s face and mine. Jeff never seemed to enjoy the holiday as much as I did, but I have no idea why he is scowling and I am grinning and waving.
This is another picture, a horizontal this time, from the roof of the Sears building.
The Sears in Louisville. This is the only image in this post NOT taken by my dad. (Source unknown)
A few years later, Dad became manager of the Boys’ Clothing department. Look closely at this picture. Note the “Roy Rogers CORRAL,” and all the cowboy outfits and accessories for all us little buckaroos. And especially note, at bottom center, the amazing selection of toy ‘six-guns’ and holsters for us Roy Rogers fans.
This is a wide view of the first floor at Sears. The department stores in those days went all out to decorate it for Christmas. If I recall, they closed on weekdays at 5 PM but the crew stayed on until late, making the holiday changes. I love the escalator in the background.
And if you needed slippers…
BRIDGE CLUB. In the post-war era, in middle class white America, this seemed to be a favorite past-time for many suburbanites. For more than a decade, these four couples met once a month for a rollicking evening of bridge. The guest home rotated and each hostess prepared snacks and non-alcoholic beverages, with those little knit glass holders that slipped over the bottom, so your hands didn’t get wet. My mother put out the “guest towels,” which Jeff and I were forbidden to use. My strongest memory of their bridge club was the Friday night when Mom and Dad were hosts. My brother and I were in the backroom watching television. It was “Twilight Zone” night, and it was the premiere of the episode of “The Hitchhiker.” We were both so terrified, we hid under the bed, but were too embarrassed to cry for help, and let the guests see us in such a state.
This was my paternal grandparents home at 4129 Taylorsville Road in Louisville. It was the perfect place for grandkids. They owned two acres in the back– plenty of room for us to burn off our Christmas dinners.
That’s me with some of my toys—mostly instruments of war! But I am clutching an old Santa Claus toy that belonged to my mother. It now resides on the top of my piano.
This is “Bud and Betty Morveck.” They were close friends of my parents when I was little. They are sitting in front of their Christmas tree, which my father would talk about for the rest of his life. When they prepared to add tinsel to the tree, they actually strung one single strand after another. It must have taken them hours. After that experience, when my dad saw my brother and me just throwing handfuls of tinsel on the tree, he told us about the Morvecks, scolded us for being so lazy, and reminded us every year after that…”One strand at a time.”
Christmas dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Stiles’. That’s my Grandpa at the head of the table, indulging in his once a year “tradition” of drinking an alcoholic beverage. God help him but it was always Mogen David wine. To the immediate right is my Aunt Nancy, my dad’s brother Joe’s wife. Then Uncle Joe. On the right side of the table were Grandpa’s sisters. First Edna and then her older sister Carrie. Edna took care of Carrie her entire life. Carrie had been born without any physical problems, but in those days, as I recall the story, doctors sometimes put some kind of solution into newborns’ eyes, something like silver nitrate? He poured in too much and completely blinded her. Carrie learned to read Braille and was much like her brother. Both could recite from memory, thousands of poems, even the complete works of Shakespeare. I wish I had been old enough to appreciate their talents when I was a little boy. It’s a tragedy that there are no oral histories with either of them.
We had a celebrity in the family. My Aunt Bertha Gunterman lived in New York and was an editor of children’s books for Random House. When Aunt Bertha came to Louisville, it was an event. Here she is boarding her flight back to the City.
That’s Aunt Bertha at what was then called Standiford Field, Louisville’s main airport. To the left is my Uncle Joe, smiling warmly at his aunt.
The Montforts. Jeff and I are watching our grandpa opening our present to him. I’m not sure what my brother is saying here.
After that first candid shot my dad took of me seeing the fire truck, it became a tradition for him. Our mother would literally hold us back in the hallway, until my father had the tripod set up and the flash attachment connected. He loved to get that first surprised look. I have no idea what I was seeing for the first time. Note the organ on the left. I still have it.
Another “first shot,” from another year. Jeff seems less enthused than me and whatever gifts awaited, it wasn’t going to keep him from picking his nose. But for those who think nose picking is inappropriate, I always recall what an old Aussie friend said to me once. “If we’re not supposed to do that, mate, why did God make our fingers the perfect size to fit into our nostrils?” He has a point.
