Christmas with the Tarbells

[Rob Wick]

Just wanted to share with the forum a portion of my biography of Tarbell that discusses how her family celebrated Christmas. This is not the final version, although it's very close.

Best
Rob

The most pleasant memory Tarbell held from childhood—which evolved into her adulthood—was Christmas. The Christmases in Rouseville started in the shanty and, like the shanty, held less-than-happy memories for the young Ida. “[B]ack in the little shanty…there was nothing but nuts and candy and my mother and father promising ‘Just wait, just wait and the day will come.’”

When the family moved to the Rouseville hillside, Christmas became an exhilarating time for Ida. In an unpublished article titled “The Christmas That Meant Most to Me,” Tarbell recalled that at age seven, things turned around just after the move. The article is a fascinating journey into Ida’s young mind. She fictionalized parts of it, naming her “most ‘nintimate’ (sic) friend” Bobbie instead of Laura Siegel, with whom Ida surreptitiously read the Police Gazette.

Bobbie/Laura was invited into the Tarbell home to show off the presents she received and to have dinner with the Tarbells. For two hours, the girls compared the presents that Santa had left behind. While Tarbell did not remember everything she received, she remembered a muff and a tippet. “How many years that stuff was to go in and out of the fur chest, treasured long after its usefulness was over, because of its connection with the Christmas that meant most to me,” Tarbell wrote.

After comparing gifts, the pair settled into what Tarbell termed “delicious relaxation” and began discussing the various mysteries of life. The conversation turned to Santa. “Now, we were seven…and there was a dawn of knowingness in us,” Tarbell wrote. “As we talked there grew a sense in both of us that this splendid Santa Claus enjoyed more human cooperation than one of his rank would be supposed to need.” Soon, the pair thought, “What if it was mother? What if it was father?”

Who else, Tarbell wondered, would have known how much she wanted a muff or how much Bobbie/Laura wanted her own party dress? As the evidence mounted, the pair recalled locked drawers, a closed parlor, the “sternness with which peeping was treated” and the mini-sermons each received about unabated curiosity. When the afternoon Christmas dinner was on the table, Ida and Laura revealed to Franklin and Esther that they had figured out that Santa was a myth. “We know! We know! It’s you! It’s you! You are Santa Claus!”

Ida recalled Esther’s “half frightened eyes, alarm struggling with amusement—would I hold her guilty? I can see her seeking help in my father’s steady gaze. He understood. Here was no wound—only joyful exultation.” Immediately, at least in Tarbell’s later telling, she saw the importance of learning this secret. It made the relationship with her parents even more special. “It was they—the dearest ones in the world who had been playing this wonderful game,” Ida wrote.

Ida’s elation at the time stemmed from the presents like the muff, but she soon realized that what gave the day meaning was the bond that came from the closeness her family exhibited not only during the holidays but throughout the year. “It was the time, [Esther] told us, when men and women and boys and girls all over the world, who had taken the Christ Child for their leader, secretly and joyfully planned on a certain day, in memory of Him, to make others happy,” Tarbell wrote. “She and father loved above all to make us happy, but now we knew the game we were expected to play…to pass on happiness.”

The Titusville Christmases solidified that expectation. Although the family never had a creche until long after Franklin and Esther died (Ida told Ada McCormick that her parents “would have considered it papist”) as Ida, Will, and Sarah grew older, each was expected to take responsibility for parts of the family’s Christmas dinner including food and decorations. November saw the making of mincemeat, plum pudding, and fruit cakes. Beginning in December, further aspects of the dinner came together. “You seeded the raisins, you picked the meat out of the nuts, you chopped the citron. When the mince meat was done you felt you were represented in every jar,” Ida wrote.

The turkey selection superseded all else. When the regular family butcher once sold the Tarbells a tough turkey, they refused to buy their bird from him, preferring to go into the countryside to select one. “We were really acquainted with that turkey before it came into the house,” Tarbell wrote. “And when it came, so plump, so yellow and tender, you were not allowed to touch it, only to look at it as it lay in the big pan.” Every year, Ida wondered if the family stove would hold the bird. Every year, it did. With the bird chosen, the question of stuffing arose. Would it be plain stuffing or made with oysters or chestnuts? As much thought went into that as the selection of the turkey.

When all the food was on the table, the doors to the dining room were opened. “My father always asked a blessing on our food, but the blessing he asked at Christmas had a special quality, a choke of grateful emotion in his voice as he thanked the Lord for that which we were about to partake,” Tarbell recalled. Once the meal was finished and the dishes were cleaned, the family gathered together with nuts, raisins, and candy and sat around the house talking over the things that affected life in Titusville and life in the Tarbell household.

[Anita]

Rob,
Thank you for sharing!! It's beautifully written...so richly descriptive of Tarbell's Christmas experience. I look forward to reading how you tie this to her later Christmas experiences.

And since it's Christmas, I was reminded of the story YOU wrote and posted on the forum Dec. 1, 2013 under the thread "A Billy Brown Christmas Story."
I just read it again. Tarbell would approve!

Keep writing Rob!!!

[Rob Wick]

Thanks, Anita. I had completely forgot about the Billy Brown Christmas Story. The link must be dead because it wouldn't let me download it. Evidently, I didn't keep a copy or I lost it when I had a computer crash. Oh well.

Best
Rob

[RJNorton]

Rob, please try this:

https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussi...hp?aid=306

[Anita]

(12-25-2024 05:13 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Thanks, Anita. I had completely forgot about the Billy Brown Christmas Story. The link must be dead because it wouldn't let me download it. Evidently, I didn't keep a copy or I lost it when I had a computer crash. Oh well.

Best
Rob

Roger's link works! Maybe you can find a way to add your story to the Tarbell book!

[AussieMick]

That’s good writing, Rob.

[Rob Wick]

Thanks, Mike.

It still won't let me have access to the pdf. I can log into the site OK, but when I click on the link I get another log in screen. When I try to go through that, it resets and won't allow me in.

It does say that my log in attempt was successful, but it still won't allow me in.

Best
Rob

[Anita]

Rob,

I emailed you the download.

[Rob Wick]

(Yesterday 09:21 PM)Anita Wrote:  Rob,

I emailed you the download.

Thanks Anita!

Best
Rob