You have named some very helpful things but the “booster shot” is what we got. I used Kentucky language here. I will certainly look at all of your suggestions. I really didn’t know i made this many mistakes. Thanks. Your suggestion sounds better though. I appreciate your close reading. Thank you so much. Sandi
Non-fiction / Christmas at Wendover
Christmas at Wendover
Memories are nature’s keepsakes of the past; some are good, some are bad, and others fade slowly away like dreams in the mist
My best memories are of my childhood growing up in the backwoods of Southeastern Kentucky. Often times, I reflect on the primitive beauty of the landscape and realize that it is and always will be an intrinsic part of myself.
One of my most precious memories is of a Christmas I spent at Wendover at the home of famous nurse and midwife Mary Breckinridge. I had just turned seven-years-old that December 17 of 1963. As I recall, there was a thin dusting of snow on the ground; just enough to outline the trees and mountain tops. My brother and I had prayed for snow all week, so that we could build a snowman on the bank down below our home. However, our mother quickly foiled our plans, by informing us that there wasn’t enough snow, which disappointed us greatly.
As Christmas approached, I noticed that my mother seemed more thoughtful than usual. Our father had gone into the veteran’s hospital, and his absence had left her with twice the work load, which included slopping the hogs and carrying water and coal into the house. I figured she was depressed because a doctor at the Veterans Hospital had said daddy was too ill to be released anytime soon. Besides being treated for his nerves, daddy had been operated on for a slipped disk in his back
Our father was a veteran of the Korean War. He had been a medic who treated the sick and wounded. Mother often told people that the war had ruined him. When I look back in retrospect, I think she was probably right. I recall how he acted during a rainstorm. It seemed that every time it thundered, he would cover his ears and fall to the floor. For some, this might have seemed an odd sight but to us it was normal. Mother said that the war had left him shell- shocked. Of course, we didn’t know what being shell-shocked meant, and thought daddy looked funny when he’d take cover under a chair or drop suddenly, whenever he heard thunder boom during a storm. My brother, sister, and I being kids, laughed at his crazy behavior. Of course, this made him mad and he would often turn his anger on me. My father claimed that since I was the oldest, I should know better than to poke fun at his sickness.
“Damn it June bug. Do you think I look funny? Let’s see you run through flying mortar day after day for years and come out acting normal.” My Grandpa Farmer had nicknamed me June bug because I was always chasing after the big, green bugs. I had loved to hear their jarring buzz as they flew around the honeysuckle and wild berry bushes that dotted our back hillside. As children, my brother and I would tie a long thread to their legs and fly them like a kite.
Although our family was poor by economic standards, we weren’t considered that way in our part of the country. My grandfather Farmer was a revered man who proudly served his country during World War 1. I remember how people from all over the small town of Hyden and the surrounding rural areas would come to him for advice concerning everything from politics to corn planting. My grandmother was a Morgan before she married my grandfather, and was the cousin of the famous John Hunt Morgan, who was a confederate general in the Civil War. My grandfather was a carpenter who built many of the houses in Leslie County. Some had considered him an expert craftsman, so he was always in demand.
The little house we lived in was also built by my grandfather. It stood on a steep bank overlooking the middle fork of the Kentucky River. In the summertime, we could look off our high porch and see parts of the river through the gaps in the trees. In the winter, when the trees shed their thick, green leaves and the foliage died out, the whole of the winding river that remained hidden in the trees came into view.
Sometimes during a particularly bitter winter, the river would freeze solid enough for us to ice skate on its surface. My brother and I spent many of a winter day skating across the more shallow parts of the frozen white surface.
Winters in Southeastern Kentucky can be cold and eerily still. The steep mountains serve as a natural fortress against the northern winds. Even in the hottest of summers, very little wind stirs because the high, rocky faced mountains block it. There is also very little flat land in and around Leslie County, especially, down the river where our family lived. Our place however was blessed with one flat bottom where daddy raised our garden and planted some long rows of corn. The slanted hillside above the bottom was dug out by hand and planted in corn as well. The rest of the landscape boasts steep, rugged mountains, creeks, and hollows. In some places, solid walls of rock rose straight up out of the banks with no benefit of footholds, in order to scale them.
