Echoes of Mercy, Whispers of Love

According to my mother, there were times when the teachers at school asked if they could adopt us for Christmas. My dad was very proud, and declined, saying it was nobody’s business, and he did not want charity. One Christmas during my second grade year, my mother accepted. I think perhaps a few years before this, a few teachers had also delivered presents, although our dad did not like it at that time either. She told my dad what she had done, and that the children deserved to have a good Christmas. I’m sure they argued, but she stood her ground. The gifts from the teachers were delivered, and were hidden somewhere out of sight. I could never quite figure out where they could have been hidden, because our house was small. Later, I thought perhaps they may have been in the attic. That particular Christmas I received a stuffed reindeer with a large red nose. I named the reindeer Rudy. This gift, however, was not to last long.

It was in January, 1952, which was my second year of school when our home burned to the ground. It was shortly after the same Christmas that I had received Rudy, My dad had awakened and had gone outside to use the outhouse. What happened next was catastrophic. On the way back to the house, he saw the flames. He ran inside, calling out to awaken everyone. A few months previously, my dad had purchased a car. He quickly backed it away from the house so that we could take shelter inside the car. It was then that our mother noticed that my twin sisters were missing. My dad had awakened them, but they had both gone back to sleep. My dad ran back inside the house to successfully rescue my sisters. We were all wearing our sleeping clothes and it was cold. Inside the car we waited for the firetruck as we watched the flames leaping from the roof, but there was nothing they could do to save a thing.

Before the firemen arrived, my dad remembered that he had placed some money from the sale of two hogs in the top drawer of the chest in their bedroom. He couldn’t afford to lose the money. He crawled on his stomach through two rooms to try to retrieve it. He was overcome by smoke so the firemen used a noose-type hook around his ankle to pull him from the burning and smoke engulfed house. My sisters almost perished, my dad almost died from smoke inhalation, and my stuffed reindeer was now gone. I sobbed, because that was the first new toy I had ever received.