A Great Depression Christmas miracle
Published: December 15, 2006
Ten days before Christmas 1929 my father was laid off from his railroad job.
No matter that he had more than 20 years work seniority. The Great Depression had begun, and the lowly, the mighty and everyone in between suffered alike. Also, he’d fallen victim to a cold-hearted railroad company employment practice that was standard at the time.
My Dad began with the railroad in 1907 when he was 20, hand-trucking freight on the platforms at Mansfield’s busy yard. His pay was $9.60 for a 60-hour week of hard manual labor. In 1911, he transferred to a signal gang. Better pay but more hard labor and more danger, too, out on the tracks in all weather, installing the railroad’s important traffic lights.
During World War I he spent 20 months in uniform, eight of them in France as an infantry corporal. Being the son of a professional soldier, he adapted to army life and was attending officers’ training school when the war ended. In spring of 1919 he came back to the signal gang.
There’s a point in my relating Dad’s work history. Industry back then was not kind to labor. The railroad company refused to recognize his pre-war seniority. They claimed that by 1929 he’d worked for them only 10 years. He disputed their claim in vain. They let him go.
With Dad out of a job, my parents walked to the bank and made the next two payments on the house. That guaranteed us — my father, mother, 2-year-old sister and me — a roof over our heads for two months. After that, who knew?
Then, with the savings account almost bare, the necessary sacrifices began. The first was Christmas dinner.
In those days the special meal of choice — for Sunday dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas — was not turkey but chicken. For us in 1929 it was hamburger. [Magic of Christmas]
I didn’t know my Dad had lost his job. All I’d been told was that times were tough and we couldn’t afford chicken. Besides, my 8-year-old mind had its own secret worry.
Before the holiday Miss Agnes Blake, our third-grade teacher at Roland Green school, had told us that when we returned, each of us would be asked to stand before the class and tell about our Christmas dinner.
It didn’t occur to me that ours wasn’t the only family on short rations. I imagined my schoolmates reciting their tasty menus — chicken and dressing, mashed potato with rich gravy, turnip, cranberry sauce, mince pie. And I’d stand and tell about our hamburger.
Then came the Christmas miracle!
The holiday that year fell on Wednesday. Three days later my Grandmother Chase, who lived at the other end of Mansfield, somehow heard about our hamburger. Without asking or telling us, she visited the nearest market, bought us a full holiday dinner with all the fixings and had it delivered to our door. We sat down to our Christmas meal on Sunday.
But as school drew near I had a new concern. I’d told my best buddy and classmate how we ate Christmas dinner on the wrong day. Now I’d have to tell the same story to Miss Blake and the kids.
My mother had a bright idea. “Tell them,” she said, “that your Daddy’s a railroad man and worked Christmas day so folks who were far away could ride the trains home to their families. So you had your Christmas dinner on Sunday when he was home and we could all be together.”
Miss Blake praised my only slightly dishonest Christmas story. But that wasn’t the last of the miracles. A week later Dad learned that a better railroad job had opened. He applied for it and got it and worked steadily all through the rest of the Great Depression.
Not only that, we preserved our new family tradition. Trains do have to run on Christmas and Dad did have to work holidays. As long as he lived we celebrated our Christmases on Sunday.
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