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Christmas Was A World Of Wonders In Canarsie, Circa 18855By Emma R. Matthews
Soon another Christmas will be bringing to Canarsiens the message of joy and peace to mankind. As the holiday season draws near, my memory goes back over the years more than three quarters of a century-to an earlier and simpler time. Back to remembrance of an eight year old girl and her young friends as they knew Christmas—circa 1885—in the town of Canarsie, truly rural in those days. We lived in a large, two story, white, brick house on Tieman’s Lane, near what is today’s E. 100 St., between Aves. J and K. Our huge front yard, it seems to me now, was always covered at Christmastime with a deep white mantle of snow that stayed with us for weeks into the new year. There were no snowplows to clear the roads and folks just shoveled paths around their homes, the paths ultimately crisscrossing. like one of those old-time patchwork quilts. Since there were but a handful of stores in Canarsie back in 1885, and the population was so scattered, it was necessary for most of the I remember the coming of Christmas. always brought out such merchants as Richard Guiler, whose grocery store was at Conklin Avenue and East 93 Street. Another greengrocer and vegetable purveyor was, Henry Beutcker who owned a three story frame building at the corner of Avenue L and East 94 Street. Still another popular merchant was Claus Kopf, also from Avenue L. Another tradesman whose popularity with the youngsters of Canarsie always zoomed high during the Christmas season was Mr. Magee, the dairyman. In all justice, however, I must add that he shared this juvenile appreciation with his big, beautiful, iron gray horse. When the winter snows were so deep our parents wouldn’t let us take our sleds any considerable distance from home, we used to wait at the Old Road (today’s E. 92 Street) until, Mr. Magee came along in his tremendous sleigh. He loved children and invariably stopped when he saw us waiting, helped us tie our sleds to the back of his sleigh, and then took us along as he made his deliveries, all the way down to Kings Highway and back to our homes. (By the way, Mr. Magee’s daughter still lives in Canarsie, on Conklin Ave!) These merchants would deliver, via, their horse drawn carts until the snow fell and then they would come in their large horse drawn sleighs to supply us with household needs. It was always such a happy sound around the holiday period to hear the merry jingling of their sleigh bells and the crunching of snow as it packed under the runners of their sleighs! Few Canarsiens in 1885 bothered to purchase evergreens for wreaths or garlands. Boys and we younger girls would head for Schenk’s Woods, between Church and School Lanes (west of Remsen Avenue, about where Our Lady of Miracles R.C. Church now stands) where we would gather big bundles of holly. Canarsie lads would also head for Cobie’s Woods, on East 86 Street south of Avenue L, where they would cut boughs from the tall cedar and pine trees. These they would load on sleds and drag home for holiday decorations. Since there was no street illumination of any kind in Canarsie in those days—the only light available being that which shone through house windows from the oil lamps within—we young people used to go about after dark carrying our trusty and inseparable kerosene hand-lamps. I believe they used to cost 25 cents apiece. Our childhood Christmas activities, of course, were centered about home and church. We youngsters always looked forward to the Christmas entertainment provided for us in Canarsie’s various churches. The (then-Dutch) Reformed Church, on Conklin Avenue and East 93 Street offered their children’s entertainment on Christmas Eve. I can still see so clearly in my mind’s eye their beautiful, tall Christmas tree with Mr. Miller, the sexton, standing by alertly with a long pole and a wet sponge in his hand ready to stuff out the tree candles as they burned low. Santa would present each of the children with a box of sweets, an apple and an orange. Pastor Dickhaur would move among us, smiling happily at the scene. The Grace Church, on East 92 Street and Church Lane, customarily held their children’s entertainment on Christmas Night. They, too, had Though a small Roman Catholic congregation had met earlier in Canarsie, at the period of which I speak their church had closed. When the church reopened, I recall that one of the first visiting priests was Father Fitzgerald. The first resident priests in Canarsie were Fathers Horn and Reynolds. But let me see if I cannot reconstruct for you a picture of what it was like to be a child in Canarsie back in 1885 and to experience that most wonderful time of the year—Christmas. For a week before the actual holiday, our home was a busy place. Mother and a nearby neighbor would be hustling and bustling in the kitchen (O, that wonderful kitchen of ours!) making mince meat pies, cookies and fruitcake. The stimulating aroma of all the spicy holiday foods would make the children’s mouths water and there were constant demands for "samples" lest we perish then and there before our parents horrified eyes! I recall so well the large, black, iron