Remembrances of

‘“} SPENT the beginning of
my life in this house,’’ says
the .utterly charming white-
“haired lady who is looking
at the same fireplace where
she and her sister hung their
. stockings .so many years
ago. ;

Florence M. ‘‘Mollie’’ Nye cele-
brated her 80th birthday this year,
but she still sits with the straight-
backed refinement of a teacher
trained by years of ‘unyielding

By Martin Millerchip
Contributing Writer

wooden chairs at the front of the
class. :

Her memory is as bright as her
eyes. She ranges over childhood
Christmas memories from the age
of five to 16, recalling people and
place names with no hesitation.

Through the window her
heritage home and its imposing
porch ‘overlooks the road. that

tee:

ng % on

feat a

bears her name. The house has
changed little over the years.

Built in 1913 on 160 acres of
forest deeded to her father for
service in the Boer War, it was not
completed in time for her arrival
on Sept. 23 of that year.

She says she still has memories
of very early Christmases before
her mother, Olive, tock her and
her younger sister Joyce to rural
Alberta in 1919 while she taught
in an appalling one-room school
house.

Times were tough and the house

’ Christmas

NEWS photo Mike Wakelield

THE CHRISTMAS dinner, the Christmas tree and the Christmas concert. Mollie Nye, standing in
front of the Lynn Valley home her father built in 1913, recalls how her cherished holiday memories

were filled with the spirit of the season.

tbat es

taxes had to be paid by renting
out the family home for five
years,

It was not until 1924 that the
family was reunited in North
Vancouver, with Olive teaching at
Roche Point School while Mollie
attended Lynn Valley School.

Mollie recafls with pleasure ‘‘the
three big things’’ from those early
Christmas seasons.

“The Christmas dinner, the
Christmas.tree and the Christmas
concert.

“The concert always came first.

“The schools always had a
Christmas concert and the Sunday
schools always had a Christmas
concert, so every child knew all
the carols after a few years.

“Lynn Valley had an Institute
Hall just east of the school. It was
a huge building with a marvellous
stage and dressing rooms down
below and a biz balcony.

“Every teacher in the school
would be expected to put on some
item for the-concert. It would be
folk dancing, or singing or plays.

“Sometimes at school on the

last afternoon there would be a’

Christmas party. The children
would take cookies and cakes and
sandwiches and so on. :

“And quite often .we made ar-
rangements to give our teacher a
present. Just some
minor thing, but it was a great
deal for us to get the money to
buy it.

“The holiday was about two
weeks, about the same as it is
now. It was just marvellous
because we used to get a lot more
snow than we do now and there
would be a lot of sleigh riding but
not much skiing because nobody
could afford skis.

‘Tt used to get colder, too, and
the Fromme Mill Pond would
freeze over and everybody would
go ice skating there.

“When we were small Dad
would take us on our sleigh and
pull us #round the pond. We
thought that was just wonderful,

“The whole area was covered
with heavy forest: fir,
hemlock, cedar, spruce.

“Nobody would think of chop-
ping down anything but a fir. it
had to be very big in this house. |
liked it right to the ceiling.

“So Dad would take us with an
axe and we'd walk all over and
choose several trees and then
eliminate them one by one.

“We made a Christmas tree
stand which we used every year. |
think we are still using the same
one.

“The tree was always put up in
the dining room. No electric lights

>
uate

Lynn Valley winters from many years past

and we weren’t allowed to put
candles on the. tree because it
might burn up.

“We would thread cranberries if.

we could get them and ring them
round the tree and make paper
chains with all the different col-
ored papers we could find. If we
couldn’t. find enough we’d color
the paper with crayons and that
took us ages and ages.

“If we could ever find our little
tiny dolls that wouldn’t break the
branches, those were put on.

“We thought it was'a wonderful
tree when it was finished. Nothing
as gorgeous. ;

‘“*Then, Christmas Eve we
always hung our stockings by the
fireplace here. 7

“First thing in the morning we
usually had to have our breakfasts
before we could see the tree. So
that was eaten quite quickly!

“Presents were very simple. The

girls usually got a doll of some .

kind — a smallish doll.

“Oh, there would be balls and
skipping ropes and books. We
always had quite a few books and
crayons and paper to draw on.

‘After breakfast we were
allowed ‘to see ali these things on
the tree and play with them.

““The Christmas we got roller
skates we roller-skated in the
basement and then on Lynn Valley
Road, which wasn’t paved then,
of course.

The great deal of the day was.

the dinner.

**We always had ours at noon.
Not everybody did, but a great
many did. It was nice for the
housewife because she was free for
the afternoon.

‘In those days not many people
had turkeys. First of all they
couldn’t afford to buy them and
then there just weren’t many
turkeys around.

‘*Most people raised chickens,
so it was a chicken dinner and
home-grown vegetables. Fruit that
had been bottled: in the summer
and fail, And Christmas cake of
COUFSE, 1

“We usually had a Christmas
pudding made with real suet and
boiled in a cloth, We didn't get
coins in it. Mother didn’t think it

“was:-very sanitary and she was

scared we'd choke on them.

“Visitors would come, Some of
them would come all the way
from Dollarton and the whole
evening would be spent around the
piano.

“it was a sad day when the tree
had to come down. We would beg
to have it left up as long as we
could,”