I remember thinking that our home seemed carved right out of the hillside and was encompassed with dark, thickly timbered mountains. For those who are not used to such a wilderness landscape, it may be like living in a box. In addition, no matter how far you stretch you can never see beyond its top.
I recall the few times my Great Aunt Elva would visit us from Oregon. She never stayed for very long. Aunt Elva was what daddy called a lush, or to put it in simpler terms, a drunk. She never went anywhere without the security of her shiny, silver, flask that was filled to the brim with Old Granddad Whiskey. I can remember how she’d often sit on our porch in the summertime and mumble incoherently to herself, while she drank. Everyone made fun of her but me. I thought she was kind of sad. Aunt Elva often complained that the mountains made her feel “hemmed in.” She was my grandfather’s baby sister, and was notorious for complaining about her surroundings. Grandpa would often chide, “Dabbarn it woman, why did you come back here in the first place? Go on back to Oregon, so we can all see some peace.”
Sometimes, when she’d had a little too much whiskey, she would mumble to herself, “Oh Lord, have mercy. Its’ like the end of the world, here. I’ve got to get back to Oregon.” Since I had lived in our surroundings since I was six-months-old I never thought them strange. The wild landscape with its lovely river was like a big undiscovered treasure to me.
Growing up in a rural area where the river runs wild offers a child a good look at nature at work. It also has many things to spark the imagination. However, it has many disadvantages as well, the main one being isolation. It is a well-known fact that in the early and mid 1900’s many children reared in the deep mountains and steep hollows suffered a kind of seclusion to the outside world. For example, parents didn’t own to many television sets because in those days there was no direct signal linking a television to a tower. In order to receive a picture on the screen one had to string wires way up into the hills, and place an antenna high on a cliff, which is what my father did. Even then, there were unforeseen problems such as sudden gusts of wind and hard blowing rainstorms.
Health care was another problem. Before famous nurse and midwife, Mary Breckinridge came to Leslie County and constructed her clinics and outposts in 1925, there was very little in the way of health care offered. Hyden, the County seat of Leslie, had only one doctor to serve the town and rural areas of Leslie County; therefore, many people died as a result. Children were the most innocent victims of this isolation and lack of a decent medical care. According to author Sadie Stidham, in the late 1800’s as well early into the 1900’s there was very little in the way of health care in Southeastern Kentucky. Many people depended on home remedies, which included herbal medicines that were made from roots or tree bark to treat unknown illnesses. Diseases like typhoid, trachoma, and tuberculosis were real threats to the people who dwelled in the mountainous sections of Leslie County. According to Sadie Stidham’s book “Trails into Cutshin Country,” in 1919 the county received a paid health nurse named Lila Buyers to access the county’s medical needs. Many deemed Lila Buyers a godsend.
It is a well- documented fact that Mary Breckinridge and her trained nurses played a key part in the survival of many impoverished children of the Appalachian region. For not only did the nurses also known as midwifes deliver babies, they did so many other important services as well. For instance, the nurses sometimes cooked for the elderly and often served as nutritionists to the folks in the rural areas. They gave vaccinations to all the mountain children and often listened to people’s problems. In addition to all of this, the couriers served as census takers, and this was no easy feat because they had miles and miles of steep, mountainous, territory to cover on horseback. Sometimes it took several days to reach one family. In the 1950’s the nurses often used jeeps, as well as horses to reach some homes.
The nurses were well received in our region. People were used to seeing them, either on horseback or driving their jeeps in precarious places that some city folk wouldn’t dare tread. Many will agree that the Frontier Nursing Service remains the most important service ever inducted into the county.
I will never forget my first introduction to the nurses. I was about five- years -old and my brother and I had been playing cowboys and Indians in the back yard. My brother, who was the outlaw, had been in hiding. Suddenly he ran out from behind the house yelling something about cowgirls being in the front yard. “What are you talking about?” I asked in puzzlement.
“Really, sissy, they’re on horses and everything. Come and look”
Sure enough, there they were, women on horses wearing tan khaki breeches, round brimmed hats and black knee boots. I noticed one of them carried a big black bag and the other a clipboard. I had never seen women dressed in such manly attire before, so I didn’t know what to think of them.
