Ghosts of Christmas Past - the Arkansas years

In 1978 we moved from Alabama back to Searcy, Arkansas. We lived in this house on McRae Avenue. This is the house where we lived when Christopher was born in May 1980.

I only have a few pictures of Christmases in this house.

PHOTO: Our Xmas tree 1979. We had accumulated a few simple ornaments since our first Christmas together (see yesterday's post). 

PHOTO: My mother knitted the stockings for me and Keith. The Singer treadle sewing machine was my mother's. 

PHOTO: This would have been Christmas 1980 -- hence the three stockings, one for Christopher.

The piano was a dream that I had of being a piano teacher while my children were growing up. Unfortunately, that plan did not come to fruition. I ended up selling the piano before we moved back to Alabama a few years later.

PHOTO: Christopher was 7 months old at Christmas of 1980. Our tree was in the dining room this year because we were having very cold weather (following an extremely hot summer) and the gas heater in this 3-bedroom house did not heat all the rooms adequately. So we closed off the living room and two of the bedrooms, and lived in the dining room until spring. (That's the kitchen to the left.)

Ghosts of Christmas Past, 1977 -- The Fiasco

I got married in May 1977, right after Keith graduated from Harding College. We moved to his hometown of Fairhope, Alabama and rented a sweet little cottage in town. He worked at the local grocery store -- Greer's. Just before the holidays he was offered a promotion to produce manager -- if he would be willing to transfer to the store in Monroeville, Alabama. So... we were out of pocket for the holidays, in the process of relocating, and we were staying temporarily at Keith's mother's house. She had all four of her children home for the holidays that year -- Charlene from Arkansas, Aubrey from Texas, Sonny (who lived next door to her), and Keith. I only have two pictures from that Christmas. This one is the four in-laws. That's me in front. On the left is Aubrey's wife Florence. Behind me is Charlene's husband Garland. And on the right is Sonny's wife Lucia. (These pictures were taken with a Polaroid camera.)

Someone wrote 1978 on the photos, but it was 1977.

This is Keith and me standing in front of the truck we borrowed to move to the trailer we had rented, sight unseen, in Monroeville. We loaded up all our worldly possessions and were supposed to meet the landlord there on Christmas Eve so he could give us the keys. Well... 

It's a 2-hour drive from Fairhope to Monroeville, and when we got there -- no landlord. This was long before cell phones, of course. (I don't even know if we had the guy's phone number with us.) It was nighttime, Christmas Eve, and we had to turn that truck around and drive all the way back. Needless to say, we were the butt of a few jokes from the in-laws. Sometimes I can't believe how really dumb we were back then.

We did get moved into our trailer in Monroeville the next day. We borrowed Keith's mother's 4-foot artificial Christmas tree and put it in our living room. We didn't have any ornaments (or any money), so we decorated the tree with the Christmas cards we had received in the mail. I sure wish I had a picture of that pitiful little thing.

At the time we lived there, I felt like Monroeville was the jumping-off place at the end of the world. Keith's job wasn't all it was cracked-up to be, either, and we were both fed up with the whole situation. By Christmas of 1978 we had moved back to Arkansas.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

Once upon a time in 1967 in Watervliet, Michigan... Great-Grandma Annie Hicks, Grandma Cleffie and Papa Lester Burford, Wathada and Red, Morris, Bob and Jackie, Ron and Maxine, five kids, two cameras, ... and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

Ghosts of Christmas Past, Part Six

After we lived in the Haver Street house I graduated from high school and went to college in Arkansas. My parents and my brother John moved into a house on Linden Street in Hartford. (I think Rick was living with Grandma and Grandpa Thomas.)

I only have one picture of a Christmas in the Linden Street house. I was home from college for the holidays. We always spent Christmas Eve with my dad's family, and in 1973 it was our turn to have it at our house. The main thing I remember about that night was that we got a phone call for Aunt Eileen (who was at our house). We all knew what it was about -- Eileen's brother, Dale Rice, had been in the hospital for several days, for injuries he sustained in an automobile accident. He was not expected to survive. The phone call, of course, was to give Aunt Eileen the sad news that Dale had passed away. 

You can't see it very well in this picture, but Mom and I were wearing matching dresses.

I don't remember spending any other Christmases at that house. I was usually on tour with the college choir during the holidays, for the annual Christian College Choral Festival. 

PHOTO: Christmas at Harding

Ghosts of Christmas Past, Part Five

 I only have two pictures of Christmases in our house on Haver Street (Hartford).

We lived here my last 3 years of high school.

This is me, sitting in the living room -- the room behind me is the dining room. The door on the left of the dining room is my bedroom.

This is Mom and Aunt Eileen in the dining room. The doorway to the left of Mom goes into the kitchen. The door on the right of Eileen goes to the basement stairs. All those Christmas cards behind them are pinned to the curtains. (My mom was always clever about how to display our Christmas cards.)