Grandpa Stiles watching me open a gift. I can’t see what it is…
Grandpa Stiles with his boxer dog, Schuff. He loved that dog but that pooch spent hours chasing its own tail, which was only three inches long. Grandpa loved him just the same.
My Grandma Stiles. She was the “glamorous grandma,” known for her bright outfits, her fur coats (Forgive her PETA) and her wild purple hats that sported ostrich feathers. She was also the consummate chef, Her holiday dinners were unbelievable.
My brother tries out his new football helmet and shoulder pads, while Grandmas Stiles shows off her new mink coat…It was the Fifties.
Christmas morning at the Montforts. I apparently received my new Cub Scout uniform and my little brother appears to be preparing for war. It’s a bit dark, but he’s wearing an Army helmet and if I recall, I was especially envious of his new bolt action toy rifle.
My mother and father, maybe on Christmas Eve, I doubt he put on a tie at 5:30 AM Christmas morning. Again, he looks as if he’s about to fall asleep.
Another Christmas dinner. Another image of my brother yelling at me while I smiled like a little cherub….I have to wonder what terrible things I was doing to him as Big Brother to keep aggravating Jeff. At the far left was my Cousin Jim Bob Wakefield. He was my mother’s first cousin Sarah’s son. Jim and I were almost exactly the same age. When he was 16 years old, he was killed in a fatal car accident in Louisville; it was the first time I experienced the loss of someone my own age.
For once, the two of us both looking happy. We are wearing authentic Kimonos that our Uncle Jack sent us. He was my dad’s other brother who was living in Japan at the time. Jack was a pilot for Air America, a former jet pilot in Korea, and also sort of the family celebrity.
This photo was taken just a few weeks before Christmas. Grandma and Grandpa Montfort. They are the family I admit to missing the most, even after all these decades. Grandpa died in 1969, Grandma was never the same without him but lived until 1976. If there is a the kind of Heaven that so many of us wish exists, and if by chance, when my time comes, I get a ticket to go there, I hope these two are the first to meet me as I step off the “plane.”
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE & HOPEFULLY A BETTER 2023 AS WELLFOR ALL OF US… JS
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The Zephyr Blue Moon Extra usually posts on Mondays…this is a special edition. If you’re on our email notifications list, be sure to check the “promotions” folder…Especially if you have gmail or yahoo, That’s where they keep sending our posts.
Six years ago, The Zephyr, me & four other individuals were sued for defamation by the former Moab City Manager. Faced with mounting legal bills, my dear friends John and Isabel De Puy donated one of John’s paintings to be auctioned. ALL the proceeds went to our defense. Thanks to them, our bills were almost completely covered. Now I’d like to return the favor. Check out the link below and their online shop… JS https://www.depuygallery.com/shop.html
Actually, Facebook is getting rid of “likes” for pages like The Zephyr… Instead you get to “FOLLOW” us. You can still “like” individual posts. Why they can’t justleave the site alone is beyond me, but that’s what Facebook likes to do. ALSO NOTE: I post old photographs and stories from our 25 year old archives every day. Pictures from Herb Ringer, Edna Fridley, Charles Kreischer.. even a few old photos from my Dad. So if you want to stay caught up on our amazing historic photo collections, be sure to “follow” us on Facebook…Thanks…Jim https://www.facebook.com/FansoftheCanyonCountryZephyr/
Loved the photos. Growing up across the street from your family we were a reflection of what you presented in the story. My older brother was a year younger than you, I was a year younger than Jeff. Mom and Dad kept going and we had a younger brother and sister as well. Christmas was magic in those days and indeed they did start early barely giving Santa time to deliver the presents. We traveled to Frankfort or Bowling Green Kentucky to visit our grandparents but we did that many Christmas holidays after spending early morning at home. Dad took a good number of Christmas photos as well that are loved by the family. They are spread among us now as my folks have both passed. Those days are truly a world and life time past but to this day I am transported back to another time when I see even a small lit Christmas tree. When I smell a live tree I almost have to sit for a moment as the memories are so wonderful but intense. A wonderful reminder Jim, thanks.
I found a Christmas card recently from the Caldwells, our next door neighbors, and directly across from you. It was a photo of the entire family making a snowman in the front yard…I’ll send it to you later. Or maybe post it as a comment on the fb page.
