Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 December 1951 — Page 33
, 1951
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Inside Indianapolis By Ed Sovola ,
WESTERN UNION messengers would rafter take a beating than deliver casualty telegrams. In that grim phase of the iness, however, the «Korean prisoner of war messages are. the silver lining. a Robert Poulson and Paul Ehlers, two veteran messengers. whese combined service in the city totals 43 years, are ‘tickled pink” with the messages of hope to parents and wives of the missing. Whenever possible, casualty y-Paul-—4 and Robert, Younger and less experienced messengers carry routine telegrams. “I hate to handle "casualty messages but when I' think of the responsibility that is: involved, it's better that Paul and I take care of them,” explained Robert Poulson, LB ; HE MISSED the bulk of “The Defense Department regrets . . .” messages during World War II. Robert spent two years in the Army ani saw action in France and Belgium.
He recalls now he used to hesitate as he turned into a yard or stepped on a porch. Robert discovered the recipient sensed what he was bringing, and it made the situation worse. “Three in one day is tough to take,” he said. “Especially when some young woman with two or three children is one of the three who get a telegram.” Robert told of one time when a young mother began crying and her two children looked at him and he could see amazement in their eyes. “You get the feeling that you're not a very nice person.-Nothing you can do about it but try and forget.” iid woah A # DELIVERY MANAGER Charles Richert outlined the instructions the company gives to the messengers delivering casualty telegrams. If a mother or wife is home alone, the mes.senger tries to get a neighbor to stand by. He
It Hap By Earl Wilson
NEW YORK, Dec. 23—Joan Caulfield was doing a movie kissing scene recently with David
Niven—which was fine—especially for David.
“Kiss her a little more violently,” said a voice from the sidelines imperiously. ‘Niven puckered more furiously. the sidelines boomed, ‘“Cut.” Then the voice said to Niven, “David, you've got to kiss her more lize you mean it.” “Ghum,” replied the exasperated Britisher, “you don’t know what it’s like to be kissing a guy’s wife—right in front of him.” The voice from the sidelines was that of Joan Caulfield’s husband, Frank Ross, former husband of Jean Arthur, who was producing the picture. Ross and Miss Caulfield say that was about the most serious difficulty that has arisen out of the fact they are a husband and wife making a picture together, with the husband presumably the boss. o> o> >
MISS CAULFIELD, in a fancy bandanna, and some kind of dressing gown, and her husband, in conventional attire, discussed this the other day at the Hampshire House. Joan interrupted herself once to take a call from a stock broker. Sitting ‘up in the chair by the phone with the receiver held between shoulder and chin lize reorters do (in movies), she said, “But 10 per cent—what does that mean?” Arising and returning to the interview, she said, “It never fails—I sell a stock and it declares a 10 per cent dividend right after that.” “We decided we wouldn't talk about the pic-
The voice on
Joan Caulfield
ture after 6 o'clock,” her husband said, “but, of course, that was silly and impossible.” oe SN “THE PICTURE,” explained Joan, “is titled
‘The Lady Says No.’ I'm an authoress who writes a book against sex but later I reform.” Upon reforming, she needs to prove she has sex appeal, so she makes a pass at Lenore Lonergan's husband (in the picture), whereupon Lenore says: “Would you like to step into the ladies’ room for a brief row?” Once in there, Joan is supposed to belt her, just like men do in men’s rooms (although I never saw any fights there myself). But Joan told her loving spouse she didn't think she ought to belt a lady whose husband she engaged in a firtation, because after all she was in the wrong— and husband agreed..
