December 2005                                                       The Megaphone                                                                  Page 4

The Gift That Kept on Giving -- and Giving -- and Giving

by Jane Ann (Seright) Lemen

Every family has its own traditions of the holidays, especially Christmas. Many of those, such as putting up a tree, are common among most people celebrating Christmas, but families also develop their own unique traditions. Many of these arise out of a specific occasion. Such is a tradition that my Dad followed every Christmas from 1944 until his death, or rather until Mom's death in 1980.

I was a toddler in 1944 and have no specific memories of my own of that  year in our country's history. It was a horrible year in many ways because the full effect of World War II's deprivation was gripping the nation by then. At the beginning of the year, rationing was in full effect and, although the Allies had successfully invaded Italy in 1943, the victories following D-Day were still in the future. In April of that year, my saga begins when my folks traveled to Indianapolis.

Traveling to Indianapolis from Elwood may seem pretty ordinary and hardly noteworthy today, but in the depths of the war, it was a big event, such a big event that it probably would not be repeated for perhaps another year or even longer. This was the time of the "home front" which has been  lacking wars since that time. In 1944 people didn't worry so much about the cost of gasoline but the availability of it. Each family was rationed a certain amount of gasoline, as well as other goods, that they could use, and to make a trip to Indianapolis meant saving gasoline ration stamps for the 90 mile round trip.

The purpose of the trip was to secure medical treatment for me, but Mother also took advantage of the opportunity of being in Indianapolis to do some "window shopping" downtown. Consumer goods were almost non-existent in 1944. Gasoline was not the only item rationed. So was sugar, for example, and while other goods might not be rationed, neither were they being produced. The major auto manufacturers had quit mass-producing cars for the public, instead focusing on jeeps, trucks, and vehicles for the war effort

With all that in mind, you can imagine my mother's surprise and delight when she discovered a simple item in the JC Penney store on Monument Circle that she had not found in Elwood for  months -- a white shirt. And in Dad's size. She was amazed at her good fortune, showed it to Dad, and immediately bought it. When they got home to Elwood, Dad immediately put it in his bureau drawer, very proud of his wife's shopping perseverance and good luck. Their anniversary was April 30th, and Dad considered it to be an anniversary gift.

The war droned on and even with the successful Allied landing at Normandy on continental Europe, the deprivations on the home front were unchanged. Father's Day was approaching and Mother was at a loss as to what to get Dad. She was brooding on that one day as she straightened the bureau drawers when she noticed that white shirt -- still in its original package. An idea popped into her head -- not a particularly forthright idea, but certainly a practical one. She carefully wrapped up the shirt and gave it to Dad for Father's Day.

Dad was overjoyed to see "another" white shirt. Wow! And once again he carefully laid it in the bureau drawer.

Summer came and went and the first hint of cooler weather as well as the start of school. Paris had been liberated and the war in Europe looked hopeful, although the war in the Pacific threatened to drag on forever. Still consumer goods were almost nonexistent and when Dad's birthday the end of September rolled around, Mother had no hesitation on what to do for the occasion. Once again she wrapped up the white shirt she had bought in April at the Penney store in Indianapolis and gave it to Dad. And once again he was bursting with pride as he saw it and once more he carefully laid it in the bureau drawer.

Winter came with the first cold weather and snow flurries. The Allies were driving eastward towards Germany, with the Soviet Union coming from the east, and Germany seemed locked in a vise that it could not escape. And for the first time since the Pearl Harbor bombing, Christmas seemed to be a hopeful time. Japan was still proving to be an intractable enemy, fighting to the death for every inch of every island in the Pacific, but Germany was on its last legs and the liberation of Europe seemed assured.

At the engineering office at Delco Remy in Anderson where Dad worked, talk was beginning to shift to post-war thinking -- and the return of consumer goods. His co-workers were talking one day about all the various things they had done without through the war and what they were most looking forward to when peace finally came. And one of the men said, he would most like to have a new white shirt. It seemed his wife had searched and searched for one for months and couldn't find one.

Dad was surprised. "Why," he said, "Lois hasn't had any trouble. She's bought me three just this year."

His co-workers scoffed at him. "That's impossible," someone said to general agreement. "There aren't any white shirts available, let alone three."

Dad was insistent. Mother had bought one shirt in Indianapolis in the spring and then two more in Elwood, one for Father's Day and one for his birthday.

"Impossible!"

And Dad replied, "Well, I've never worn them because I wanted to keep them for when my present shirts truly wore out, but I'll wear one tomorrow just to show you!" 

So as soon as Dad got home that evening, he went straight to the bureau drawer to pull out one of the three white shirts. But alas, like old Mother Hubbard, he found the cupboard bare.

"Lois!  Where are my white shirts?"

Mother appeared on the scene and, following some stammering and attempted denial of the accusing empty drawer, finally admitted that she had wrapped the shirt up and given it to him again -- and again.

Dad was stunned at such perfidy! He envisioned his disgrace and humiliation when he had to admit to his friends at work that there had indeed been no white shirt.

But wait! Yes! There had been a white shirt! He had seen it! In fact he had seen it on numerous occasions, as it had turned out. Maybe there weren't three white shirts, but there had been at least one white shirt!  And where, pray tell, might that white shirt be?

Mother looked at him with pain and remorse in her eyes. "It's wrapped up and underneath the Christmas tree," came the awful admittance.

And thus began a tradition in the Seright family Christmas -- and birthday -- celebrations -- whenever my Dad received an article of clothing for his gift, he immediately took it out of its wrappings and put it on.

Jane Ann (Seright) Lemen '59
northwest Indy