The nurses spoke to my mother and explained to her that they were going from house to house in an effort to inoculate children against childhood diseases. On this day, they had come to give us our booster shots. My mother understood and gave them permission to give us the shots. My brother had screamed bloody murder when one of the nurses brought out what looked exactly like a toy gun. I reality, it was in fact a type of gun that had a needle inserted in it. Mother had to hold my brother down so that the nurse could
“Shoot him” as she called it. I was next and for some reason I wasn’t scared. I guess I was too in awe of the nurses to be frightened. The nurses came at least once a month after that to check on us.
Out of respect for the nurses, it was a customary practice for the woman of the house to offer them refreshments and a meal whenever they made their scheduled visits. It would have been rude by mountain standards not to have invited them to eat. My mother always marked the day that they were scheduled to visit down on the calendar. She usually prepared a huge meal that sometimes consisted of chicken, dumplings, and biscuits. One nurse named Betty Lester always asked my mother to make her a simple tomato sandwich. I remember that all she wanted on it was mayonnaise
From the first day I set eyes on her, I knew I loved Betty Lester. I considered her to be my nurse. Betty was an older woman who wore her hair cut in a short bob. She told us that she had been a nurse in the WW2 and that she was born in Britain. She spoke with a thick British accent that I learned to adore. I can recall imitating her. Betty was a constant visitor to our house because I was often sick with tonsillitis. When it came time for me to get my tonsils removed, Betty drove me to the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati.
I had never been any place but school, and I thought the trip was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. On the way to Cincinnati, I remember Betty asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I told her that I wanted to tell stories. Suddenly she turned a sober eye on me and said, in her acute British accent, “Now, you know little girls are not supposed to lie. It’s a sin.”
Of course, I had meant that I wanted to write stories, but I think that she misunderstood. I loved her anyway.
It was Betty who told my mother about the Christmas party at Wendover. Mother, of course, already knew about the customary Christmas party that had begun the first year that Wendover was built. It was a big thing to the poor children of area. However, my siblings and I had never been to a party and did not know what it would consist of.
I don’t know to this day, why mother never took us to Wendover before that Christmas. Maybe it had something to do with her fierce pride. Perhaps she thought there was something shameful about children accepting gifts of charity.
Ordinarily, our family spent the whole month of December visiting and eating at various relatives homes. That year, however, with our daddy in the Veterans Hospital and money being tight, mama probably didn’t felt very festive and thought the Christmas party at Wendover might cheer us up.
After learning we were going to Mary Breckinridge’s big house in Wendover, I was brimming with excitement. My brother, however, wanted no part in anything that had to with a nurse, party or not. My little sister was barely one-year-old and her only concern was how often she received her bottle of milk. When the day before Christmas finally came, Mama had to bribe my frightened brother with an early Christmas present in order to get him into Miss Lester’s Jeep. Even then, he bawled the whole trip. “Am I going to get shot with that gun again?” No matter how many times mama told him that he wasn’t, he still kept asking.
It was around 5:30 pm when we arrived at Wendover. The air was cold and gray, and the ground still had a white skim of snow on it. The naked timbers in the hills behind the cabin looked like they were made of clear glass. The tall, dark firs and evergreen trees with their snowy, feathered branches lent a kind of magical essence to the holiday scene. Looking back, I can see it as clearly as if it were yesterday. The memory is a treasure that can never be duplicated.
I will never forget the sight of the big three-story cabin that stood at the top of the hill. Even my bawling brother was overcome with the sight of the pure white snow and the lights and lanterns that were strung from several trees in order to light the visitor’s way. Tents were set up everywhere and the big, sloping hillside was full of children and their parents. On the front door of the cabin, a giant wreath made of Holly berries and green foliage was tacked up and big colored lights shaped like small pears were strung across the porch. People were dressed in nativity clothes. One man wore a long multi- colored robe and carried a Shepard’s hook and beside him was a little white lamb on a lead rope. My brother screamed in delight “Look! Jesus is here and he’s got a sheep with him.”