:
Americana By Robert C. Ruark
NEW YORK, Dec. 22—The Yusiness of eating used to be a daily adventure, instead of a distasteful chore. As I recall it, food used to be fun, not an experiment in medical science, with the consumer's good eye on a calorie chart and the weaker peeper ‘on self-destruction with a spoon. My Grandma Adkins used to set a right fancy table. We would, for instance, have about three, maybe four, kinds of bread. We had crusty brown loaves she made herself, in the old woodburner, and in those days bread was a delight, instead of a doctor’s prescription. Miss Lottie's _bread was better to taste than her pound cake, and just as rich in eggs, milk and enthusiasm. She also turned out biscuits so light they would blow away, and cornbread that was as golden and fluffy as a blonde’s dream of marriage with a millionaire. We had spoon-bread, too, and something called corn-dodgers that blended well with sowbelly sauce. & 4H a
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THERE WERE always about three kinds of meat on the table. You never saw the cloth bereft of a slab of cold country ham, and at night and for breakfast fhere was hot country ham with hominy and red-eye gravy. The main dish
was mostly meat, real meat—steak or pot roast
or pork tenderloin. Venison and wild turkeys were not strangers to our house, nor were quail for breakfast or squirrel stews and savory messes composed largely of rabbit. Nor potatoes. Always potatoes. The lima beans swam happily in a pool of glistening juices from fat-back pork, and so did the stringbeans and the okra and the cabbage. ‘Nobody fretted much about salads— if you wanted cold vegetables there were tomatoes with a thick christening of sugar and vinegar, or sliced cucumbers with rings of onion to keep them from being lonesome,
+
THERE WERE always crocks of preserves which the old girl got up herself, and always a few saucers of pickles, watermelon pickles and piccalili and ‘pickled onions and such truck. Butter and gravies were stock items, not curiosities, When they fricasseed a hen for Sunday dinner—we ate dinner "in the daytime, then— the old fowl was surrounded with dumplings and floated on a pool of .butter. 8he came apart when you touched her with a fork. In the pantry there always lived a . pound cake, and a fruit cake, and a chocolate layer cake, ang a coconut cake, side-by-side to a cookie crock and a brown doughnut jar, These dainties, together with thickly smeared slices of bread, were hetween-meal snacks for little grow= ing boys. On the bread we smeared butter and sugar, apple jelly and sugar, peanut butter and Sugar, In season we picked’ the big black figs off the tree in the backyard and drowned them in cream, which we extracted from the cow which
*
pened Last Night Kissing
Cusmiitiy. Wires, "
a Grim Task
also ‘gets the receiver “fo sign first, otherwise it would ‘be difficult to fulfill the little technicality. One time Robert took all- the precautions he - thought necessary. The news so shocked a. mothey that a neighbor had to call a doctor. Paul spent a hectic evening last summer delivering a Korean casualty telegram, The mother and father of the soldier were ill. The rest of the relatives were attending an auto race. He paged the relations, called a neighbor fo the bedside of the parents, and waited until the racing fans came home before he handed the telegram to the
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“You have to do those things sometimes, you can't blunder in,” said Paul. 0a BOTH MEN say the longest steps they take are the ones from the sidewalk to the door. They think of “a lot of things” on the way. They never know what will happen when the door opens. Paul delivered a casualty telegram to a mother across the line in Hendricks County. Several friends happened to be visiting with her. When the mother read the news she ran out of the door screaming. Her husband and a neighbor had a difficult time restraining the distraught
* mother and bringing her in the house.
The messengers make it a practice not to speak unless it is necessary. In some cases when a “Missing in Action” telegram is delivered and a parent stands silently looking at the message, they speak a few words of encouragement. > > 0B ; JUST THE other day Paul made a second trip to the parents ofa soldier, Several months ago they were informed by the Defense Department that their son was missing in action. “They were sure happy to get the news that he is a prisoner of war. I hope it is true. I'd like to deliver a telegram soon saying he will be home, That would really be something,” sighed Paul. I wish Paul and Robert and men like them all over the country could deliver 3198 messages telling parents and wives and sweethearts that the prisoners of the Communists were coming home. If the Commies are lying ,, .
»
Isn’t So Easy If Her Hubby Watches
But now that eyerything's going swimmingly with the Rosses, it-seems all right to point out that Joan is one of the few Life cover girls who ever took immediate advantage of the situation.
"Twas back a few years when she appeared on the cover and, with magazine in hand, went around to se: George Abbott, the producer. She was just a little model. SS bb
“I'D LIKE to see Mr. Abbott,” announced the 19-year-old. “Why?” asked the secretary. “I understand he’s looking for talent,” replied Joan, who now adds, “The venetian blinds fell down when I said that.” For some reason, Mr. Abbott did see her, and one of the first questions he asked her was: “Can you dance?” “Sure.” “Where did you dance?” he asked. Bear in mind now that Abbott was in his time one of the greatest vaudeville dancers. “Where?” she repeated, surprised at the ques~ tion. “Why at El Morocco, Roseland . . . where do you think?” Abbott saw they weren't discussing the same kind of dancing. However, he auditioned her and put her in a show called “Beat the Band” with Jerry Lester and Romo Vincent. And then came “Kiss and Teil"—and Hollywood.
oo oo oo
JOAN ADMITS she was greener than most young actresses. “Opening night,” she remembered, “Jerry White, the stage manager, asked me where I put the key to the curtain “I didn’t know it was a sole: I told him, T never saw it.in my life.’ He said ‘I gave it to you and the show can't open without it.’ I even phoned up my mother to ask if she'd seen it.” Joan was snatched out of “Kiss and Tell” for Hollywood.
oe was the show I got the award in,” said
‘What award was that?”
