Christmas Eve 1936 our family lived on the top floor of a three-decker house in Mattapan, Massachusetts 23 Osceola Street. Our country and the whole world were in the throes of the Great Depression. We had a skinny tree that year. But we decorated it with chains of popcorn and cranberries, homemade ornaments, real colored lights, and my mother made a big star for the top of the tree from a piece of tin foil. It looked good
We did not have a fireplace so I didn’t know how Santa was going to get into our house. But I knew he was coming.
Mama told me being the youngest of her four children, that Santa could only bring one present to each child this year, because he had so many children to remember. That seemed reasonable to me. All I wanted anyways was a baby doll. So Mama took me to Jordan Marsh to select my own baby doll. But we did not see any baby dolls anywhere in the 5th floor toy department. We saw only little girl dolls dressed in pastel colored dressers. Their little hands stretched out to whoever might be looking up at them as if to say, “Please take me home.” Unable to find a baby doll, we walked back down through the store, decked with a Christmas Tree in every department, and out the exit door. But, unnoticed by myself when we entered the store, in my eagerness to get to the toy department, there was something in the display window that Mama wanted me to see. “Betty,” She said, “look at this! This is a baby doll.” The doll laid catty corner. In the display window. She had no clothes, and her big toe was broken. “No, Mama,” I said.
So we started again walking down the street. I had been thinking about a doll that was cute and pretty. I had this image in my mind. But then I got to thinking, “That poor baby doll.” She had no clothes, her toe is broken and nobody will want her. She needs somebody like me to love her and play with I remembered too, that Mama had a box in her closet It had my name on it, and inside were all my old baby clothes, being the last of her four babies. I knew that they would be just the right size for my own baby doll, and I could dress her up and take her sledding, and everything! So I told Mama, “I do want that doll.” So, we walked back to the store. The saleslady took the doll out of the display window. She wrapped her gently in tissue paper. I watched her with big eyes. At Mama’s request the saleslady wrapped the box in pretty Christmas paper so I could lay it underneath our Christmas tree when I got home. Then all the way home to Mattapan I carried that box in a Jordan Marsh bag decorated with Christmas designs. This was my doll… my baby… my treasure.
I fell asleep Christmas Eve confident that while I was sleeping Santa would somehow get into my house with his big bag of toys and leave something under the tree for myself, Winnie, Helene and Esther. My thoughts, also, were of my first present, my baby doll that I could see myself dressing up for sledding with myself and my sister the next day. During the night I got up to use the bathroom. I was surprised to see the door shut and light shining through the crack. There was Mama… sitting on the toilet.. a needle in her hand. Her head was bent over something soft and white. I do not recall her reaction when she saw me. I only remember that her face looked worn and her eyes were strained. I was happy and full of energy. It was Christmas Eve! and Mama looked so tired.
Christmas morning we each discovered under the tree, wrapped in Christmas paper, with our names on the tags… A soft, white, flannel nightgown, with a pink satin ribbon interlaced through the collar and cuffs. Not only was it warm, but the invisible essence of my mother’s love was in every stitch. Actually, there was a third present for me that Christmas of 1936 a new awareness of my mother’s love!
I have often thought in later years that Mama had already checked out the dolls in the toy department, and she knew that the doll in the display window was not only the last baby doll, but, also the only doll she could afford. A wise lady, my mother.