Christmases Past: For the DeWitt family, Christmas was a time for family gathering!

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For Carlton and Paula DeWitt, Christmas was the time that family members gathered to celebrate the birth of Christ and gather for food, fun and family memories, plus attending church for Christmas services.

For Paula, attending Christmas Eve Church service was a must and then on Christmas day “we went to our grandparents’ home.” Most gatherings were at her maternal grandparents (Ben and Sophie Alseth) home in rural Menomonie to celebrate with aunts, uncles and cousins.

Carlton remembers that every Christmas Eve it was off to his mother’s folks, Oscar and Bertha Stang’s home in Hersey. “As soon as you opened the car door you could smell the Lutefisk cooking on grandma’s stove,” Carlton recalled.

Paula noted that at Grandma Alseth’s was where the good food was. “I don’t remember what the main course was, but there was homemade lefse, Sandbakkels, sugar cookies, flat bread and of course there was always the dish of mixed nuts, you had to crack open with a tool.” She remembers that at the Klatt family home (Anna and William Klatt) also of rural Menomonie, Pfeffernuts were a great treat for the kids. Paula indicated, “Pfeffernuts were a round cookie that were very hard and grandma Klatt kept them in a jar on the stairway. The upstairs of the house was not heated and the cookies were cold.”

Paula remembers Christmas programs at church and at school. “I went to first and second grade in Glenwood City. Miss Nellie Sharp was my first grade teacher and Miss Pat Olson was my second grade teacher.” She remembers that Mark DeCamp and her sang a duet at the Christmas program.

Paula attended third through eighth grade at the Downing School and the Christmas program was held in the Civic Hall. “We would practice for a couple of weeks before the program at school and then at the Civic Hall the day before the program.”

Paula and her two brothers, Allen and Donald were raised on the family farm just south of Downing, and Paula learned to drive the John Deere tractor at a very young age.

Paula’s mother, Bernice made dresses for her for Christmas Programs at both school and church. “Mother also made a choir robe for me, she took a white dish towel and cut a hole in the middle and slit down the back with a snap at the top.” She continued, “one time she had to dyed it red.”

The family gathering at the Klatt grandparent’s home was probably not always Christmas as they eventually had 39 grandkids, and Paula was not sure of what would have been served at the dinner table. “Maybe it was chicken, duck or pork, or beef,” and she noted: “grandma did not go to town and buy the food. “ It was all raised on the farm.

Paula remembers getting sick from drinking too much chocolate milk after practicing at the church for the Christmas Program.” We always had a party after practice at church. We would get a bag with an apple, ribbon candy and nuts. They must have known that I did not like oranges, because I never got any.”

“One Christmas eve we came home from church to find Santa in the house putting presents under the tree,” she remembered.

Carlton and his sister, Mary grew up in the apartment behind what is now the Boondock’s on West Oak Street. His folks, Ross and Lucille (Cele) DeWitt operated the tavern for about eight years, before they purchased the Tribune. Carlton related “mother would make Tom and Jerry’s for the tavern at Christmas time and she served a ton of them.”

Christmas eve family members gathered at the apartment in back of the grocery store in Hersey that the Stang’s operated. Carlton remembers, “One Christmas I found out that grandpa Oscar was playing Santa. The apartment had hot and cold running water, but the toilet was a two-holer out back. This year aunt Martha, grandma’s sister from Duluth, was visiting and she always dressed, which my mother called to the “hilt.” She was dressed in a long dress, had lots of jewelry and high heels. She had to use the facilities out back and had to wade through the deep snow to get there and doing so, she broke off both high heels of her shoes. “Grandpa, dressed in the Santa suit had to carry aunt Martha back to the warmth of the house and that is when I found out about Santa,” Carlton said.

Besides Lutefisk, the table was set with all kinds of Norwegian foods from Grandma Bertha’s kitchen and included were Swedish meatballs. “I did not even try Lutefisk back then, but, as I grew older I found it to my liking, Carlton recalls. “I can recall two of my uncles, Harry and Ronnie, telling Grandma Bertha that she should throw the water used to cook the Lutefisk under the porch to keep the skunks away.”