Miss Lester had burst out laughing. She told mama that for the first Christmas at Wendover, Mary Breckinridge had invited 6000 people, but only 500 had showed up. Mama was very surprised. Later, she would remark, “I didn’t know there were 500 people in the whole county.”
On that magical night it had seemed to me that everyone in the world had showed up. I had never seen that many people in one place before. As we walked around the
-slanted grounds of Wendover, I noticed that every large tent had a different activity. In one tent, someone was reading Christmas stories to a group of wide-eyed children; in another, a bunch of people were playing games and drinking hot chocolate. There were even Carolers walking around singing songs like “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls.” I was in awe of the men who wore the long colored coats and top hats that favored the pictures in the book called “A Christmas Carol”
In one space, there was a huge nativity scene, including a large manger filled with straw. A swaddled doll that favored baby Jesus laid on top the straw. Many of nurses were even dressed up in long dresses and Knitted shawls. Miss Lester, however, was dressed in her regular clothes. I remember asking her why she wasn’t dressed up like the others. She said, “Now Sandi what should I have dressed up as?”
I said, “You remind me a lot of an angel.”
“Me? an angel?” She laughed seemingly taken aback. Suddenly she turned away from me and withdrew a little handkerchief from out of her pocket and blew her nose. I wasn’t sure if Miss Lester had a cold or if she was crying. I didn’t ask, though I suspect that it was a cold, because I can’t imagine someone as strong as her ever shedding tears of emotion. “You’re my favorite girl,” she said lowly as if she wasn’t usually given to such terms of endearment.
After about a half an hour of walking around and looking at the festive sights, Miss Lester asked us if we would like to stand in line and wait for prayers and the gift giving. Of course we said we did. To our amazement, she led us right into the front room-
of the big house. The front room was huge and had a big stone chimney in it. A big fire burned orange in the hearth, and the largest Christmas tree that I had ever seen stood in the middle of the room. It was decorated with strings of popcorn and big colored lights. On its top stood the tallest angel that I had ever laid eyes on, and in her arms she held a tiny child that favored the baby Jesus that I had seen in books. From where I stood, I could see the huge kitchen with its big pot bellied stove. Suddenly my brother asked “Are they cooking something in there? I’m hungry.”
I thought my poor mother would fall through the floor in shame. In spite of the fun I was having, I couldn’t help but notice that my mother had been irritable and constantly on to us all evening for various things, such as talking out of turn or being too loud. If we had paid any attention to her scolding, we wouldn’t have had any fun at all. Don’t get me wrong she had taught us to behave and we usually did. However on this night my brother and I were too caught up in the excitement to listen to anything she had to say. Thinking back in retrospect, I believe that she was afraid that we might do something that would embarrass her, and our behavior might somehow reflect the way she raised us. My mother was by nature a very shy and backward person, and like a lot of young women who lived in deep within the hollows, she may have felt that she lacked the proper social skills when it came to conversing with the more educated women. My mother’s introverted nature may have been a direct result of her deep isolation from much of the outside world. Miss Lester must have sensed my mother’s discomfort for she said, “Now Mrs. Farmer, all your friends and neighbors are here with their children. It is no shame to give them something. It’s all about the children tonight.”
As it happened, the people in the big kitchen were serving Christmas Eve supper to all the guests. Before we ate, one of the nurses asked us to bow our heads and pray. Later my mother told Miss Lester that she couldn’t believe that anyone could spare that much food. Miss Lester told her that the food came from donations from all over the state and it was something that Mary Breckinridge had started years ago.
I will never forget the delicious taste and smell of the baked ham and sweet potatoes. People stood in long lines waiting to be fed and there was also tables serving hot cider and hot coco. My mind conjures up a sea of faceless children, including that of my brother and sister. My own blurred face comes to mind as well. I cannot guess what I may have looked like, but I can imagine that I was standing with my eyes opened wide with such surprise. Never had I seen a place that offered so much. I imagine that the other poor little children felt as I did.
