Christmastime is family time for the Sylvia Bonte family
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SYLVIA BONTE
By Missy Klatt
Sylvia Bonte (nee Scholl) was born on a farm just north of Glenwood City but she spent most of her childhood in Marshfield, WI. When she was two her family, which at the time consisted of her mom, dad and older brother, by 10 years, moved to a farm in Marshfield. Her younger sister, was born a couple of years after the move. When Sylvia was 16 they then moved back to Glenwood City. For Sylvia that was a bit of an adjustment coming from a large high school with 150 kids in her class to about 40 here in Glenwood City.
The tradition in Marshfield was that on the fifth of December, St. Nick came to the house in the evening to find out what you wanted for Christmas, recalls Sylvia. “I can remember a nice little brown bag with an apple and peanuts and a bit of hard candy,” that St. Nick gave to them during the visit.
Her family didn’t put up their tree until Christmas Eve day and they didn’t take it down until after the sixth of January (Epiphany). It would have been a tree that her dad cut down out of their woods.
On Christmas Eve her dad and brother would be down in the barn milking and her sister and Sylvia would have to go down there, just to get out of the house (so Santa could come).
Sylvia reminisces “I know we had a porch and the door had a window in it. And mother would hang like a shirt or something in that window so when we were looking up from the barn Santa Claus was there and when that went down we knew he left but we couldn’t go up till my brother and dad were done and they could come with us. When we got to the house mother would have newspaper from the kitchen, dining room to the living room with wet footprints on it like Santa Clause had been there.” She continues that they had to wait in the doorway of the living room till her brother and dad cleaned up after milking before they could go in to see what Santa had brought them.” She chuckles at the memory.
Afterwards they always went to midnight mass. Sylvia noted that the church would always be decorated so beautifully.
Sylvia went to the Parochial school in Marshfield where they had some Christmas programs that included plays, songs and recitations depending on the year.
This picture of Sylvia and her children was taken around Christmastime about four years ago. Left to right are Wendy, Peggy, Kevin, Sylvia, Linda, Rick and Mike.
On Christmas Day they would have a big meal and her mom’s sister and her husband who also lived in Marshfield would come out and eat with them. Sylvia said if you sat next to Uncle Henry you cleaned your plate, “he was one of them.” Sylvia said she doesn’t remember for sure what they had for those meals because she was an outside person and loved to spend time with her dad. “I didn’t pay much attention to mother’s cooking.” She laughs. She does remember though that her mom made cutout cookies at Christmas time.
One Christmas gift that she treasured the most was receiving a pair of ice skates. She tells of going to the neighbors where they would shovel off their pond so they could go ice skating. Another memorable gift was a toboggan. However, she states that they didn’t have any hills so they used the barn hill that went up to the hay mow or they would go up on the straw stack that their father had made. “We made our own hills.”
Sylvia’s godparents lived in Boyceville and they would always send her a Christmas gift. One year her mother thought she hid it but Sylvia found it and she opened it. It was a speedometer for her bicycle. “I was so disappointed that I never snooped again!” laughs Sylvia.
Another year her sister and her got twin dolls for Christmas that were about ten inches big. Sylvia got the boy and her sister the girl. When she got a little older she would get clothes for Christmas. She recalls getting a Pea jacket one year and a nice plaid, pleated skirt. They didn’t get a lot but still they had great Christmases, notes Sylvia.
One of her best Christmases is when she was ten years old. Her brother had gotten married and they had a little boy on the 27th of December. “That was a great Christmas, a new baby in the family.” Sylvia got to see her new nephew all the time because her brother and his wife lived with them as he worked on the farm.
Kids of her own
Sylvia married Richard (Dick) Bonte in October of 1959. “He was from a family of 15 and I was only a family of three so what a difference. It was like a small little town.” Jokes Sylvia. They lived on a farm in Emerald, until 1973.
When they first got married they would go to Dick’s parents on Christmas Eve until they had two or three children and it was too hard so then on Christmas day Sylvia always had her parents and his parents over for Christmas dinner and they would spend the afternoon.
Dick and Sylvia went on to have six children in total; Linda, Rick, Mike, Kevin, Peggy, and Wendy. They were spread out with the first three close in age and then there was a five year gap before the others came along Sylvia said it was like having two families.
Sylvia recalls one time when the kids were young and Dick was in the barn milking, she took it upon herself to get the tree up. “I went outside and I thought oh it’s got to be cut off somewhat…well I cut off too much” she chuckles. “So it had to sit on the coffee table in front of the window.”
Some of Sylvia’s traditions that she had growing up changed somewhat after she had kids. One being that the tree went up before Christmas Eve. She also said that sometimes Santa came early on Christmas Eve but sometimes they didn’t open gifts until Christmas Day.
Those times when Santa came early on Christmas Eve she would send the kids with someone to pick up her mother in Glenwood and that’s when Santa would come.
She would also have stockings for the kids, something she didn’t have growing up.
Christmas time equaled family time. Sometimes her sister and her family would come up from Milwaukee.
When the kids were little, Christmas morning also meant going to mass.
Now Sylvia’s family has grown even more and she has nine grandkids and seven great-grandkids. Other than Mike who lives in Indiana and Kevin who sadly passed away in 2019, they all live close. She used to have everyone to her place for Christmas Day but there are too many of them and no parking so Wendy usually hosts Christmas and everyone brings something.
