As with members of many families and communities I suppose, I do not believe the odds are that I could have been raised in a much better family or community than the Alton & Louise Martin family and Devine, Texas. And life was particularly sweet around Christmas time!! (It wasn’t perfect and could have been improved upon. However, humans and Eaarth considered, I am happy with the way it played out.)
I do believe if more lived a life of Alton and Louise Martin (frugal, honest, disciplined, humble, prudent, loving, simple/small/slow), the world would be a much better place and community would be more sustainable. They lived an ethic of reciprocity as well as most—especially in the sense of a light ecological footprint, and a sort of peasant agrarianism.
Christmas was in many ways lived in the same way as Alton and Louise lived other times of the year. Chores had to be done, we ate fantastic food, purchases/consumption by family was kept to a minimum, we participated in church/community by attending Catholic services and midnight Mass, etc., we worked hard and we played hard, and there was a very spiritual umbrella to all of life.
My First Memories of Christmas. I suppose going to Mass and a Christmas tree with a few gifts under it are my very first vague memories of Christmas. Prior to moving from the family farm in the Stockdale area to Devine in 1952, I do slightly remember some Masses we attended in Nixon with our cousins the Demmers (I distinctly remember their 1940s black car!), and gatherings at Grandmother Eva Martin’s at the big house close to where FM 1107 and SH-123 meet (across from Possum Clark’s little gas/food/misc. business).
The first concrete memory which was at least close to Christmas, was during the winter of 1949. Dad Alton brought in a newly born calf and placed it in front of the Dearborn butane-gas space heater, and he rubbed it earnestly to get it warm and back to life. Later as he went out to take care of the animals, he playfully and nimbly ran and skipped on the icy ground as brother Lawrence Alton and I peered out the north window at him.
Perhaps during another year, but before we moved to Devine, or before 1952 [and perhaps before 1951, since I don’t remember brother John Russell (born ‘51) being around], I remember Lawrence and I getting play rifles for Christmas. I had a nice colorful Hopalong Cassidy rifle which made a shooting noise when the trigger was pulled. However, I coveted Lawrence’s pop-shotgun furnished with corks which could be shot at the ceiling.
I clearly recollect one chilly but beautiful winter day shortly after Christmas when Dad, with his Winchester pump-22 (which he may have inherited from Grandpa Martin, and which we learned later could fire repeatedly like Chuck Connors in The Rifleman), and Lawrence and I went for a hunt in the post oak pasture across the road and west from our house. I remember Dad teaching us that before going through the fence in a safe manner, we should always place our rifles securely against a fence post rather than try to cross with the rifle in hand.
Later Years. It was in the early evening before midnight Mass on Christmas eve that Santa Claus always came to the Alton and Louise Martin house. This was the time our immediate family received and shared gifts. The ritual would be for Dad to take us [myself, Lawrence, John Russell, Charlie (b. ’52) and Kenny (b. ’53)] for a ride in the car to see local Christmas lights. And amazingly, after we got back we’d find that ol’ St. Nick had arrived. (We never caught Mommy kissing Santa Claus!!)
After Mass on Sundays–during the Holidays or during any time of the year–we would get the Light newspaper at George Vernon Scott’s ice/convenience store. (The San Antonio Express and News was always delivered to our home daily!) Reading the newspapers was always a joy for me, and it was so especially during the Holidays when I could really digest them.
I was often challenged in the winter with tonsillitis up until Dr. Myers of Hondo yanked out my tonsils and adenoids. During a bout with an upper respiratory infection and tonsillitis in my early years, I had to stay home while Dad took the rest out to see the Holiday lights. That’s when the childhood fantasy of Santa Claus got blown away as I helped Mom be Santa Claus. [Since I’ve mentioned my Christmas illness, I want to mention that brother Kenny really suffered with serious asthma attacks during his early years. And because he was allergic to the natural evergreen Christmas trees, we began using an artificial tree after Kenny was in his early years in the mid-1950s.]