After we ate, we were led into back the big front room; suddenly, Santa Claus appeared in his red suit and long white beard. Behind him several elves’s toted big boxes full of gaily wrapped presents. Every child who came got a gift as well as a big, stocking of hard candy. Thinking back, I recall that there was a long line of children waiting to receive their present from Santa Claus. My six-year-brother’s eyes became as wide as saucers when Santa handed him his gift. “Wow! Are you still coming to my house?” He asked. Santa said, in a booming voice, “Of course I am son.” This drew chuckles from the crowd.
I remember that Miss Lester personally handed me my gift. The box was very large and I couldn’t guess what it was. Miss Lester suddenly whispered to me, “Don’t
open that here, wait until Christmas morning.” My mother told my brother and sister that they had to wait to open theirs as well. However, my brother didn’t want to wait and the bawling began all over again. At that point, my mother asks Miss Lester to take us back home so that she could put him to bed. At that moment I wanted desperately to shut off my brother’s noisy pipes for good. I’d so hated to leave the magical place.
Once inside the jeep, I gazed up at the big house on the hill. I’d wanted one last look, so that I could remember it for years to come. The sky had turned into black night and the snow had once again begun to fall. I can still see the little white flakes as they descended silently in the darkness. My eyes sought the big, rambling log house on the hill with its lanterns and colored lights and the big tents. Miss Lester must have sensed my disappointment for having to leave for she promised, “You’ll be back next year.” Somehow, I knew I would never see another Christmas party at Wendover. As it turned out I was right. I never did.
On Christmas morning I couldn’t wait to tear open the gaily wrapped box that Miss Lester had given me. Once the paper was off, I gasped in utter surprise when I saw the big doll. She was dressed in a red velvet dress and had matching velvet ribbons in her pigtails. She was exactly the one that I had told mama that I had wanted. I had seen her at my Aunt Abby Morgan’s store. “Did you tell Miss Lester that I wanted this?” I asked. My mother said “No I never did.” Somehow I believed her.
I was only to see Betty Lester one more time. She died sometime later. I have never forgotten her, and I still have the big, walking doll that she got me for Christmas. It is not in the best shape, but is still recognizable.
There is not a Christmas that goes by that I don’t think of Betty. She is the angel that sits atop my tree. She also gave me the most important kinds of gifts; she gave of herself and her time and more importantly, a memory that no one can ever take from me.
To me, great women like Betty Lester and Mary Breckinridge are truly angels sent from above. And if there is a heaven, and I’m positive that there is, these women are up there doing what they do best and that is giving.
Betty Lester and the other fine nurses taught me several important things about life. One of them being, if you have two of something, give one away, for having more than you can use is a waste
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Reviews
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
B_HDouglas reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
Page 2, Par. 2, It feels as though more thought was going to be put into your fathers crises? Ex. Having a nickname from your grandfather may sound better in a different paragraph? As the reader, I already ascertained your nickname by your father’s consolation. I hope your father was healthy after his operation? As a reader, I admired your courage for telling exactly how things were, throughout your story. Ironically, not everything could be told, yet it was told by the setting as well.
Page 4, Par. 4, offers”...a good look at nature’s workings.” or something a tiny more fluid.
I love the details you give about the surroundings. The icy river, ice skating, barren trees, the cliffs, very nice job.
Aren’t kids great, your brother yelling, page 10, par. 1 “Look, Jesus is here”. That is really an innocent gesture he made! What a peacemaker!
Wow, that is a sweet story. That took a lot of patience to write, with so much thought and detail, but you have given to us something from your angels, Betty Lester and Mary Breckinridge, to remember. The importance of giving.
I felt as though I was walking through Wendover with you and your family, by your words of thoughtfulness. The excitement you felt has been narrated well, and shall be cherished by many others such as myself. I won’t forget this story, ever.
- add/view comments (1)
avedis reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
A great recollection, pretty well told, and in a style that matches the content.
Thank you for this.
Two biggish things.
First, Betty Lester is a very important character in this story. To gloss over “She died sometime later” does not do her service. Give us details.
Second, “Somehow, I knew..was right. I never did. ”
Again, tell us why. Even if just briefly, we really want to know.
For the rest, just a few items to help polish this:
“dreams in the mist” does not work for me. Either “phantoms/ghost” or just “dreams.”
“our mother quickly foiled our plans”. No, the weather did. -> “Dashed our hopes”.
