East Aurora Advertiser

Historian’s Corner: In Years of Darkness, EA Brought Light to Christmas



Christmas 2020 will be different. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, civic groups’ annual holiday sales are curtailed or canceled altogether. Business and restaurant owners are forced to adapt to ever-changing safety regulations during the busiest shopping weeks of the year. And rather than 4,000 carolers spreading holiday cheer on Main Street, the 48th annual Carolcade has been pre-recorded for television.

The challenges faced this holiday season are unique, for sure. But this isn’t the first time East Aurora and communities across the nation have faced the challenge of making Christmas merry during troubling times.

Our community has celebrated Christmas during a pandemic before. Christmas of 1918 came during the Spanish flu pandemic, but the worst of the threat—and the quarantines—had been lifted in East Aurora by mid-November. Christmas that year also came on the heels of the end of World War I, so East Aurorans and their counterparts across the nation were in a celebratory mood.

Disrupted supply chains during World War I left local stores struggling to fulfill Christmas orders. In its Christmas advertisements, F. Henry Fuller’s Department Store, which was located where Rookie’s Sports Bar and Grill is today, thanked its customers for their support amid the challenges. From the archives of the Aurora Town Historian’s Office

It hasn’t always been so easy to keep Christmas merry. Wars and economic depressions, in particular, created unique challenges for East Aurorans at Christmastime.

Just a year before the post-war Christmas celebration of 1918, locals struggled to maintain a festive mood. With service members overseas, several local families had an empty seat at the Christmas dinner table in 1917. 

“The people of the United States are approaching the Christmas holidays under conditions this country never has seen before,” the local chapter of the Red Cross noted in an article in the East Aurora Advertiser

At that point, no one knew how long the war would last, so fear of the future cast a sorrowful pall over family celebrations. 

“It is probable that this year we shall not experience our most sorrowful Christmas while this world war rages,” the Red Cross noted. “With the thought of the nation dwelling largely on the infinite suffering abroad, on the certainty that our own flesh and blood will soon be enduring its full share of that suffering, and on the absence from home of hundreds of thousands of our dear ones, Christmas 1917 will be a war Christmas.”

In addition to the anxiety and depressing tone brought on by the war, holiday meals and gift-gifting were impacted by disrupted supply chains that left local stores struggling to fulfill Christmas orders. F. Henry Fuller’s Department Store, which was located where Rookie’s Sports Bar and Grill is today, leveled with its customers. 

“Never in my 45 years of experience in buying and selling merchandise has it been as hard and trying to keep the stock up to standard as the present time,” the owner noted in an advertisement, adding, “We buy directly from the mills or mill agents. Very hard to get at any price. Many held up in railroad yards; some stolen from cars. The same condition applies to every kind of merchandise.”

While toys still appeared under many Christmas trees during World War II, Santa had less variety and a much more limited supply. At the original Fisher-Price Toys facility on Church Street, employment had dropped from more than 200 before the war to 122 in 1943, and manufacturing lines had been converted to produce supplies for the war effort. From the archives of the Aurora Town Historian’s Office

At their department store a block west down Main Street, the owners of Seaman, Hood and Morey faced a similar struggle. Christmas ornaments and artificial trees were in short supply. “Don’t wait until the last day,” the store’s advertisement warned.

Like today, the challenges led local residents to make a concerted effort to support local stores. “Protect yourself and help this store,” F. Henry Fuller pleaded when asking his patrons for patience and to make their holiday selections early.  

Very similar Christmastime challenges faced East Aurorans and their counterparts across the nation once again two-and-a-half decades later during World War II. This time, U.S. involvement in the war transcended more than one holiday season. 

As was the case during World War I, food, clothing and appliances were rationed, and supply and delivery chains were greatly impacted. In 1942, the East Aurora postmaster warned that due to unprecedented wartime demands on the postal and transportation systems, packages would need to be taken to the post office nearly a month before Christmas in order to guarantee that they could be delivered on time.