In general we did get relatively very few gifts—i.e., clothes made by Mom, play structures crudely made by Dad, and a couple of inexpensive toys when we were very young. Exceptions were years when we got very nice gifts of tinker toys and kid-building materials for constructing imagined structures. Moreover, Lawrence and I did get tricycles for one Christmas, and prior to moving to Devine in 1952, he and I—with straw hats “a top” our heads–were in the Stockdale Watermelon Jubilee parade pulling watermelons in wagons behind our tricycles.
During junior high and high school days I remember Christmas pageants and caroling on nicely landscaped and decorated areas at the corners of old SH-81 and 173 in downtown Devine. And I also remember the lovely incense, Mrs. Ehlinger’s organ playing, and songs/chants in Latin at High Masses during some days of the Holiday season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swns4Kjzc9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyV01zXuW-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bosouX_d8Y
I can distinctly remember Mom holding a foot-scraper out of bottle-caps nailed to a ca. 3X4 foot board she made for Aunt Jo Bailey Martin … out in the back of our house in Devine (which was located close to where the Triple-C Restaurant now stands, or truly more at the access road there south of SH-173 and west of IH-35). We eight Alton & Louise Martins lived in a very small 2-bedroom house, and Uncle Peggy and Aunt Jo Bailey (and sometimes cousin Helen Bain) lived in a house ca. 3X the size of ours. I have to admit that as I viewed that foot-scraper Mom had lovingly made and worked so hard on, I felt it was not enough for Aunt Jo Bailey. [I do wish to inject here that with his various agricultural enterprises, the Devine Mill and Elevator (later Tri-County Co-op), and his spread of a large yard and fruit trees, Uncle Peggy did provide many jobs and other agricultural experiences for me, my Dad, and my brothers!! Moreover, he was the one who first suggested that I study agricultural entomology!!!]
During this Christmas season and others, Dad would sometimes take firewood to an old man who lived near the feed mill in a small hovel made largely of cardboard, but with a wood stove. I helped Dad with this several times and for this reason I mention it; however, I know he helped others in this way also.
It was always great to have visitors during Christmas. On some occasions when they spent the night with us, they simply accommodated themselves by sleeping on the floor of our little home, with assistance from us with blankets, sheets and pillow!
[During visits from Uncle Pete & family, Mom’s oldest brother, Uncle Pete would show many, many slides of his families travels throughout the (mostly western) U.S. This was one of our first introductions to much of “the rest of the world” … although we would often quiz each other from very young times about places on U.S. & world maps–and the globe, and Mom’s youngest brother, Uncle Bernard would regularly send us magazines on Alaska, where he did construction in the Army during WW II. … I must mention that as the hour approached 9 pm–even if Uncle Pete was just getting started on his lengthy presentation, Dad would announce, “We’ve got work to do starting early tomorrow, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to bed!!”
Dad was going to bed by 9 pm, no matter who was around, the President, the Pope, his best friend, his favorite grand kid, … . … My brother Lawrence went to bed by 9 pm also, and brothers Charlie and Kenny generally hit the hay at that hour also. ]
At times during the Holiday season, Lawrence, myself and Dad might get invited to go deer hunting at the Outlaws in the Black Creek/Yancey area, the Neumanns over near Kyote, or on Arthur Ehlinger’s Father-in-Law’s (Mr. Ernest Sadler’s) place out in the Big Foot area I believe. I never got a deer (until I married Betsy Hoffmann and hunted on the Hoffmann’s place), and generally just froze my butt off in a tree or on the ground. Lawrence did get one with Tucker Irwin’s long Japanese rifle at the Neumann’s, and Dad shot a doe once on Mr. Sadler’s place despite the pleas of Arthur for Dad not to shoot. (As I recollect, that was the last time my father was invited to hunt with Arthur.)