Jim, thanks for this article and the photos. My memories of Christmas as a child closely match yours. We would start begging to get out of bed and go to the Christmas tree to open the gifts at 3 am or so. My dad usually made us wait an hour or two. Then the kids would go to visit cousins to see what Santa had left them.
thanx, j.s. — i got a little nostalgic, as you’ve conveyed/wrapped-up the common (?) denominator of the familial thing for, if not all, i’d bet most of us.
Ah, the ’50s Christmas, I remember them well. Mostly my childhood toys were made of metal and wood before plastic really kicked in the mid “50s. I had Lincoln Logs to build little forts and log cabins, my grandmother in Ohio knitted and sent sweater’s, scarves, and caps for the cold plains winter, and the year I finally got my Red Ryder lever action carbine I never touched my Roy Rogers six-guns again. Although I did keep my Roy Rogers sheriff”s badge with the secret compartment for delivering secret messages.
And what about those department store windows decorated with the elaborate Christmas scenes featuring both religious and secular displays with moving figures and elaborate electric train layouts?
One year I awoke before dawn and there was a Lionel train set on a big wooden platform made by my grandfather and our Christmas tree was set up in the middle. Every year thereafter we always set up our tree in the middle of that train set.
When Christmas was over and people put their trees out in front of their houses to be carried away by the city, my buddies and I scoured the neighborhood for as many as we could find and built elaborate Christmas tree forts in a tiny little wooded area near our neighborhood. As the needles fell off, we kept mashing them down and our forts got smaller and smaller. What good is a fort if the enemy can see into it?
Jim mentions his father’s camera, the Jhagee Dresden (sometimes referred to in America and England as the Ihagee. Dresden was the heart of German Camera manufacturing before WWII. They pushed the envelope of what could be done with cameras. Later, Japan largely took over, but up through 1938 or so, Dresden was the place to be! Ihagee was one of these. The company was founded in 1912 by Johan Steenbergen who was Dutch. He had been trained in Dresden and opened his own shop. After WWI the German economy was in shambles and Ihagee had to be shut down and set up again.
It began making SLR cameras and began to see some early success. They continued until about 1940 when the war forced them to stop production. After the war much of their surviving machinery was moved to Russia, interestingly, as war reparations. A few years after the war, Ihagee began building cameras again in Dresden.
The post war years are a mix of court room battles between the original owners and the new ones. But they were making new cameras and trying new things again.
That’s an amazing story. When I saw “Dresden” engraved on the camera, I immediately thought of the Allied bombing that practically wiped the city from the face of the earth. I wondered how they’d ever made a comeback. Thanks for the history lesson. Always good to hear from you.
I loved the photo of your parents and their friends playing bridge. I’ve never understood that game, but it must be addicting. One thing I note in that photo is that the men all wore suits and ties. I guess bridge night was something you dressed up for, though I remember my grandfather putting on a tie to go out and work on my car or putter around in his garage (where he built violins, mandolins, airplanes, watches, and neighbors’ false teeth–while listening to guys all over the world on his ham radio).
My father even wore a tie to baseball games…it was around 1967 where that all changed and my dad went casual. By the mid 70s, he was growing sideburns….It feels like the first time that the older generation was almost imitating its children, instead of the other way around…but then there were profound chasms between the Greatest Generation and the Boomers. Many of those gaps I regret now.
Thanks for the memories of folks long gone now. Made me teary eyed. Aunt Susie was always so special to me. She often stood by me when I needed someone.
We never had Christmas in our Jewish household. We looked out at the Christmas world with pure envy. We would have called Adam Sandler’s vision of “8 Crazy Nights” pure bullshit. Instead of one blast of orgasmic ecstasy, we were supposed to get excited about a dreidel (no gambling!) and chocolate money. Oy gevalt to the gefilte fish and pickled herring. When I married into a large Catholic family, I ended up living with the very spirit of Christmas. The Worzalas were quite imperious about the one strand of tinsel at a time thing.
Good memories of family gatherings.
As a kid I enjoyed the opportunity to roam the Sears store. Seems like mom and dad bought everything there and took everything there for service.