“The post office has been cautioned that it is physically impossible for the railroads and airlines, burdened with vitally important war materials, to handle Christmas mailings as rapidly as in normal times,” Postmaster William H. Wright warned.

Christmas lights, which had become a holiday tradition, were curtailed during World War II, due to diverted manufacturing priorities and wartime blackouts, which limited the use of lights, especially outdoors.

Holiday telephone calls were also limited during the war, requiring shared sacrifice.

“Please keep crowded long-distance  circuits clear for necessary war calls on Dec. 24, 25 and 26,” the New York Telephone Co. requested in an advertisement in 1943.

While toys still appeared under many Christmas trees during World War II, Santa had less variety and a much more limited supply. At the original Fisher-Price Toys facility on Church Street, employment had dropped from more than 200 before the war to 122 in 1943, and manufacturing lines had been converted to produce medical chests, ammunition crates and gun shipping cases. 

“When victory is accomplished, we are determined to expand our employment to its normal size of approximately 200 employees to fill the nation’s normal peacetime requirement of toys for children,” the company noted in an April 1944 report. “Meanwhile, our activities are 98 percent war work.”

For many, there was no sugar-coating the impact of the war on Christmas festivities.

“There will be vacant chairs around the Christmas tables of many homes throughout the United States Friday,” the Advertiser editors wrote on Christmas Eve in 1942. “Their usual occupants may be in a training camp somewhere in this country or they may be across the Atlantic in Ireland, England or Africa—up North in Alaska, Greenland or Iceland—across the Pacific on some tiny island; they may be on some ship on their way to battle or convoying men and materials to some far-off war-front; yes—they even may be dead.”

Challenging times led many East Aurora civic groups to find creative ways to keep the Christmas spirit alive. 

During the Great Depression in 1930, the Board of Trade launched a program to match local men and women in need of work with families having odd jobs around the house.

“One of the finest of Christmas presents to these people would be the opportunity to get in a little work, and earn something for their own homes, to make Christmas there mean more,” the Advertiser reported.

A group of Santa’s helpers continued their tradition of making telephone calls and Christmas Eve during both the Great Depression and World War II.

However, keeping the Christmas spirit alive often was an uphill battle during challenging times. 

A major problem with the local employment program of 1930 was a lack of available work. According to a report two weeks before Christmas, 36 unemployed individuals had signed up, but only one homeowner registered with a job available.

In 1934, the Advertiser noted that there were more needy children than in previous years, but fewer helpers.

“There are about 300 poor children already on Santa’s local list this year, twice as many as at any time in the past,” the Advertiser reported. “So, while he is sorry, he asks that we tell the poor boys and girls not to expect too much this year.”

In the end, however, volunteers faced the challenge. Santa made more than 600 stops in the village and the surrounding area that year to wish families a Merry Christmas. During his journey, he brought gifts to more than 300 children in need.

“While he was unable to give them very much,” the Advertiser reported, “they did enjoy a personal visit from the old chap and some little things to remind them it really was Christmas and they really were being remembered, if not as fully as they may have hoped.” 

Although 2020 might go down as one of the most challenging Christmases, history demonstrates that with a little bit of creativity and grit, East Aurorans can persevere. And, history has also shown us, there are brighter Christmases to come.

As the Advertiser editors noted at the height of World War II in 1943, challenging times might just help us better appreciate the true meaning of the season: “We could say quite truthfully that Christmas does not seem so merry this year, but the joy of Christmas is a joy that war cannot kill. It is more than a yule log, sprig of holly or a gaily decorated tree, and it is more than abundant good cheer and the giving of gifts.”

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Robert Lowell Goller is the eighth Aurora town and East Aurora village historian since the office was created in 1919. The Historian’s Office is open for research by appointment Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 p.m. Visit www.townofaurora.com/departments/historian for more information. The Town Historian’s Office can also be found on Facebook at “Aurora Town Historian” and on Instagram at “auroratownhistorian.”

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