As for Grandpa Frank DeWitt, he lived about 170 miles from Glenwood City and Carlton can only remember him visiting once at Christmas time. “I can remember another time he visited and that he rode the train and got off at the Downing Depot and Bill Jeske, Sr. brought him from the depot to our house on Pine Street.”

“We always bought our Christmas tree from Ted Sempf, Ted’s Confectionery which was located where Margaret Ohman’s ‘Hair Depot’ is now, at the corner of Oak and First Street.”

“Ted was a hunting buddy of my dad’s,” Carlton said. Those two and Joe Hellmer and Fred Norenberg built a hunting shack on the back of on old Ford truck Norenberg had taken in on trade. “And, that brings me to one of the Christmas presents I still have,” Carlton noted. “When Tom Sempf and myself got to be teenagers, we were allowed to go hunting with our dads, with six of us in that shack and parked in the National Forest near Delta, Wis. It was a little crowded, but it was fun. I had an old 20-gauge shotgun that my dad got for me, but at Christmas, when I was 16, Santa delivered this new 30-30 Winchester rifle. Dad bought it at Steffen’s Hardware in Glenwood City for $79.95. The next season I shot a eight point buck with that gun and I remember how proud dad was.”

“Another present that I still have is the American Flyer train set that I got when I was probably nine or ten, I also have a G gauge electric trains. The G stand for garden and these trains are very large,” Carlton, said.

Paula noted that they always bought a Christmas Tree, “I think the folks got it at Olson’s Market in Knapp, but this one time Dad and I went out in the woods and cut a small tree that I put up I my room and decorated it with a paper chain and items that I made.” A couple of presents that she can recall was getting a bike when she was seven and later a bride doll. “I still have that doll,” she said. At one time she received a cowgirl outfit, which had a skirt, vest, a cowgirl hat and gun.

Paula stated one of the memories, which stand out in her mind, is that of Grandpa Ben Alseth making Taffy. “He had a receipt for it that he got while working at the lumber camps in Northern Wisconsin. The entire family took turns pulling the taffy and then wrapping it.” She recalls that pulling and wrapping the taffy was quite a job.

After Paula and Carlton were married the Klatt and DeWitt families celebrate Christmas together. “The event was held at different homes each year,” Carlton related.  “One year we were gathering at our home on Maple Street and there had been a snow storm that piled up snow at the Paul and Bernice’s farm in Stanton Township and they could not get out. I borrowed Steve Lewis four-wheel drive Chevrolet to go up on Irish Ridge and picked them up and brought them to our house and returned them later that evening.”

One very cold winter the family gathered at the Bob and Mary Young home in Menomonie. “It was like 35 below zero that evening,” Paula stated. Carlton said that on Christmas morning, “it was so cold that when I looked out the kitchen window I saw a cotton tail pushing a jack rabbit to get it started.” He continued, “but it was warm in the house and the kids and grandkids were home and all gathered around the fireplace and watched the youngsters open presents that Santa had left,” Carlton recalls.

Several Christmas eves were spent at the Oak’s in Menomonie, where Paul and Bernice lived in their retirement years. “Our extended family had grown to over thirty people gathered there Christmas eve.

“When the kids were younger, we always had a pet or two in the house. I put up a freshly cut tree and Buttons the cat climbed the tree and over it went. I had to tie each Christmas tree to the picture molding for many years as long as we had that cat, ”Carlton said.

Santa also made an appearance in town before Christmas and Carlton related a short story about Santa appearing at the Glenwood City Co-op Services. Son, Shawn, was about five years old and sat on Santa’s lap. Shawn looked into Santa’s eyes and said; ‘your not Santa’, your Phil Rassbach.”

A couple of years they hired Orville and Roberta Graese’s son-in-law, Dick Foss, to appear Christmas eve, dressed as Santa. Shawn, nor his two brothers, Alex and Joel, could figure that one out.

At present, Paula is busy getting ready for the big event with her making caramels on her kitchen stove and then there will be home made lefse and cookies. Carlton noted, “I was required to frost and decorate those twelve dozen or so cookies, but know I got the grandkids to do it.”

Paula concluded, “Christmas back then had more of a Religious aspect to it than now, we sang faith based songs at school.”