This would have been 1970, I think.

Ghosts of Christmas Past, Part Four

I call this the River House, because the Paw Paw River ran close behind the house. We lived here when I was in 8th and 9th grades. It's just north of downtown Hartford, Michigan.

1967 - I got my first camera, and these pictures of John were the first ones I took with it. He got a toy camera and took pictures of me.

Rick and John with our dog, Lady. That big starburst on the wall over the fireplace was made by my dad -- out of computer cards. Computers were a brand new thing, and they took up a whole wall. The cards had holes in them, sort of like a player piano roll. (You can google it.) Dad folded a bunch of them that he brought home from work and spray painted them gold to make the starburst.

Mom and Dad and Lady, Christmas 1967.

***

Christmas 1968

John got a drum set.

Ghosts of Christmas Past, Part Three

This house was a few miles north of Hartford. We lived here from the middle of my 4th grade year until the end of 7th grade. Dad called this "Drake's place" because we rented it from Curtis Drake, who lived in the house next door. This house was surrounded by apple orchards.

We moved during the holidays, and I think we must have had Christmas in this house as soon as we moved in, because that cardboard fireplace is sitting right where the dining room table is supposed to be. So I'm assuming we had not yet put the table up. This would have been December 1963. The picture of the flocked tree was actually taken in the next house we moved into. My mother liked flocked Christmas trees. I can't tell if this one was heavily flocked or if it was, in fact, a white tree. I don't remember us ever having an artificial tree.

These are the only pictures I have of Christmas in this house, although we lived there almost 4 years. The picture in the upper right was 1966, I think. That would have been our last Christmas before we moved out of this house. The other three pictures were 1964 -- I was in 5th grade. They include Papa (Lester) and Grandma (Cleffie) Burford (in the background, wearing an apron), Rick and me, and cousins Mark and Lori Burford -- so I assume Bob and Jackie were there. At this time, my brother John would have been 4 months old.

Ghosts of Christmas Past, Part Two

 After we moved out of the Bangor house (the first time) we rented a house on Linden Street in Hartford, next door to Chuck and Laure Hafer. I don't guess we even had a Christmas in that house, because we moved right at Christmas time, so we probably had Christmas in the Bangor house. If so, we didn't take any pictures. That would have been 1961. We only lived in the house on Linden Street for a few months. I don't remember why we moved again so soon.

This is the house we lived in on Linden Street. I was in 2nd grade. This is what the house looked like in 1992.

This is Ricky, sitting on the front steps. I don't have any other pictures of the house while we lived there.

So...

The next house where we had Christmas was a tiny 4-room house near Van Auken Lake (between Hartford and Bangor). I was in 3rd grade. That was one of the worst winters we had when I was a kid -- and we were WAY out in the country, so we were snowed-in part of the time. 

This picture was taken in 1992. When we lived there (1962-63), only the center section of the house was there. It has had an extension added on one end and a porch on the other since then. It was on a 1-acre lot on the corner of 66th Street and 42nd Avenue -- which sounds like it should be in the middle of a big city, huh? We had a Hartford address and phone number, but were in the Bangor school district. We rode the bus to school, and it was a long ride, especially in the winter.

 In the summer of 1963 we moved back to the Bangor house because we had rented it out, and the people who moved in absolutely wrecked the place. So we moved back there temporarily so Dad could do all the repairs that had to be done. 

'Tis the Season

'Tis the Season

Well, I've about come to the end of my dad's memoirs. I think I'll turn my attention to Ghosts of Christmas Past...

Let's see if I can do it house by house (because we moved every few years when I was growing up).

307 Union Street, Bangor, Michigan

We lived in this house from 1956 - 1961 (and then again briefly in 1963). This is the first house I have memories of.

How we sent cards before the internet

If I'm not mistaken, that's a fondue pot on the coffee table. 

On the left side is a bowl of walnuts, I think. There would be a nutcracker and pick in or beside that bowl. What it's sitting on is my mother's Singer treadle sewing machine.

My dad built the room divider between the living room and dining room.

My mother painted the Santa Claus picture.

That's Bernarde and Eileen and Kim, and Grandma and Grandpa Thomas, and Mom and me and Rick.

PHOTOS: Christmases 1958, 1959, 1960

Red's Head Room

Red's Head Room

PHOTOS: Red with granddaughter Heather and the bear-skin rug

PHOTOS: Red and Wathada playing Duck Hunt (one of us kids gave it to them for Xmas)

PHOTOS: Red and Heather playing with the heads.

Pheasant, sheep, ram, wild boar, ducks, quail, squirrel, antelope, snake, guns, saddle, trophies, medals, boots, lanterns, mugs... oh, my!

The bottom half of that room is Wathada's books, books, books, books, books!

There's also a piano in that room somewhere...