“Oh, you know—that ‘Most Promising Actress Award’ that the critics give.” After a second, Joan said, “What am I saying ‘Oh’ for—I wish I could get it now!" >
TODAY'S DAFFYNITION: "A defeatist iz a guy who needs a kick in the can’ts.”—Diana Herbert.
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TODAY'S BEST LAUGH: Harvey Stone's brother says being married to his wife is an open and shout proposition. . . , That's Earl, brother,
In the Old Days, Eating Was an Adventure
lived with us and which would have kicked’ and bellered if anybody had mentioned powdered skim milk in her presence. We ate a whole watermelon apiece and enough green peaches, pears and grapes to kill off an ostrich. oo oe oo FOR DESSERT we dealt daintily with raisinduff, a concoction of fruited pastry over which was poured something called “hard sauce.” We ate ice cream made of ‘cream and sugar and peaches in an old-fashioned hand-crank freezer, where the cranker rated the right to lick the dasher of its iced accumulation of creamsmothered peaches. We drank coffee, with cream .and sugar, and tea, with cream and sugar. Nobody sneered
too hard at deep-dish apple pie, or deep-dish x
huckleberry pie, with cream and crusted sugar. We: preserved peaches and pears and raspberries and strawberries in a sugar sauce, and smeared the result on that heavy-bodied, brown-skinned bread.
A DIET in thoXe days was something you fed sick people in hospitals. They had not then discovered calories, to the general distress of the nation. People did not starve themselves wilfully, nor were we beset with recipes for going hungry on unpleasant fare. A man ate what he liked when he was peckish, and he ate whenever he was hungry. He belched and took a nap after Sunday dinner, which possibly stood off a predisposition to the gastric ulcer. We approached the board with anticipation instead of dread. Food was not an enemy. You may go back to your special diets, friends. 1 get more nourishment out of musty memories than the. modern sucker gets from a well-rounded fare that is guaranteed to keep him both thin and unhappy with the cook.
Dishing the Dirt By Marguerite Smith
. Q==Could we raise our own Christmas holly in this climate? T, A. W., Southport. A—You can raise certain kinds. But the sharp toothed, shiny leaved English holly that is the most-wanted Christmas variety needs a milder climate. It is brought if Mostly from the Northwestern states. The native American holly has a duller lighter green leaf, less sharply notched. It is grown in quite .a few local yards. Easier to raise is mahonia or Qregon grape-holly, which is
-not a true holly botanieally. But its leaves closely
resemble Christmas holly. It does not have red derries. You will find a number of the botanically true hollles or ilex possible here. They do not have the spiny leaves of the Christmas hollies but do make lovely Christmas wreaths and other decorations,
is The In
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ianapolis Times
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1051 ;
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By WILLIAM FOLGER THE CHILDREN are divided. Earl, 7, believes in Santa
Da fier and all. Valerie, 9, wants him to. But she thinks Santa is makebelieve—for “children only.” I myself believe in Santa. I believe more deeply than ever because only -this year did 1 begin to know his real story. Is there a Santa Claus? How can I explain it to my favorite little boy or girl? Well, Earl and Valerie, the story of Santa Claus is one of
the + world’s most beautiful. Wherever children celebrate the birth of Christ, they tell
about Santa Claus or someone
like him. German children wait for Kris Kringle. With him, they
believe, comes a demon called King Rupert to punish the bad children. Kris Kringle is one of many names the children of Europe give St. Nicholas. They believe he rides a white horse and carries a basket of gifts. x 8 °F IN ITALY they wait for La Befana, the good fairy, to bring them gifts on the Twelfth Night after Christmas. That's when the Three Wise Men — Melchoir, Caspar and Balthazar—brought their gifts to the Christ Child. Spanish children, if they're ood, expect the Wise Men to fill their shoes with presents. Russian children believe Baboushka, who is like La Befana, tucks toys under their pillows as she searches for the Christ Child. In all these stories (and there are many more), the most important thing is mot to decide what's real and what's make-believe, All of them hold so much truth about Christmag. Even the make-believe parts of these stories tell the truth about giving, about making others happy, about behaving right, about believing in the best things of life.
