Christmas with the Scotts

First, they went to church. It was Christmas Eve after all. Both girls sang in the children’s choir for the service. June enjoyed it much more than Lucille. Of course, she was only 10; whereas Lucille was 14 and in her own opinion too old for these kinds of things. They were Leta’s nieces, her brother Aaron and sister-in-law Florence’s two children. Leta had been living with them for nearly three months. She had been separated from her husband Leech Hoose and her own children Vivian and Dale for nearly three months. During the first month, she basically rambled, distraught and restless. She spent much of her time in a series of saloons in and around the Toledo area. When one of the gentlemen she met invited her to take an auto excursion with her to Buffalo for a week, she agreed. They passed by Niagara Falls. All that power, coursing in a rush to plummet over the side of a cliff, awed her. He took her further upriver, where she could see how it gathered momentum for its descent. There seemed no purpose in it.

“It is what it is,” her fellow stated matter-of-factly.

“Maybe the river has found an opportunity to rush to the ocean and has taken advantage of it,” she suggested.

“My dear, we are a far cry from the ocean. About 500 miles, I reckon.”

During a period of heavy rain at the beginning of October, she made her way to Aaron and Florence’s. It was late morning, a weekday. Aaron was at work, and the girls were in school. Florence was the only one home.

“Leta!” she gasped in surprise, when she opened the door.

“Hello, Flo,” Leta squeaked, not sure whether or not she would be welcome. After all she had done—leaving her husband Leech Hoose, delivering her own children to their father, and then basically disappearing for a month, giving her life completely over to drinking and men, and not very honorable men either—she wondered if her closest sibling—her best friend—would welcome her back.

“Oh my heavens!” Florence gasped. “You are a sight. You’re drenched through and through. “Come in here and get those wet clothes off before you catch your death of cold.”

Leta was carrying only a small satchel. The rest of her things, few as they were, had been left at the saloon where she had spent most of her time.

Florence took the bag and held the door open all the way for Leta to enter. Once Leta was inside, she closed the door behind them and dropped the satchel on to the floor, where it landed with a wet thud.

An hour later, after a hot bath, Leta sat at Florence’s table, dressed in her sister-in-law’s nightgown with a cup of steaming tea before her.

“I want you to drink down all that tea,” Florence insisted while she prepared lunch for them. “I am fixing you some soup, too. Land sakes, you were soaked through and through. Even your satchel was soaked. I had to ring out everything in it. How long were you out in that rain?”

Leta could not bear to tell her conservative Christian sister-in-law everything, so she told her a combination of truth and falsehood—the truth of leaving her husband, of deserting her children, but the falsehood that she had taken a room, where she wallowed in the misery of her circumstance until her money ran out. She could think of nowhere else to go and hoped that Florence and Aaron would take her in.

“Of course, of course,” Florence stated. When he arrived home, Aaron agreed, feeling a combination of compassion and pity for his little sister, who, after four tries, had not seemed to be able to find matrimony agreeable.

By Christmas, she was one of the family. Florence loved having her dear sister to talk to, cook with, sew with, clean with and go to church with. Leta was always an affable companion. Aaron enjoyed having a drinking buddy who was “a true Scott in a house of tea-totalers.” Of course, the girls were too young to imbibe, but they too were thrilled to have Aunt Leta around all the time. Leta’s playful demeanor and loud laughter had a welcome energizing effect on all of them.

She had earned a little money from sewing, and was able to purchase materials to make gifts for her cozy family. Because Florence insisted that the girls attend church on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Christmas evening, they exchanged their presents on Christmas Eve after the first service. She and Florence had prepared a light but warm supper. It was a frigid night, and Aaron was concerned about their being out in it, not being a churchgoer himself.

Leta made each of the girls and Florence blouses, and her brother Aaron a shirt. From her host family, she received fabric and materials to make two dresses. When she arrived, she had only three, and one had several worn spots. They all had oranges and hard candy, and laughed at June’s song-and-dance routine to “Jingle Bells.”

But when the presents were cleaned up, and the girls in bed, a huge wave of melancholy altered Leta’s mood instantaneously. She ached for her own children, for Vivian’s gentle smiles and Dale’s antics. Whether Aaron knew she was heading into a serious depression or he just wanted a companion, he stood quickly and stated forcefully, “How’s about a Christmas drink?”

Florence declined as usual and headed for bed, but Leta accepted. Over the next three hours, she helped her brother empty a bottle of whiskey, drinking the lion’s share herself. After the fourth drink, the anguish had turned into a dull ache, and by the sixth drink, she had achieved senselessness. How else, she asked herself, am I going to make it through this?

She made it, of course, by remaining in a semi-inebriated state for the rest of the holiday, attending all the church services she could and singing her heart out, and being as ridiculously silly as she could with her nieces. It was only one day after all, and on December 26, she awoke in a fog, feeling nauseous and empty. Her first Christmas without her children had passed, and she survived.