My little sister Sammy and I scrambled down the stairs from our unheated bedroom to check on Santa. We first looked into our brown cotton stockings that we had flung over a chair the night before. We didn’t hang stockings on the mantle even though we did have a mantle over our gas fireplace. The stockings were always stuffed with a banana, an orange, Brazil nuts, chocolate drops and orange slice candy. There were never any toys in the stockings.
The toys were under the tree. The gifts from Santa were not wrapped. The Christmas when I was 6, there was a beautiful red tricycle under the tree for me and a Betsy-Wetsy doll for my little sister. Among the other things I remember discovering under the tree over the years were paper-doll books, scrapbooks and coloring books, water colors and crayons, Chinese checkers, Monopoly, a little red rocking chair, a deck of Authors cards, bunny house slippers, roller skates and a little kitchen cabinet that my mother had made. One Christmas, Mom had made matching blue house-coats for my sister and me, and Grandma had crocheted fluffy, warm hats.
Mom always gave us books. Under the tree for Christmas 1936 was a copy of “King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.” Then, in January 1937, we had to evacuate our house to escape a flood on the Ohio River. We spent a month in the barracks at Fort Knox while the flood raged throughout the Ohio Valley, eventually covering our first floor with four feet of muddy water.
When we got back home, I salvaged water-soaked King Arthur. With every move, declutter and downsize through the years, I have managed to hold on to King Arthur.