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THESE SPIRITUAL things are hard to explain. Yet they are the most real things in life. Because of them we love other people—our brothers and sisters, our parents, our friends, our teachers, and anyone who
may need our help. mim
More people feel these spiritual things and pass them along to others at Christmas than at other times. That's because Christ, more than anyone else, showed us how ,to share with others these wonderful gifts from God. That's what we mean by the spirit of Christmas. And it’s Christ’s birthday we celebrate at Christmas, even when: we talk about Santa Claus or La Befana' or Baboushka. Take Santa Claus. He goes back to a wonderful man named St. Nicholas who lived about 1600 years ago. So many stories are told about the good things he did for ‘others that he must have been like Santa Claus all vear 'round. Very little about him was written while he lived. We do know he became a great leader in the church at Myra. That's a city in Asia Minor (Turkey today) a few hundred miles from where Christ was born. o ” »
MOST OF WHAT we believe about St. Nicholas is what people have told about. him, and it is all good. As people told his story, they got the idea of Santa Claus and of giving gifts at Christmas. His father was a rich bishop in the church, and his mother often went to church to pray. So did young Nicholas. He studied the Bible and did his best to understand it. When his parents left him their money, hé decided to give it all away. He heard of a man who had lost his money, whose three Jaughters wanted to marry but couldn't. They had ho dowry. One night Nicholas tip-toed to their home and dropped n ‘bag of gold into the open window. Soon the oldest daughter was married. Later another bag of gold came, and the second daughter found a good husband. The father wondered who
® was being so kind to his family. So he hid each night near the window of his youngest daugh-
.
THE THREE YI: MEN—They still visit Spain.
ter. One night he saw a dark figure carrying a bag of gold. He grabbed the- figure to see who it was. Of course, it was Nicholas. : » Ld n SOME SAY Nicholas dropped the gold down the chimney, instead of through the window, and that the youngest daughter had hung up a stocking to catch it. That could be why we hang up our stockings at Christmas,
Anyway, folklore says Nicholas asked the father and his daughters to keep the secret. They did while Nicholas lived. Then the daughters told. People started giving gifts on St. Nicholas’ Day, the sixth of December. Later some people gave them at Christmas instead.
There are many other stories about St. Nicholas how his prayers saved a ship in a storm, how he found food for the starving people of Myra, how he became the young archbishop of the churches of Myra because of a dream one of the bishops had.
He became. the special saint of sailors, children, bankers, travelers and others. The people of Russia, Naples and other cities and countries chose him as their patron saint. Merchants put the sign of three purses of gold” on. their ships. People borrowed from the merchants, and three balls of gold became the mark of money-lenders. Nicholas has been painted in religious pictures more often than any other saint except Mary, mother of Jesus. Often he is shown with three children at his side.
MOST OF the children of Europe think of him as a man with a long white beard. He rides through the snow on a white horse carrying a basket of gifts. Some say he gives them to everyone. Others say they're only for the good children and he carries birch rods for the bad ones. Still others tell about Knecht Ruprecht (King _. Rupert) or Pelznickle, who come with St. Nicholas to punish the bad children. St. Nicholas is a favorite among the Dutch people. Some of them came across the ocean to New Amsterdam, now New York City. There they named their first church in honor of St. Nicholas. - They call him “San Nicolaas,” and if you say that fast enough, you can hear how we: first began calling him Santa Claus. 3 It was the Dutch, you know, who first brought the idea of Santa Claus to our country. They were also first to make him jolly instead of serious. Their Santa Claus was a happy fat fellow who sped through snowy air In a reindeer sleigh. J 8 ® WE DON'T KNOW exactiy where this reindeer idea came from, It might be from Lapland in northern Europe. Saint Nichnlag’ own country is warm. It never snows there, But the story
AT
ST. NICHOLAS
SANTA, 1860—By Thomas Nas!
of 8t, Nicholas spread to the north. In Lapland the people
use réindeer for everything—for-
meat, for milk, for leather, Rein-
deer also pull their sleds, Naturally they thought of St. Nicholas as driving reindeer when he brought gifts. So did the first Dutch to come to our country, even though they didn’t live so far north. Exactly 129 years ago today, Dr. Clement Moore wrote for nis children a poem about jolly St. Nicholas and his reindeer.
