Dorothy Mitch: memories of music, decorations, gifts, food, traditions

By Cara L. Dempski

GLENWOOD CITY —  Dorothy Mitch, age 91 of Glenwood City, opened the interview for this story by stating there were not many things she could remember about Christmases past.

She then spoke about many of her favorite memories of past celebrations, and talked about her father’s love of music, the decorations she saw, gifts she gave and received, and the food she remembers seeing on the table.

Music and decorations

Mitch remembers her father loved to sing. Every night in the winter she would play the piano and he would sing for the family. Her father liked to sing all sorts of songs, but his favorites were Christmas songs.

She recalls her father especially loved to hear children sing Christmas songs, but they always had to sing his favorite Christmas song first: “Juanita.”

The Glenwood City woman said she remembers her parents holding a Christmas party one year. Her parents pushed the table in the family’s large kitchen to one side, and the adults used the open floor space to dance to music from a guitar and mouth organ.

“Us kids were upstairs on the floor listening to the music,” Mitch said. “There was also a lot of good food on the table, but none of us could reach it.”

There was not a Christmas tree at the party, though Mitch remembers seeing other decorations around the home. Mostly, she said, there were paper daisy chains and popcorn strings.

Instead, the family’s tree always appeared overnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

“Santa brought us a Christmas tree too,” Mitch said. “My mother must have been up all night, since she decorated the whole Christmas tree and got the presents out for the morning.”

Gifts

Speaking of Santa, Mitch could recall a number of favorite gifts from her childhood. At the top of her list was a gift she received from Santa Claus when she was approximately eight years old.

“I had a little red table and chairs, but I was working with my brother watching cows that next summer, and he told me there is no Santa Claus,” Mitch said. 

While the knowledge did not dim her love of the gifts crafted by her father, she said it made her sad to know her parents were Santa.

“It just killed me to think Santa Claus didn’t really make my chairs, my dad did,” Mitch said. “Today, I would give my right arm for that little table and chairs.”

One year, when she was a little older, one of Mitch’s sisters presented her with an adjustable bracelet, an item which could be pressed together or pushed apart to best fit the arm of the person wearing it. She said she wore the gift for many years.

Mitch’s mother made each of the eight children in the family, of whom Mitch is the third oldest, pajamas for Christmas. The young Mitch took pride in going to the feed mill with her father to pick out flour bags with the prettiest fabric with which to make the pajamas.

One of her favorite Christmas gifts, though, was the diamond ring presented to her by Jerry Mitch in 1946. The young Dorothy Draxler said she and her husband were married the following spring, in May 1947. They had 57 years, seven months, and two days together before his death.

Mitch has as many fond memories of gifts she has given as she has of gifts she received. One Christmas sticks out in her mind.

She had purchased a new toboggan for her four sons, and hid it at the top of the hill close to the house, thinking none of the children would think to look there for it.

“Those boys found it and were tobogganing down the hill in less than an hour,” Mitch said, laughing.

That same year, the same quartet of boys found all the rest of the family’s presents hidden in the cab of the farm’s combine.

Mitch also said she received an orange in her stocking every year.

Food and traditions

The four boys who were so good at finding hidden gifts were part of a family of 12: Mitch, her husband Jerry, and their four sons and six daughters. 

With such a large family, Christmas gatherings required a lot of food and new ways to occupy the children. Mitch specifically recalls always having ham, fruitcake, fudge and popcorn balls when she was a child. She laughingly remembered her mother being impressed with how well Mitch’s second oldest child handled eating mashed potatoes and gravy, even though he was only five months old.

She also said the family made ice cream every year for Christmas.

“The boys would go get ice out of the cow tank, smash it up, and would make it in a bucket with a hand crank,” Mitch said.

She added homemade ice cream is not as good these days since it is made with cream from a store. Mitch said the ice cream had a richer flavor because the cream used for it was so fresh.

As Mitch’s children got older, the family eventually stopped going to the homes of her parents and her mother- and father-in-law, simply because there were too many people to keep track of.

While Mitch loved attending the midnight Christmas mass, it was difficult to do with 12 young children and a dairy farm to manage. The family often did not return home until 2 a.m., and chores and milking always started at 5 a.m.

“I don’t think I would want to do all of that again,” she said.

One tradition Mitch talked about was her children’s practice of making cookies “their way” every year on December 8 when they had a day off school. She did not go into details on making cookies “their way,” but did offer an interesting mental image.

“By the time they were done, there was cookie dough on the ceiling and all over the floors,” Mitch said.

These days, Mitch said she no longer gives Christmas gifts, saying it is too expensive to do so with 10 children, 28 grandchildren, and 44 great-grandchildren. Instead, she said, she is grateful her family is healthy and happy.

She is also glad to be in the apartment in which she currently lives. Mitch said she does miss her garden at home, the woods, and wildlife, but has been pleased to make new friends and greet relatives she has not seen in a while.

“I will forever miss my humble home out in the country,” Mitch said. “But I am blessed to have a safe and warm place to live.”