1956 is when my father died after having open heart surgery in Mayo Clinic. He was one of the first. He was 33 and left a wife and four children to mourn him. And mourn we did.
Christmas Day 1957 was memorable only in that none of us had recovered from the loss of our father, and our young widowed mother did the best she could while still grieving and working as a nurse’s aide at Greene County Hospital.
Mom worked the night shift and then came home to help her four young children and her mother-in-law celebrate Christmas. I, being the oldest, remember corralling the younger ones to wait till 7:30 am for Mom to get home. I do not think they gave me much trouble– we all knew things were tough. Mom stayed up all day, even though she had worked all night. She had Christmas night off and counted on getting caught up then.
The indelible memories start at about 10 pm. I woke up to a funny orange light out my bedroom window, and when I checked, I discovered the house was on fire!
I yelled for Mom across the hall from me. My mother, who always slept like a stone, was on her feet instantly. She ran down the smoke-filled staircase and out the door, yelling at me to follow. I could not. The smoke was too thick, so I returned to my room and opened the window, climbed out and clung to the sill. Mom came around the house and told me to let go and she would catch me. I did let go when the fire-flamed curtains touched my fingers.
We ran to the other side of the house where my grandmother lived and woke her and my siblings to get them out of the house. That is when we learned that my brother, Richard Francis Brock, age 10, was in the fire-engulfed portion of the house we had just left.
He did not survive.
The memories are fuzzy after that. I remember that the fire department was there very fast. I do not know who called them. Someone had a warm car for us to sit in and blankets to cover us. Frank and Jo Bartley opened their house and took us in for the night. The community gave us everything we needed. Like magic we had a house to live in, clothes and food. They provided all they could possibly give.
We were grateful then and I am grateful to this day. At 13 it may not sink in so much, but as the years roll by not only do you know what was lost, but also what you were given. Small towns are like that. People step up to help their neighbors in need. Jefferson was a great town to grow up in and it is a great town to live in and a great place to be when tragedy strikes. People care about each other every day of the year, and I am reminded of that every Christmas night.
I wish all my Jefferson friends, both old and new, a very Merry Christmas with the happiest of memories.
~Barbara Brock Brooker, Jefferson