That poem has probably done more than anything else to give us our picture of Santa Claus. It's called “The Visit of St. Nicholas.” You know it better by its first line—“'Twas the night before Christmas.”
Dr. Moore was a little ashamed of it. He was a teacher in a college where ministers were trained, and he didn’t want them to know he was writing verses for children. But the daughter of a minister was in his home in New York City 129 years ago tonight when he read it to His children. She copied it. For a whole year she kept it like a secret treasure. Then she sent it to The Sentinel, a news-
paper in. Tr N. Y., which sprint e, 128 years ago.
hter who had
“The minister's kept the gecret written tHe poem, " = ”
TWENTY-TWO years later, Dr. Moore let out the secret. He had it printed in a book of kis poems. You know how famous it has become since then, and how many children
A Little Girl With Great Big Ideas—
‘Oh, Look at Me... .I'm Just Like My Mama’
OU can’t blame a gal for wanting to look pretty. Epecially when khe’s already cute, with full, pink cheeks. Naturally she wants to look her best, or better. And a little lipstick always helps. So thought Ruth Ellen Oates, 26-month-old daughter of Bill Oates, Times photographer. When her mother wasn't looking, "Ruth Ellen exp lored “Mama's” purse and guess what she found. Two minutes and 20 smears later, Ruth Ellen was admiring her “cupid’s bow” in a hand mirror, just like “Mama.”
-England’s King ‘Records Greeting
LONDON, Dec.. 22 (UP)— Britain's King George VI will make his annual Christmas broadcast by recording this year, Buckingham palace announced, The palace said the decision was made on the advice of his doctors.
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IT GOES LIKE THIS—Ruth Ellen fries her
hana at’ ‘war paint."
SANTA CLAUS TODAY —Still jolly and
have learned to love it. Perhaps this poem has carried the spirit of Christ's birthday into more hearts than all of Dr. Moore's years of teaching. Christmas is like that. Santa Claus and all his helpers spread the spirit of Christmas. They show us that Christmas - is a time to be happy and make others happy.
In warmer countries, like Spain, the same spirit is spread by the Wise Men. The Spanish story is that the Wise Men go each year to Bethlehem to honor . the Christ Child. As they pass through Spain, they leave gifts for all good children.
On the eve of Twelfth Night, the children fill their shoes with straw for the Wise Men's horses. (We . usually think of the Wise Men as riding camels, but the children of Spain believe they ride horses through their country.) The Spanish children put their shoes outside their windows and go to bed early.
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NEXT MORNING the straw is gone, and the shoes are filled with presents. Sometimes rich people help the Wise Men give presents to poor children.
Italian children tell about La Befa She. was an old lady who" lived in a cottage near a highway. She had come there to forget how sickness had taken her husband and her child. La Befana thought it best to take care of herself and not get into other people's business. For hours she sat and looked at the sky and wondered
"PAGE 5
‘Santa Is’ Known In Many Lands
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about nature. She did not often wonder about people—except about a king who, she heard, would rule men’s hearts.
One night three men in fine clothes asked her where Bethlehem was. They said some-’ thing about a baby there. They spoke of a star which was guiding them. Next a shepherd came by and asked: “Are you going to Bethlehem?” The shepherd told her about the king who would rule men’s hearts. 8he had never heard of Bethlehem, but later she: started out to find it.
As gifts, she carried two toys> : that had belonged to her child. The three men and the shep--herds had gone. She could not - find the way. Ever since she has been searching for the: Christ child.
On Twelfth Night she goes from house to house, bringing gifts to children in the hope she: will find the right child. » ” y RUSSIAN children call her Baboushka. They used to believe in her. Maybe some of them still do.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if they did? And wouldn’t it be wonderful if enough grownups all around the world really believed in Baboushka or “Kris Kringle or Santa Claus or whoever spreads the spirt of Christmas in their countries?
Because {if they did, men: everywhere could live in peace= and happiness. We'd have the’ Christmas spirit all year long. The story of 8anta Claus would have the happy ending it was meant to have. And it will—if enough of us believe,
ISN'T IT PRETTY—And adm of "woman's best friend."