kettle in which Mother used to prepare her renowned plum pudding. A large affair, in its cheesecloth bag, it steamed for hours and was served with Mother’s own lemon brandy sauce. In the cellar of course, were stored a large keg of cider and barrels of apples. We children would take along a wooden chopping bowl to the ample cellar to fill with apples, crisp, cool and juicy. These we would bring upstairs with a pitcher of cider and an apron full of nuts—the very hickory black walnuts and chestnuts that we ourselves had gathered in local Canarsie woods. We would seat ourselves in a circle around the I have to smile as I think about our early nutting excursions to Cobie’s Woods when the really big trees grew. We’d leave home early in the morning, accompanied by the lunch baskets Mother prepared for the day’s outing. The boys took along stout, long pole with which to knock down the nuts; the girls carried empty flour sacks in which to tote the nuts back home. The "lunches" were consumed within minutes of arrival at Cobie’s and, since we were usually back home about 10 in the morning, dragging our filled flour sacks behind us, Mother always used to throw up her hands in mock dismay over our piteous cries for food because we were "famished"! Even so, she never failed to set out plates of steaming beef-vegetable soup on the kitchen table with chucks of her home-baked rye bread. This repast we would wash down with big mugs of milk and tremendous triangle of her home-baked apple pie. I hate to think of what would have happened to Metreca stock if that company had had to depend on we early Canarsiens for its continuance! The kitchen, as you may have surmised, was the scene of my happiest childhood memories. As were most Canarsie kitchens in those days, ours was quite large, full of gleaming pots and pans, sparkling glassware and bins lining the walls. There were always padded armchairs and rockers to pull up before the welcome hearth. As we children came in from the outdoors, off would come our boots, hoods and mittens, and we would troop into the cheery kitchen to huddle around the blazing hearth with crackling logs. On Christmas Eve, of course, we were veritable angels of grace and thoughtfulness. That evening we would hang our stockings from the mantelpiece the moment we returned from church. We were sent off to bed post-haste to await Santa’s coming as patiently as we might. Mother and Father would then get down to the business of trimming the family tree and bringing the Christmas gifts out of hiding. The trimming was done in the "old fashioned" way—-strings of popcorn, cranberries, candy canes, tiny baskets, motto-papers filled with crunchy sweets to delight every youthful palate, and tiny glass balls on strings. There was no tinsel in those days for dressing the tree and it was decorated with festive cookies of every shape and form. Then, as a finishing touch, little tufts of cotton batting were thrown at random all over the tree to give the effect of snow on the branches. On Christmas Day, we children were up with cockcrows and downstairs we would scramble to claim our gifts and exclaim over the tree. Then, down on hands and knees to sort out and compare the gifts. There were little horns, iron trains to pull by a string, dolls with miniature furniture and carriage (I didn’t care much for dolls in those days, tomboy that I was, and I recall the annual "stern look" Id get because I tended to swing my doll by its arm in big circles around me!) skates, sleds, various articles of clothing, dominoes, checkers and those delightful little magic lanterns with their colored slides showing far-off geographical wonders, children at play, animal and comic scenes. The pictures were thrown by a tiny oil lamp on an ordinary bed sheet which we strung up on the wall (remember, please, these were the days before electricity and movies, let alone television!) The appreciative and somewhat tumultuous reception these pictures received from the children would awaken Father—Mother of course, had preceded the children by many hours and was busy in the kitchen—-and down he would come for his coffee in the kitchen. While Mother stuffed the turkey, Father would interpolate an occasional bit if culinary wisdom between sips of his mocha. We youngsters would race upstairs again, finish our dressing, gobble down out breakfast of pancakes and sausages and scurry outdoors, bundled up to our ears and down to our eyes. Perhaps I should add that our buckwheat flour was ground at Vander Veer’s Mill, here in Canarsie, and the sausages were made by Mother from our own pigs, father didn’t kill the pigs himself, that job he used to "turn over" to old Mr. Reid. Old Mr. Reid used to visit all the homes in Canarsie just before Thanksgiving, slaughtering the pigs for the families whose men folk were "too busy" for the chore! For Father, he butchered three of our pigs and Mother prepared smoked hams, bacon and sausages, which lasted well into winter. Yes, we children scrambled out of the warm house, dragging our sleds or carrying our new skates with us as we headed for either the East or the West Meadow (on either side of Canarsie Town), which ever had been reported in the most frozen condition. There