REMEMBER WHEN: Christmases past build traditions in the present and future

The first Christmas in Katie and Guy Goar’s new home in Clovis, New Mexico, in 1988, right after they were married. Pictured are (back row, from left) Lane ‘Tater’ Goar, sons Clay and Guy Goar, (front, left) Lela Goar, daughter-in-law Katie Goar, and daughter Carolyn. Courtesy photo
The Ghost of Christmas Past recently touched the hearts of three Burnet women who grew up during the Great Depression and World War II.
Unlike the character of Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” 92-year-old Lorene Denney, 85-year-old Lela Glimp, and 94-year-old Bettye Foulds see nothing to regret in their flights to the past and everything to look forward to in their upcoming visits with the spirits of Christmases present and yet to come.
Lorene Denney was born in 1932 in Franklin, Georgia, the fifth of 12 children raised on a 500-acre corn and cotton farm.
“At Christmas time, we were so poor that I tell people we had to take turns to bark when visitors came by because we couldn’t afford dogs,” she said during an interview at her northeast Burnet County home. A 2-acre garden, chickens, and wild game kept the family fed, but money was tight.
“We always got an apple and an orange in our stocking,” she said. “If it was an especially good crop year, we might get a pair of gloves or a pair of socks.”
They made holiday decorations from materials at hand and cut down a tree and greens on their property. The family gathered to sing an unconventional repertoire of songs around a pump organ they kept in a 12-foot-wide hallway.
“We sang ‘Barbara Allen,’ ‘The Letter Edged in Black,’ things such as that,” Denney said. “Mother never had music lessons, but she could play the pump organ. One of the kids had to get behind the organ to pump it. She didn’t have the strength in her legs to do that.”
Circumstances improved as Denney grew up. She met her husband of 47 years, Ernest, in the cafeteria line at a hospital where she worked as a nurse and he as a doctor. She changed careers when they moved to Texas in 1952. She taught English and established a journalism program in the local high school. The couple’s four daughters experienced a much different holiday season than Lorene did as a child.
“They certainly got a lot more than an apple and an orange,” she said with a laugh. “But mainly, we would all be together and just enjoy each other.”
Meals have stayed much the same, but not all are locally sourced as they were on the Georgia farm.
“Roast chicken, not turkey, vegetables, sweet potatoes, and, of course, dressing,” she said, adding that she still uses her mother’s secret ingredient in the family dressing.
“No, I won’t tell,” she answered when asked.
Family celebrations moved to a ranch the Denneys bought in Burnet County when the couple retired. Ernest died in 1998, but the four daughters still bring their families to celebrate and they still sing songs together.
Lela Goar was born in Burnet County in 1939. She remembers early Christmas holidays as “meek.” Her family of four lived with her grandparents in a house without running water or electricity. Oranges and apples were the expected holiday treats for them, too.
Life looked up when they moved into a home with more amenities, but times were still tough.
“One year, we had an especially hard year,” Goar said. “My parents said, ‘We can’t afford presents this year.’ My brother and I didn’t expect much at all.”
Their father secretly told them the two presents under the tree were for their mother, who needed curtains and curtain rods for the house. On Christmas morning, at their mother’s request, Lela’s brother, Hudson, opened the “curtain rods” and she the “curtains.” What they found was a BB gun and a doll that sucked its thumb.
“The best Christmas ever,” Goar said, and perhaps the last one where she truly believed in Santa Claus.
“My daddy was Santa Claus for years, but I would get so excited I didn’t recognize him,” she said. “He would hide his Santa suit under my bed, and that’s how I found out. I found the suit. I think I was about 8 years old at the time.”
Goar earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in home economics. She met her husband, Lane “Tater” Goar, at a Hank Thompson concert at the Texas Tech University student union. They have been married for 61 years.
A tradition of celebrating the holiday on both Christmas Day and the Saturday closest to New Year’s Day began when they moved to a 1,800-acre farm in Clovis, New Mexico, to raise maize and their three kids.
“Being 425 miles from my parents was really hard because we didn’t have a lot of money to make the trip very often,” Goar said. “We did our best to get to Burnet at least three to four times a year so our kids knew who their Texas grandparents were. Christmas wasn’t Christmas unless we came to Texas.”
Christmas Past was not as economically hard for Bettye Foulds, 94, who grew up in Palacios on the Texas Gulf Coast, about halfway between Corpus Christi and Houston.
“Palacios was a thriving town,” she said. “It had a huge shrimping industry and also had Camp Hulen, a very active training base for national guards.”
Camp Hulen closed in 1946, but during World War II, it was hopping. Her father was the head mechanic for the motor pool on base. Her favorite Christmas memory was the year she got a bicycle. She was only about 7 years old and had to pledge to always pull it up on the porch when done, to never leave it out in the yard. She claims to have kept that promise.
Around the age of 10, she received a piano with the promise of continuing lessons and daily practices. She kept that up about three years, she said.
Although they lived four blocks from downtown, Foulds’ family had a dairy cow, a calf, and chickens. Because of the mild coastal weather, they could grow a garden almost year-round.
“At Christmas, we baked hens, although, several times, Dad brought home a turkey,” she said. “He got it from the cotton farmers he was friendly with. And we always had blackberry cobbler.”
Her grandfather grew blackberries for a living.
Shrimpers who lived behind them brought them shrimp as well as fish that got caught in the nets.
“I don’t remember ever being hungry,” she said. “I do remember churning butter. We traded butter and eggs for groceries. Everything was rationed.”
Foulds especially remembers shoe rationing as a problem.
“I was really hard on shoes,” she said.
All three women recall having to stuff newspaper in their shoes to cover holes in the soles. Each person was granted a ration card for two pairs a year, which was hard on growing kids.
Foulds met her husband, Bill E. Foulds, a 1947 Burnet High School graduate, in Austin, where he earned two civil engineering degrees at the University of Texas. They raised four children before returning to Bill’s hometown to retire. They were married for 59 years.
Once Burnet became home base for the Foulds, their house became the center of holiday festivities for their growing brood of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Some would come on Christmas Eve; others arrived Christmas Day for food and gifts.
“It worked out much better that way,” Foulds said. “We had Mexican food on Christmas Eve and turkey and ham on Christmas Day.”
Christmas Present looks much the same with less food. Foulds sets out finger foods for visitors to graze on but doesn’t cook.
“I have tried and tried to tell my children that I want them to make their own traditions now,” she said. “I think it’s really important for them to get their own traditions.”
No matter how old, kids don’t always listen to their parents. All three of these women will be celebrating the holidays over several days with a variety of family members.
On the Denney ranch, Lorene looks forward to sing-alongs on the porch with a guitar-playing grandson.
Lela will bake her specialty, homemade rolls, and after dropping some off for Lorene, she’ll head to the Goar Christmas followed by the Glimp family reunion a few days later.
Bettye plans to watch Christmas specials on TV while her growing family drops in over two days with holiday wishes, building memories for their own visits someday from the spirits of Christmases past.
What are your special holiday memories?