REMEMBRANCES OF CHRISTMASES PAST: Darlene Peterson: Christmas was simple “and everyone was happy, that’s the main thing.”
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DARLENE PETERSON
By Missy Klatt
Darlene Peterson, nee Wienke, was born on a dairy farm in Forest during the depression. However they moved to Gilman when she was about a year old. Her and her family which included younger brother, Dewey lived there for about ten years before moving back to the Wilson area.
Being that it was the depression, Darlene’s early Christmases could best be described as simple. Darlene has kept Christmases fairly simple throughout her life.
In Gilman, they lived in an old log house that was T shaped and her Grandfather lived a quarter mile down the road and he helped build it. It was just a kitchen and a bedroom that they all shared. Darlene remarked that “my brother and I slept on one side and mother and dad on the other side” with the old wood stove in between. She doesn’t remember ever having a Christmas tree in Gilman or stockings.
Darlene stated that she had a doll and her mom would make doll clothes for it. That’s what she would get as a Christmas present and she said that her brother would get some kind of boy toy like a tractor. “We just never had much of anything.” She goes on to say that “one thing everyone else was in the same situation” so as kids they really didn’t know that they didn’t have anything.
She does remember that they would go to church on Christmas Eve and when they got home Santa would have been there and he would have left “our little treasures.”
She attended a one-room school house in Gilman but she doesn’t remember them ever having a Christmas program. However she did say that there was a little program at church with some singing.
For Christmas dinner, they would have just a small gathering with her grandfather and her aunt and uncle and cousins who also lived down the road.
Another early memory of Darlene’s was when she was six years old their house burned down on Good Friday. “My Grandpa was gone, he went some place to visit some relatives. So mom and dad went down to milk his couple of cows that he had and when they came back, mom said she checked the house and everything was fine and it wasn’t too long after that then. They always asked what we would do if we had a fire in the house cause our windows were those little (we always called them) chicken windows. And I said I’d go to bed and cover my head up. I did. And my brother said he’d break a window, well it didn’t do him any good to break it. So it ended up we sat on the porch because it got to the point that I had so much smoke in my lungs that I couldn’t talk out loud. So we went down to the barn and told mom and dad and dad went up the house and he got in the kitchen and the table was there and the Bible was on it and the Bible was the only thing he got out.” Everything burnt. The fire started in the wood stove.
When they moved back to Wilson they went to Cady Lane School and they had Christmas programs there. Darlene recalls that they all had their pieces to recite. Santa would come to the school. “We all got a bag of fruit and candy. And we were all happy because we got an apple and an orange,” she chuckles.
Santa and Mrs. Claus — The Petersons helped Santa for more than 20 years as his eyes and ears in the Village of Wilson.
—photo submitted
When they lived in Wilson she also remembers having a small Christmas tree at home but she doesn’t remember putting much on it. “Seems like we had some balls but it wasn’t much of anything. I wonder if we even had a star on top of it, I don’t remember seeing anything up there,” she laughs.
In 1953, Darlene married John and they lived in Glenwood. Together they had three children; Wanda, Sue, and Daryl. She has ten grandchildren as she lovingly includes their spouses in the head count. She also has nine great grandkids, including some spouses and two great, great grandkids.
When they lived in Glenwood Darlene tells of how before Christmas they would take the sled and walk down to what was Ted’s. He sold Christmas trees. They would pick out a tree, tie it on the sled and take it back home. Most of their decorations were store bought. She said that they also had a string of lights on it but they never had them on for very long because they might cause a fire. These were the bigger bulbs.
When the kids were small they were members of St. Paul’s church and she recalls big Christmas programs where all the kids sang and had their parts. “Usual Christmas program, I guess” chuckles Darlene. “The church was small and with all those kids, the roof would really raise when they started singing.”
The program was on Christmas Eve and when they would come home Santa would have already been there just like when Darlene was young. Her mom and dad would come over on Christmas Eve as well so they opened all of their gifts on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas day they would all go over to her folks’ house for Christmas dinner. Her brother and his family would be there as well and all the kids would go out and play in the snow.
Christmas was simple “and everyone was happy, that’s the main thing” remarked Darlene.
Around 1980, the Village of Wilson needed a Santa Claus and no one would do it so they asked John to do it and he wouldn’t do it unless Darlene played Mrs. Claus as well. Thus began a twenty year run of John being Santa and eighteen years for Darlene. There were sometimes when Darlene couldn’t make it and then her mother or Pat Anderson would fill in for her.
Then they started going to the nursing homes in the area because the Legion in Wilson would donate apples and oranges and they would deliver apples and oranges to the residents. “It used to make some of these old ladies very unhappy because Santa would be around talking to them and I would too and they would say what’s your name and I’d say Mrs. Claus and that just wasn’t right. I was supposed to tell them I was Darlene Peterson. They would just get a little huffy with me.” She laughs.
They visited nursing homes in Baldwin, Hammond, Glenwood and a couple of years they went to a few places in Menomonie. They also went to several residents in Glenwood; The Woods, Louise and Orv Jeske’s, Pastor Thompsons’ and some others she can’t remember. “We were busy.” But she agrees it was a lot of fun.
