CHRISTMAS DAY 22 – BERT’S CHRISTMAS COAT

BERT’S CHRISTMAS COAT – by Gena Roe

My mother, Lela Bodily Allen, was born April 30, 1916 – and before the year was out, her father had gone to Mexico, got a divorce and came back to inform Grandma that they were divorced. Mom was the youngest of 6 children (2 died as infants), and in 1916 women didn’t even have the right to vote, so Grandma and the four children, ages 10 to 6-months, moved back in with her parents.

   It was a difficult time. Grandma did what work she could get, mostly cleaning, cooking, and laundry. A few years later, Grandma’s sister Ruth passed away, leaving her husband to raise their four children also alone, as a widower. My great-grandmother, seeing two single parents each struggling to raise these grandchildren on their own, convinced them to marry. So only a few months after her sister had died, my grandma married her brother-in-law, Ruth’s husband Frank, to raise their combined family of 8 living children together.

   It was 1923, and raising a large family was challenging – and they faced a number of difficult situations. For my mom, her uncle was now her step-father, her cousins now her siblings. And to make things worse, “Uncle Frank” (as mom always called him) was a very difficult man – and in the years I knew him I never saw him smile, and in all the years since have not ever heard one happy story about him. He treated “his” children different than “her” children, and with 10 mouths to feed (and two more children that came along soon afterward) he lived a life where he so obviously carried the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.

   My mom, as the youngest, spent much time helping with the two little boys, her half-brothers/half-cousins, that came along a few years later – and had a particular fondness for her littlest brother, Bert. Bert was born in 1929, and although things had been tough before, the Great Depression hit the little farming town of Preston, Idaho, particularly hard – and this assembled family of 12 especially so.

pic: Bert, enlisted for Korean War

   As Winter 1932 approached, Mom’s oldest sister Wanda (now grown and out of the house), sent Lela a new coat for Christmas. Mom adored her sister Wanda and loved her new winter coat. Seeing that Little Bert didn’t have a coat at all, Mom took her old coat to school, and cut it up to sew a new coat for Bert’s Christmas present that year. She worked on it for weeks, sneaking measurements of Little Bert when no one was looking. And with a little coaching and help from her teacher, Lela got the coat ready for Bert’s Christmas. It was not only one of the few happy stories my mother had of her childhood, but it helped me understand why she always had such a special place in her heart for Bert.

   A few weeks ago I was looking for my winter coat, and in my search came across a number of my own old coats that I don’t wear anymore. I took the handful of extra coats that I had, decided to add a few more to the pile, and a few more after that – and ended up with a pretty substantial pile of coats to donate, especially now that the weather is turning into that bitter cold that mid-winter always brings.

   I am grateful for having such an abundance in my life that I don’t have to wonder for a coat or gloves. And I am grateful for a wonderful mother who was such an example of giving and selflessness and who taught me the importance of something as simple as a warm winter coat.