I really do not have memories of any truly notable gift that I received for Christmas. Perhaps the BB-guns could have been very special, but we had to share them with brothers. (I suppose what I least liked about Christmas was hearing of all the wonderful bunch of gifts my friends got for Christmas when we went to Mass.) …
We did purchase quite a few fireworks—and especially firecrackers—during the holiday season. Shooting them off at night and in the day was lots of fun!
Moreover, we did oftentimes receive silver dollars from special relatives and friends, and that was truly special. (I sometimes wonder where these silver dollars went? Perhaps we put them in our Medina Valley State Bank accounts, which Dad has us open early in our formative years.)
We would also have fun playing games during the Holidays—tag, hide-and-seek, and as we got older we would play lots of baseball and football, but mostly football. (After we went off to college, and even married, and then came home for the Holidays, we began playing some tennis.)
But MOST DEFINITELY what I most liked about Christmas was Mom’s super-great food, and going to Grandma Martin’s!!
We are what we eat—mentally, physically, spiritually—and hands down Mom’s cooking was what I enjoyed most about Christmas. My favorite was her date nut loaf! However, the ham and/or turkey; canned green beans and corn from our garden; Mom’s ambrosia (with oranges, apples, pecans, coconut, and fresh sweetened cream; all of which I could never get enough); great yeast rolls; pumpkin, sweet potato, and pecan pies; and sweet potatoes (baked minus extra crap like marshmallows/brown sugar/cinnamon/citrus juice/etc. and simply served with our milk cow’s butter) were also super delicious and nourishing. The eggnog in the big open bowl which we made as kids with Mom from our milk cow’s cream and our chickens’ fresh eggs (and nutmeg and rum flavoring added) was to die for. Moreover, sometimes we also had some of Lupe Hernandez’s tamales made from one of our hogs’ heads, and they were super-rica!!
Finally, when food from Devine’s past is discussed—for any season!!!—one has to mention Mr. Wooten’s bakery—located just southwest of where the current library and civic center is in Devine. Mr. Wooten’s donuts, and even moreso his jelly rolls, were the absolute best! I have never eaten bakery sweets that matched Mr. Wooten’s. They were soooooo delicious!!!
At Grandmother Eva Martin’s house in Stockdale (after my early years, she moved to a small house and lot almost directly across from the big Baptist Church), we were away from immediate work and could explore her little house and yard, her shed, the dry creek beside her house, and even Stockdale. We generally stayed for much of a day during Christmas Holidays, and oftentimes cousin Wanda Jo would be there, and cousins Michael McLennan, Martin Teague, Helen Bain and Bill Martin and their parents (my uncles and aunts) would stop in for a short while. We generally ate food brought in by the family; however, Grandma could whip up a fantastic cake with icing drizzled over it—from scratch without measuring—in a moments notice!
[I am going to add one final story on Grandma Eva Martin. … During my college days during one Holiday period (and it may or may not have been around Christmas), I slowly cooked on a pit of mesquite and oak-coals, some really, really great barbequed beef. The complex sauce of butter & onions, vegetable oil, vinegar, brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce I prepared was delicious … but I also basted the beef with some beer I was drinking while doing the barbequing. … And the final cooked product was truly very, very good.
I decided to make a trip over to Stockdale to see Grandma Martin whom I hadn’t seen in a while. And I took along some of my recently cooked barbeque. … After arrival and our initial visit, I broke out the barbeque and Grandma deliciously munched into the tender and wonderfully-sauced treat. You could tell with the look on her face that she truly appreciated & loved my special gift to her!
But then I made the stupid mistake of stating to my adamant teetotaling Protestant Grandma–the lovely Mrs. Eva, “Yep Grandma! I used some beer as a final touch in the preparation!!” She quickly blurted out, “I knew there was something wrong with that meat!!!!”
And she didn’t eat another bite.
Nevertheless, we had a great visit.]
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*And food commonly contributes as the largest component of our ecological footprint.