And I’m sure you remember, around 17, the Seabold’s became my second family. I’ll never forget get any of those great times. But please Bill, don’t mention what. … was it Aunt Addie? About “the little one can’t make it?”
Aside from the snow, my Southern California ’50’s childhood Christmases looked a lot like that. Brought back memories. A vanished time in a vanished America.
My grandmother was Edna and a great aunt was Carrie.
Names not popular today. My brother had that red fire truck and I rode the back. Sears was a central part of our lives back then. I loved that store and picking toys from the Sears catalogue to write to Santa to ask for him to bring. This is a wonderful article. Thanks for keeping alive the memories of happier times. So true that today the glue is gone
Jim, you are blessed, in spite of the bumps in the road. So many folks never knew their Grandparents, much less, all four of them! A lovely share for Christmas, one complaint. Your last paragraph made me cry.
As an only child, I gloried in the attention my parents lavished on me. But like you, I am the last of that tiny family. My kids will glean what I knew from writings. And there will be times that things I”ve written will bring tears. But that’s how it goes, my friend.
Take heart and be even more blessed during the next years–hang on, the ride is picking up speed!
Merry Christmas Jimbo. I loved reading your story and seeing all the pictures of you and Jeff and your parents. Your mother looks exactly like I remember her. I remember she was a substitute teacher for my fourth grade class and we walked home together after school. I also remember every time coming up your driveway, Andy would come charging out of the bush next to the Caldwell’s house barking like crazy. Such good memories from those cherished childhood years. This Christmas Eve Elaine (Kremer) is hosting a dinner at her home for Tim, Lynn and Daniel and their spouses. Me and David have also been invited and weather permitting will also join the festivities. David hasn’t seen Tim or Daniel in I don’t know how many years. Should be fun time catching up. Anyway, enjoyed reading your article and hope you have a wonderful New Year!
Great Read Jim. My father had an Argus C3 – a workhorse 35mm camera of the late 50’s/early 60’s. I became keeper of the massive slide collection after he passed. We have many of same holiday scenes. That Kodachrome film is legendary. Occasionally, he skimp on film. Other film didn’t hold up near as well. I never realized how important my Dad’s pictures would mean to me until I was older. It adds perspective to my life.
Thanks for giving us a glimpse into your childhood. I can identify with so much of it!
Hi Jim,
We must be similar in age as these photos look familiar in time. As you mentioned, you are so fortunate to have so many photos from your beginning. We were marched out into the yard on Easter Sunday for pictures and a couple more at Christmas and that was it. And rarely was anyone smiling. The family bridge dates brought back memories too as my folks loved bridge. I know that all yours are gone now, but there is one thing I know…You CAN take all that love with you. Happy Holidays.
This was a touching Christmas tale you shared with readers. The most precious gem in here is your comment about your baby brother: “So how much longer is he going to be here?” I cracked up and could not stop laughing. THANKS for that!
This was a touching Christmas tale you shared with readers. The most precious gem in here is your comment about your baby brother: “So how much longer is he going to be here?” I cracked up and could not stop laughing. THANKS for that!
What I remember is that after we got up early and opened our loot, we’d walk up and down Glenmeade to see what Santa brought everyone else. Special memories for sure.
(I have a picture I was going to share here, but I can’t figure out how to do that.)
Beautiful piece! I enjoyed reading it!
Merry Christmas, Jim from the last standing O’Hara. When I go (77) that’s it-end of the line. I’m weirdly proud of that!
I LOVED reading this and seeing the photographs. Thank you for sharing this. I will look forward to more and hope you are up for it.
In spite of rough stretches, you’ve been blessed. The only thing missing in those photos are some Lionel trains.
Merry Christmas.
Loved the photos. Growing up across the street from your family we were a reflection of what you presented in the story. My older brother was a year younger than you, I was a year younger than Jeff. Mom and Dad kept going and we had a younger brother and sister as well. Christmas was magic in those days and indeed they did start early barely giving Santa time to deliver the presents. We traveled to Frankfort or Bowling Green Kentucky to visit our grandparents but we did that many Christmas holidays after spending early morning at home. Dad took a good number of Christmas photos as well that are loved by the family. They are spread among us now as my folks have both passed. Those days are truly a world and life time past but to this day I am transported back to another time when I see even a small lit Christmas tree. When I smell a live tree I almost have to sit for a moment as the memories are so wonderful but intense. A wonderful reminder Jim, thanks.
