Memories of Childhood

Christmas in New York City in the 5o's

The sunlight in December is so very special. It seems to cast a promising glow on the tall tenement buildings as an apology for having to leave so early each day. It’s the sunlight that I so much recall as the special ‘back light’ for my father’s and my trip to find the ‘perfect’ Christmas tree.

We lived in the mid Bronx. Most of the people in our neighborhood celebrated Chanukah. Thus, Dad and I would have to trek across the Bronx, on foot, until we could find a little tree that we could afford and then carry back to our five story walk-up apartment on Walton Avenue. In the 1950’s $2.00 is what Dad felt we could pay for a tree. Once, though, when the short day grew dark, we spent $5.00. After all, Mom was waiting for us at home with eggnog and the boxes of decorations were waiting to be released from their wrappings after a long year of storage.

We always found the perfect tree. It seemed to wait for us. It had to persevere the hauling through the streets and hoisting up the many flights of stairs to our three-room apartment. It always amazed me that so many of the other children in the building would throw open their doors and watch us go by. They knew that the next day they would be invited to come up and see how beautifully we had transformed the tired tree in to a glowing Christmas tree. Dad would often leave some ornaments for my friends to place on the tree themselves. I can remember the glow in their eyes and see their mouths slightly open in awe. I enjoyed Chanukah with them and now they would enjoy Christmas with us.

Little Janet Neumeister with her favorite book

There were fifty apartments in our building; thus, one can imagine how both magical and overwhelming Christmas Eve was for me as a child. One of my treasures was a music box that played ‘Silent Night’. Alas, one year it broke. My father could see how upset I was and late one night, he took it apart. He handed it to me with a smile and a wink! What to my surprise, the little box piped out Silent Night backwards. It was so pretty; I can still hum it.

On Christmas Eve I’d go to bed and try with all my might to stay awake. I wanted to hear Santa coming from the roof to the fire escape; we had no chimney. He always came. How he could find us I never knew. BUT WHAT I DID KNOW was that when I heard his voice and his jingling bells, he sounded so smartly just like my father! I can still hear his voice and hear the bells jingling. Christmas thrives in one’s heart and memories.

Janet Neumeister Nickson is a vital member of many Sharon organizations. Even though she is busy with every activity in that town from the Audubon Center to the Historical Society, she finds time to read the Indian Rock Schoolhouse blog. She writes some of her own recollections of a childhood holiday growing up in New York City.

Of Christmas Past in the One-room Schoolhouse

Stained glass provided the backdrop for the Leedsville school chorus. The students are (from left, back row): Peggy Okenden, James Farley, Mary Duffy. Middle row: Helen Farley, Alice Duffy, Joe Duffy, Margaret Duffy, Josephine Farley. Front row: Alice Farley, Frankie Farley, Suzanne Farley

The two high points of the year for youngsters going to the rural common schoolhouses in Eastern Dutchess County in the 19th and early 20th centuries were the last day of the school year and Christmas.

The celebration of Christmas took many forms, limited only by the imagination and ingenuity of the young teachers who had limited materials and resources. Art supplies were almost non-existent unless the pupils and teacher could find materials they could reuse from home or find in the nearby fields and forests. Some children found pine cones to paint for decorations, some strung popcorn at home to bring to school for the tree.

Kay (Humphrey) Kane, who taught at the Leedsville one-room School for almost 10 years until it closed in 1944, recalled how planning for the various holiday activities was worked into the December school days leading up to Christmas.

“We still had our daily routine in the ‘three R’s” but we were always able to fit in getting ready for the school’s holiday observance. I remember one year I had the pupils save their better school papers - compositions, spelling tests and colored maps – and put them together in a booklet with a Christmas cover as a present for their parents. I think both the kids and the mothers and fathers were pretty tickled.”

Margaret Duffy Erskine Quinn, one of the six Duffy children who went to the Leedsville School, remembers the Christmas Kay Humphrey had the pupils build a “cathedral window” as the backdrop for their pageant singing. Gerald Juckett, father of the family with whom Miss Humphrey boarded, put together a frame of wooden lath and then the students used colored cellophane to make what they thought was a beautiful stained glass window.

Mrs. Quinn recalls that it was the same year Miss Humphrey had the students as members of the Junior Red Cross, put together packages of wrapping paper, candy and cookies for the old folks at the Dutchess County Infirmary. They distributed their little gifts after the young chorus sang Christmas carols to an appreciative audience.


Starting early in December, Katherine Turnbull, the Amenia schools’ itinerant music teacher would start the pupils practicing the songs that would be part of each school’s Christmas observance.

The late Leland Hulst, who attended Willow Brook school on Sinpatch Road in the 1920’s, tells that their annual Christmas play brought out the whole neighborhood:
“Ella Staunton, our teacher, would have our Christmas celebration in the evening and that was the only time the kerosene lamp that hung from the center of the ceiling would be lighted. “

It may be nostalgia for the simple, homemade Christmas past that gives these recollections the warm and peaceful glow of the season. It’s there though, and it’s good.

From the column published December 21, 2000 in the Millerton News called “Memories from a Country Schoolhouse”. It was written and researched by John Quinn, trustee of the Indian Rock Schoolhouse Association. Edited by Janet Nickson.

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