The title of “best Christmas ever” is reserved for the holidays of childhood, when the torture of waiting to open those tantalizingly wrapped presents under the tree seemed to last 40 percent of forever. But an unexpected kindness did make this celebration the most memorable in many years for the adults in our family.
The great celebrations of memory were at my parents’ house, where the family gathered around the tree and renewed our ties. Today my wife Yvonne and I are ourselves grandparents – but find our holidays are often haunted by the ghosts of Christmases past. Our parents and many cherished relatives and friends are no longer here to share the joy.
But as we headed to Genesee on Christmas Eve this year to meet with my sister, artist Kristin Olsen, and her family, we carried a very special present – a priceless look at our family history.
We had stopped that morning at the Stage Stop Antiques, 7340 S. 44th Ave., in Wheat Ridge, to buy nine scrapbooks that my late mother had filled. The materials in them – ribbons from the Phillips County Fair, first Communion books for my sister and myself, a photo of my brother Gene with a prize steer, and all the cards I had received on my 7th birthday party, were virtually worthless to anybody outside our family circle. But as we eagerly gathered around them, the old volumes formed a time machine that whisked our family back to the ’50s and the little farm in Phillips County that the Ewegens have tilled since 1887.
The chances of stumbling onto this treasure trove on my own would be infinitesimal. But one of this column’s readers, Lansin Carmean of Broomfield, was browsing through the shop and noted a volume with my mother’s signature. Recognizing the name, she e-mailed me:
We were at the Stagestop Antique Mall this afternoon. One of the booths had an old photograph album – one of those common in the ’40s and ’50s, and inside, E. Louise Ewegen had apparently written her name and noted that the contents of the album were ribbons she had won at the Phillips County Fair in Holyoke in 1948, ’49, ’50 and ’51. There were a number of them, blues and reds, apparently for things she had sewn and otherwise produced. The old county fairs were so great for that! If this is something you would be interested in, email me.
Interested? Were we ever. Besides the book of ribbons, we found eight other volumes. These albums weren’t among my mother’s effects when she died five years ago. But she had spent most of her final years leaving at an assisted living center run by an old family friend, Betty Kafka. My guess is that the albums were left there when my mother moved to a nursing home in her final months. Betty died about a year after my mother did.
Talking with the proprietor where we found the treasures, Dick Carkeek, we guessed the albums were probably eventually sold by Betty’s estate. Dick got them from a dealer in Fort Morgan who frequents auctions and estate sales and, eventually, they made their way to our family.
As Lansin surmised, my mother, like my grandmother, was fabulous at crocheting, weaving the fine threads into prize-winning patterns. But she had even saved ribbons I won for my geese, the beloved gander Howdy Doody and haughty goose Princess.
The ’50s were hard times for farmers, so we were doubtless poor when judged by material standards. The same geese and cows that won us ribbons also put milk and eggs on our table. But the scrapbooks proved that we had kept our faith and our laughter despite the dust storms and hail.
I don’t think the Phillips County Fair has a prize for the category “The Kindness of Strangers.” But the Ewegen family does, and this year’s blue ribbon goes to Lansin Carmean.
May this new year bring blessings to her and her family – as well as to you and yours.
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@denverpost.com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.