we remained until it was time to meet the guests arriving for the holiday. To the railroad station —-O, yes, you got in and out of Canarsie in those days via the little locomotive-drawn string of cars—-and then we’d walk home together, waving to neighbors, exchanging holiday greetings, and swinging happily along content in the sure knowledge that somewhere among all those packages the guests bore must certainly be more gifts for deserving children like ourselves! Dinner was ready almost at once and Mother and my aunts served at the great dining room table while the men folk sat like patriarchs receiving their due homage and consideration. How pretty the table, with its extra wooden leaves already in place, looked! Mother’s best linens, china, silver, and glassware graced the holiday repast and in the center of the table was the lovely centerpiece of evergreens and red candles. We youngsters were kept busy shifting chairs from every part of the house to seat family and guests, the latter who had come long distances, many from Connecticut where Mother had been born. Impatient cries from the table, kept the women on their toes as they hurried course after course from the kitchen to the dining room. Father was scraping the carving knife and fork together like a caterer when the big turkey in all its roasted splendor made its dramatic entrance to an assortment of "oohs" and "aahs" but, if I recall correctly, it was not he but one of my uncles who did the actual carving. Father had been a sea captain, and, while he had many a time piloted his ship around Cape Horn, he had never been able to master the "landlubber’s" art of carving a fowl! Well, once the dinner was over and compliments and recipes had been exchanged, the ladies "retired" to the parlor while the men remained at the table for their coffee and smoking. Mother seated herself at the family organ and the lovely carols and sacred hymns filled the house—while even our childish trebles were accepted without complaint. The men, as I said, remained in the dining room, talking mostly about the sea and the great sailing vessels (not only Father, but two of his brothers as well had been sea going captains), or they would talk about the oysters at the Canarsie shore or about the high cost of living which just didn’t "seem" ready to stop at any reasonable point—-why sir, haven’t prices reached a ruinous level when a mere three pounds of pork chops or chuck steaks are selling for all of 25 cents" They filled the room with their cigar and pipe smoke, though some of the older men continued to cling to their "chawin" plug (tobacco). The stone cider jugs were constantly in transit around the table and the amber liquid flowed cold and sparkling from its recent nest in the snow outside. At some point, Mother would look up from her hands on the organ keys and ask, "Well ladies, shouldn’t we be rejoining the gentlemen?" and the ladies would troop in with the children bringing up the rear and the original seats were resumed around the table. In a few moments, all would be back in the parlor to the sound of chairs being moved from room to room and, before you knew it, it was time for supper. After supper, which was served fairly early so the guests from out of town could catch the 7 o’clock train out of Canarsie, the children were jogged on knees, whirled in the air by strong arms, and otherwise pampered and fondled, to the tune of promises solemnly made of goodies to come next Christmas if we were well behaved and obedient and said our prayers nightly. By 7:30 in the evening, we children were already back at church for Christmas Night (as distinct from the Christmas Eve) entertainment. This might be at the Methodist Church, where Mr. Holden was the pastor and Mr. Serene was the superintendent. Again, it might be at the Lutheran Church, where Pastor Steinhart greeted us. Yes, I remember it all so well—-as I remember the lovely little New Testament which I received for my very own from my Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Annie Matthews, who was later to become my dear mother-in-law. By 9 o’clock we were heading for home, our trusty little lanterns firmly clutched in our tight fists, the light around each of the homeward bound youngsters encircling their hurrying steps like haloes out of sacred art! At home there was yet time for more play and singing, more eating of cookies, candy and popcorn. However, as to all young things the time for sleep rolled around again and Mother signaled it’s coming with an almost imperceptible nod to Father. Father would clear his throat to draw our attention and then, with never al spoken word, he would take out his massive timepiece from his vest pocket, flick the cloth and metal fob over his hand, open the round hinged lid, peer closely at the time—and before he clicked it shut again we were already hurling ourselves at Mother and Father for our goodnight kisses. O, it had been a full day, a wondrous and miraculous day, a day full of joy and excitement, love and conviviality. It was truly a day for a little girl in the Canarsie of 1885 to remember all her life. And I have remembered it——-remembered it all my life.
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