Depression-era Christmases still vivid in their minds

Ed Bartz holds vivid memories of Christmas during the Great Depression.

Bartz, who spent his boyhood in Chicago in the 1930s, was among a large crowd enjoying Christmas lunch at the Frisbie Senior Center in Des Plaines on Thursday.

They shared their memories of Christmas during the Depression and compared it with the current hard times. Their conclusion: The Great Depression was worse, by far, but having lived through it has given them some perspective.

Having the benefit - if you want to call it that - of hindsight, Bartz, 82, said, "You still are better off (today) than you were back in the Depression.

To heat the house around Christmas, he and his father would walk the railroad tracks near Kimball and Addison and pick up bits of coal that had fallen off the trains.

He would throw the coal to his father, who gathered it in a gunny sack.

Then, as now, Christmas was about families, but the seniors believed families were closer in the old days.

"We used to gather every Christmas Eve by my grandfather's house," Bartz said. "And I mean the whole family. We'd have 25-30 people in the house to celebrate Christmas."

He said the entire family would go to church on Christmas Day for services conducted in German. They would sing carols, sometimes accompanied by an uncle playing a small accordion.

Margaret Middleton, 86, grew up in South Dakota near an American Indian reservation. Presents were never in abundance.

"We each got one item for Christmas," she said, "but we always had a Christmas tree."

The gifts, she said, were simple, useful items, like a sweater. "I don't remember very many toys."

Middleton lived on a farm, so the family always had enough to eat. But things were still very tight.

"We had to put cardboard in our shoes," instead of paying to get them resoled, she said.

"I knew a woman who (stashed) $200 in a light fixture, and that lasted her a long time, because her husband was out of work," Middleton said.

Already, she said, she can see how tough times are affecting how Christmas is celebrated.

Her nieces and nephews' children in Ohio each got only one gift from Santa Claus under the Christmas tree this year.

"I think things are going to get much worse," Middleton said. "Because it's worldwide. I can't anything that's going to make things change any time soon."

Wayne Serbin, who was born at the end of the Depression, agreed families were closer during those days. When he was growing up in Chicago, all his relatives lived on the same block.

"Families had to stay together to help each other out," he pointed out.

"People now, they travel a lot, they move out of town, they don't stay in town."

Connie Samaras, 80, of Des Plaines, sounded an upbeat note.

"I think now with a new administration coming in that there seems to be more hope," she said. "I'm hopeful that things will get better."