I found a Christmas card recently from the Caldwells, our next door neighbors, and directly across from you. It was a photo of the entire family making a snowman in the front yard…I’ll send it to you later. Or maybe post it as a comment on the fb page.
Jim, thank you for sharing your memories. They bring peace for this reader. Remind me of Christmas in Kansas during the 50’s.
Thanks Becky. I’m grateful to have Christmas memories from that time. You too.
Penny Caldwell. She was our sometimes babysitter, when Mrs. Coulter didn’t come. I thought she was so cool.
Jim, thanks for this article and the photos. My memories of Christmas as a child closely match yours. We would start begging to get out of bed and go to the Christmas tree to open the gifts at 3 am or so. My dad usually made us wait an hour or two. Then the kids would go to visit cousins to see what Santa had left them.
Merry Christmas Kay. You’ve been a real gift to me this year.
thanx, j.s. — i got a little nostalgic, as you’ve conveyed/wrapped-up the common (?) denominator of the familial thing for, if not all, i’d bet most of us.
Wonderful story, thanks for writing it. Makes a good start to the day!
Ah, the ’50s Christmas, I remember them well. Mostly my childhood toys were made of metal and wood before plastic really kicked in the mid “50s. I had Lincoln Logs to build little forts and log cabins, my grandmother in Ohio knitted and sent sweater’s, scarves, and caps for the cold plains winter, and the year I finally got my Red Ryder lever action carbine I never touched my Roy Rogers six-guns again. Although I did keep my Roy Rogers sheriff”s badge with the secret compartment for delivering secret messages.
And what about those department store windows decorated with the elaborate Christmas scenes featuring both religious and secular displays with moving figures and elaborate electric train layouts?
One year I awoke before dawn and there was a Lionel train set on a big wooden platform made by my grandfather and our Christmas tree was set up in the middle. Every year thereafter we always set up our tree in the middle of that train set.
When Christmas was over and people put their trees out in front of their houses to be carried away by the city, my buddies and I scoured the neighborhood for as many as we could find and built elaborate Christmas tree forts in a tiny little wooded area near our neighborhood. As the needles fell off, we kept mashing them down and our forts got smaller and smaller. What good is a fort if the enemy can see into it?
Jim mentions his father’s camera, the Jhagee Dresden (sometimes referred to in America and England as the Ihagee. Dresden was the heart of German Camera manufacturing before WWII. They pushed the envelope of what could be done with cameras. Later, Japan largely took over, but up through 1938 or so, Dresden was the place to be! Ihagee was one of these. The company was founded in 1912 by Johan Steenbergen who was Dutch. He had been trained in Dresden and opened his own shop. After WWI the German economy was in shambles and Ihagee had to be shut down and set up again.
It began making SLR cameras and began to see some early success. They continued until about 1940 when the war forced them to stop production. After the war much of their surviving machinery was moved to Russia, interestingly, as war reparations. A few years after the war, Ihagee began building cameras again in Dresden.
The post war years are a mix of court room battles between the original owners and the new ones. But they were making new cameras and trying new things again.
That’s an amazing story. When I saw “Dresden” engraved on the camera, I immediately thought of the Allied bombing that practically wiped the city from the face of the earth. I wondered how they’d ever made a comeback. Thanks for the history lesson. Always good to hear from you.
I loved the photo of your parents and their friends playing bridge. I’ve never understood that game, but it must be addicting. One thing I note in that photo is that the men all wore suits and ties. I guess bridge night was something you dressed up for, though I remember my grandfather putting on a tie to go out and work on my car or putter around in his garage (where he built violins, mandolins, airplanes, watches, and neighbors’ false teeth–while listening to guys all over the world on his ham radio).
My father even wore a tie to baseball games…it was around 1967 where that all changed and my dad went casual. By the mid 70s, he was growing sideburns….It feels like the first time that the older generation was almost imitating its children, instead of the other way around…but then there were profound chasms between the Greatest Generation and the Boomers. Many of those gaps I regret now.
Thanks for the memories of folks long gone now. Made me teary eyed. Aunt Susie was always so special to me. She often stood by me when I needed someone.
