What Christmas looked like in Owensboro 100 years ago
The celebration of the Christmas holidays has evolved — a lot – through the years here in Owensboro-Daviess County.
Modern traditions that we have grown to take for granted include the beautiful decorations at Smothers Park, including our community Christmas tree and the festive lights synchronized to music. Most of us have enjoyed driving through Panther Creek Park to “ooh” and “ahh” at the lighted displays there, and perhaps we have taken a detour through Stonegate and other neighborhoods whose residents do a wonderful job of decorating for the holidays.
Our annual Christmas Parade, billed as the first of the season in Kentucky, is scheduled for November 22, with a theme of “It’s Christmastime in the City.”
Even though Owensboro did not yet have a Christmas Parade, it certainly was “Christmastime in the City” of Owensboro 100 years ago.
The signature event of 1925 was a performance by the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra, touted at that time as the only such orchestra in the state. This concert, which raised money to benefit children who might otherwise be forgotten by Santa Claus, featured mezzo soprano Elizabeth Yager, who also served as choir director at Fourth Street Presbyterian Church; and Mrs. Lillian May Flaherty, orchestra business manager and pianist. They were among the 35 musicians performing under the direction of concert violinist Professor George Vestal that December.
As parents (and, no doubt, students) are well aware, Christmas Break for both city and county public school students begins December 20 this year, with classes not resuming until January 5. A century ago, Owensboro Public Schools children attended school all the way up until December 23, with their final days in school kept busy with decorating classrooms and trees, collecting items to be distributed to their more unfortunate peers, exchanging gifts, and performing plays, singing carols, and presenting seasonal readings.
Students in the Daviess County district attended classes all the way up until Christmas Eve — and returned to school on December 31!
Of course, the tradition of gift giving has remained a constant throughout the years, although there has been quite an evolution in the kinds of gifts that were most popular a century ago. Not too many people wrap and exchange boxes of cigars and cigarettes these days, nor, perhaps, do fruit and nuts hold the same delight for children of today as they did for our ancestors when they were young. One hundred years ago, a load of coal was considered an outstandingly generous (and appreciated) gift — a far cry from the quaint threats of giving coal to children on the “naughty” list!
But some things never change.
A photograph on the front page of the Owensboro Messenger on December 25, 1925, confidently confirmed that Santa Claus was — and is — the “Most Popular Man in the World.”
But there is another, more meaningful, truth that has endured.
In a tribute that has echoed through the ages, not only 100 years ago but for more than 2,000 years, an article published on Christmas Eve 1925 reminds readers of yesterday and today:
“Any man celebrating the birthday of some great earthly hero feels at least a desire to do something to be worthy, something worthwhile. This solemn day of anticipation the day when the bright star shone in the heavens, guiding the travelers from afar, should inspire every man with a noble ambition to do SOMETHING, however little. Does any man ask in true humility, ‘What can I do to be worthy even in the humblest way of such a day as this?’ The answer is plainly written: ‘Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.’” OL
