Christmas in Forestville

How wonderful it would be if we could once more recapture the excitement and mystery that accompanied the Christmases of our childhood! Together with my nine brothers and sisters, I grew up in Forestville where my father, Gustav Berger, was the Lutheran pastor from 1903 to 1925. Growing up in a parsonage in a small Wisconsin town was a very special privilege for which I have always been grateful.

Recalling Christmas of 1915 brings back many wonderful memories. Thanksgiving Day that year dawned with the promising look of the season's first major snowfall. By the time we came home from church that morning it was really snowing hard. Before sitting down to our own holiday dinner, my mother fixed a basket for "Old Man Gordon," as he was called by everyone. He lived in a little unpainted house on the way uptown, and as far as I know had no relatives to look in on him. My sister Theodora and I had the privilege of delivering the basket of food to him and enjoying the beautiful snowfall at the same time. After dinner, we children were all in the mood for getting out the Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs and studying the toy sections in earnest to make our selections.

A special treat two weeks before Christmas was a trip to Algoma in our cutter drawn by our horse "Topsy," with the sleigh bells ringing all the way. We were awed by the toy display at the Brey and Leischow store. We were equally awed by the money tubes that ran up a little track to the office where change was made and then returned.

There were also toys to be seen at Brandt's store in Forestville. A little red fire engine my brother Otto saw there was something he wanted more than anything he saw at Algoma or in the catalogs. He looked at it longingly every time he went uptown. Then one day he came home in tears. The little red fire engine was gone.

Two weeks before Christmas we also had the excitement of putting out our dolls to be picked by our traditional "Christkind," and to be returned on Christmas Eve with the new clothes. We set these out between the door and the storm door and sure enough, the next morning they were gone. It happened that I was sick a week before Christmas and allowed to sleep on a couch in the dining room where my mother did her sewing. I woke up late one evening, while the kerosene lamp was still burning, and there on a chair were those dolls. When I told the next morning what I had seen, no one would believe me. Surely I must have been dreaming! It was all such a mystery.

The excitement grew with each passing day. Finally it was the Friday before Christmas, the day my brother John and the other boys attending Concordia College in Milwaukee were due to arrive on the evening train. Besides John there were Gus Krueger, Allen Moore, Frank Zirbel, and John Fischer. We counted the hours until 5:30, and then we all donned our warmest wraps and trudged down the hill to the depot. What a disappointment to be told by the ticket agent that the train would be 45 minutes late! We all, including the families of the other boys, gathered around the pot-belly stove in the waiting room, and finally some one announced he could see the light of the train just coming around the bend. The boys were welcomed with hugs and kisses and then the conductor, Mr. Walker, called out "All Aboard" and the train continued on to Maplewood where John Fischer was greeted by his waiting family.

Our neighbor, Mrs. Weber, who lived in the house just east of the church, was the mail lady at that time. In summer she used a wheelbarrow, but this was winter, so she used a wide sled to transport the mail bags to and from the depot. That evening her load was heavier than usual, as Christmas cards and packages filled several extra bags. I still have my Christmas card from Loretta Fischer, with its 1¢ stamp, that came for me just in time for Christmas.

December 24 was by far the mot wonderful day of the year. While my mother baked coffee cake and Stollen and made the traditional soup for our dinner, we all had our various chores to do. Those of us whose chore it was to carry in wood for our five stoves, carried in a double supply that day so we would be free of that job on Christmas Day. Kerosene lamps had to be cleaned and filled. We had two cows, and my father did the milking early that evening. We had milk customers both morning and evening, and that cold December evening the snow really squeaked as we walked uptown to make our deliveries, carrying a lantern as well as several tin pails of milk. Our first stop was at Dr. Donovan's. He had just returned from making a house call at a farm, in his Model T with the front wheels replaced with runners for the winter. Tony Bredel was working for him, and did the driving.

As we neared Rankin's saloon we were a little frightened when we suddenly saw someone walking toward us. It turned out to be my brother Gerhard, who had just finished his day's work as switchboard operator for the telephone company. The office was located on the second floor of Hotel Forestville, operated at that time by the Henquinets. We were glad when Gerhard said he would go with us to our last stop, customers who lived in an apartment above Matt Perry's clothing store. Haegele's store was already closed up for the day as was Perry's hardware store, so the street was very dark.

After we finished our supper and washed the dishes it was time to get ready for church. We girls had new dresses and the boys had new clothes also. How excitedly we younger ones then sat at the window, waiting for the church lights to go on. Mr. Frank Mueller was the custodian and he was the one who lit the gas lamps. It was also his privilege to ring the beautiful church bell when it was time for services to begin. People started arriving in cutters and bobsleds, and the sleigh bells added to the magic of this most beautiful evening.

All the children participating in the program gathered in the school just west of our house. When the church bell rang, my father led the procession over to the church, we children walking in pairs. Leona Wolter was my partner that year. (We both live in California and are good friends to this day). It didn't mater how cold the weather, no coats were worn to cover up those pretty new dresses and suits. No candle-lit tree was ever more sparkling, no program more beautiful, than the one we had that year. We children all had our "pieces" to recite, and we sang "Stille Nacht" and all the other traditional Christmas songs. My father had a short sermon in which he stressed the true meaning of Christmas. We also had a beautiful number in which he sang the solo part and we children responded, alternating throughout. The elders – August Zirbel (with his white hair and beard), William Gomoll, and Ernst Stueber – kept an eye on the tree so the candles would not start a fire. When the program was over they distributed brown bags of goodies to all the children. The bags contained the usual chocolate drops, hard candy, peanuts, and always an orange. To this day the smell of an orange brings back memories of that wonderful Christmas.

The festivities climaxed in our own family Christmas celebration. Usually it included only our own family, but this time Mr. and Mrs. Fred Dahms were with us. Mrs. Dahms was the midwife at that time, was one of my sponsors at my baptism, and a special friend of my mother's. We children all sat around the dining room table while my parents were behind closed doors in the living room. It seemed like an eternity, but finally the doors opened and while my parents sang "Ihr Kinderlein Kommet" (O come, little children) we could enter and see our own beautiful candle-lit tree. Here were the dolls in their new finery (which I had already seen), folding doll buggies for me and my sister Gertrude, a steam engine that really worked for my brother Waldemar, a Carrom board for the family, grown up gifts for the older ones – but best of all, there was that little red fire engine for my brother Otto.

Submitted by:

Paula Berger Hilgendorf
1715 Midwick Drive
Altadena, California 91001

Christmas in Forestville - 1915