“more shallow parts of the frozen white surface. ” – thicker parts of the ice surely – > “shallow parts of the lake”.
“Our father had..the house” This sentence would work best with a semi-colon “Our father..the work load; includingd slopping the hogs and carrying water and coal into the house”
“with no benefit of footholds, in order to scale them” interprets as no footholds would help scale them. -> “with no benefit of footholds to help scale them”
“no matter how far you stretch” -> “no matter how high you stretch”
“shiny, silver, flask” – > “shiny, silver flask”
“seclusion to the outside world” -> “seclusion from the outside world”
“they had come to give us our booster shots.”. No, esle you would have seen them before -> “they had come to give us our inital shots.”
“didn’t felt very festive” -> “hadn’t felt very festive “
“and backward person” indicates mental limitaion -> “and reticent person”
Nani reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
Many of your passages describing your hometown are lovely, such as your descriptions of the river as seen through the trees during different seasons. You are able to make the reader see the surroundings along with you, which made me want to read on.
The core of the piece is your “favorite Christmas,” but for me the side stories you tell (in an obvious attempt to flesh out the other characters and experiences of your family) do not transition well and in some cases (the drinking aunt) simply distract from the main story. It certainly takes a long time (until page 8) to get back to the Christmas story, which is interesting once I got there but I did tend to feel like I’d been wandering about without knowing where I was going to end up.
VelvetEclipse reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
This is a really great story. It has a great discription and a really good pace. Aside fromthe few typos you mentioned, I see nothing wrong with it.It’s a really sweet story.Isit fictionor did this really happen?
sleeping reviewed Version 1 -
Read 40% of the Item
This is priceless .
Memories like these are made of diamonds and treasures that reach far beyond any material wealth , and it is a gift you share when you write them .
Emotional and honest .
Refreshing and worthy of great things .
Thankyou .
Jollybob reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
The grammer problems that you mentioned didn’t detract from the story very much and other than that I can’t see anything that you really need to change. I loved the story and your realistic portrait of this women who, until reading this piece, I knew nothing about. In fact you motivated me to go looking up more about her and I’m very glad that I did because she is a fascinating women!
carebeardna reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
I enjoyed your story and while there is not much to critique about it, I wanted to share with you what your writing did for this reader.
Your story has a beautiful slowness to it that takes me back to the time when life was slower; not far from when you experienced this. Your writing brings the smell of hot cocoa and wet snow back to mind and how it is that one treasure of a gift that can change a child’s life.
Life is not easy nor kind to most and your honesty about family, war, poverty, and even childhood shots made it as easy to bare as the falling snow itself.
Well written, and congratulations on your award for writing it.
Always,
B
NathanD91 reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
This is an awesome story, and it’s really cool how you won an award for this. So since it’s non-fiction I’m guessing that you were the little girl in here. If not just tell me. I think you wrote this perfectly and wouldn’t change a thing. You were right I think there were some grammer mistakes.Your discriptions are awesome, as always, and I really hope publishers or editors or whatever notices your writing. Because i honestly belive you are just awesome. Again great story, and I think I learned about Mary Breckinridge in class. The name sounds so familiar.
I’ve never heard of a christmas party like that before. It would;ve been great to go to one of ‘em.
10 all the way.
destined2bgreat reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
What a beautiful comforting story, I was drawn in quickly, as I am a veteran of the U.S. Army. I was also able to relate to Nurse Betty I had a lady like that in my life for some years when I was younger, because of her I had some experiences I would have never gotten the opportunity to do. It is clearly not an embellished story all the people are real in the most familiar ways.
Did this experience shape the way you celebrate Christmas as an adult?
My recommendations are as follows:
Midwife’s should be midwives.
page 2, second paragraph, second sentence, was your grandfathers name Farmer or should it read he was a farmer? just needs to be clearer.
Page 13 first sentence, coco should be cocoa.
Showing 1 - 10 of 12
Next →
Review item
Add to favesCreator
Item Stats
GENERAL
12 Reviews 17 Comments
Version 1
Latest Activity: 27 days ago
REVIEW QUEUE
Appeared in Queue: 530 Times
Skipped: 20 Times
Ratings & Rankings