Merry Christmas Nancy.
We never had Christmas in our Jewish household. We looked out at the Christmas world with pure envy. We would have called Adam Sandler’s vision of “8 Crazy Nights” pure bullshit. Instead of one blast of orgasmic ecstasy, we were supposed to get excited about a dreidel (no gambling!) and chocolate money. Oy gevalt to the gefilte fish and pickled herring. When I married into a large Catholic family, I ended up living with the very spirit of Christmas. The Worzalas were quite imperious about the one strand of tinsel at a time thing.
Good memories of family gatherings.
As a kid I enjoyed the opportunity to roam the Sears store. Seems like mom and dad bought everything there and took everything there for service.
Merry Christmas Jim
And I’m sure you remember, around 17, the Seabold’s became my second family. I’ll never forget get any of those great times. But please Bill, don’t mention what. … was it Aunt Addie? About “the little one can’t make it?”
Aside from the snow, my Southern California ’50’s childhood Christmases looked a lot like that. Brought back memories. A vanished time in a vanished America.
My grandmother was Edna and a great aunt was Carrie.
Names not popular today. My brother had that red fire truck and I rode the back. Sears was a central part of our lives back then. I loved that store and picking toys from the Sears catalogue to write to Santa to ask for him to bring. This is a wonderful article. Thanks for keeping alive the memories of happier times. So true that today the glue is gone
Jim, you are blessed, in spite of the bumps in the road. So many folks never knew their Grandparents, much less, all four of them! A lovely share for Christmas, one complaint. Your last paragraph made me cry.
As an only child, I gloried in the attention my parents lavished on me. But like you, I am the last of that tiny family. My kids will glean what I knew from writings. And there will be times that things I”ve written will bring tears. But that’s how it goes, my friend.
Take heart and be even more blessed during the next years–hang on, the ride is picking up speed!
Merry Christmas Jimbo. I loved reading your story and seeing all the pictures of you and Jeff and your parents. Your mother looks exactly like I remember her. I remember she was a substitute teacher for my fourth grade class and we walked home together after school. I also remember every time coming up your driveway, Andy would come charging out of the bush next to the Caldwell’s house barking like crazy. Such good memories from those cherished childhood years. This Christmas Eve Elaine (Kremer) is hosting a dinner at her home for Tim, Lynn and Daniel and their spouses. Me and David have also been invited and weather permitting will also join the festivities. David hasn’t seen Tim or Daniel in I don’t know how many years. Should be fun time catching up. Anyway, enjoyed reading your article and hope you have a wonderful New Year!
Sounds like a great reunion. Wish I could be there. Say hi to everyone.
Merry Christmas, Jim.
From Bob in London.
Jim, the present you were opening appears to be drafting set for kids, I’m pretty sure I see a ‘T’ square and a triangle. (3-4-5?).
Great Read Jim. My father had an Argus C3 – a workhorse 35mm camera of the late 50’s/early 60’s. I became keeper of the massive slide collection after he passed. We have many of same holiday scenes. That Kodachrome film is legendary. Occasionally, he skimp on film. Other film didn’t hold up near as well. I never realized how important my Dad’s pictures would mean to me until I was older. It adds perspective to my life.
Thanks for giving us a glimpse into your childhood. I can identify with so much of it!
Hi Jim,
We must be similar in age as these photos look familiar in time. As you mentioned, you are so fortunate to have so many photos from your beginning. We were marched out into the yard on Easter Sunday for pictures and a couple more at Christmas and that was it. And rarely was anyone smiling. The family bridge dates brought back memories too as my folks loved bridge. I know that all yours are gone now, but there is one thing I know…You CAN take all that love with you. Happy Holidays.
This was a touching Christmas tale you shared with readers. The most precious gem in here is your comment about your baby brother: “So how much longer is he going to be here?” I cracked up and could not stop laughing. THANKS for that!
This was a touching Christmas tale you shared with readers. The most precious gem in here is your comment about your baby brother: “So how much longer is he going to be here?” I cracked up and could not stop laughing. THANKS for that!
What I remember is that after we got up early and opened our loot, we’d walk up and down Glenmeade to see what Santa brought everyone else. Special memories for sure.
(I have a picture I was going to share here, but I can’t figure out how to do that.)