Joseph F. “Doby” Edwards, 32°
1144 W. Edwards Lane
Benson, Arizona 85602–8029

The author remembers a very special holiday gift
from his grandfather.

My grandfather, Walter Doyle, was a member of Warren Lodge No. 147 in the small hamlet of Hudson, Michigan. Grandpa, a farmer, never aspired to be Master of his Lodge, but when the Brethren needed something handmade or repaired, they called on him for over 30 years.

Much is learned about desire during lean times. Realizing Providence sometimes replaces the unattainable with something even more prized requires years of maturity. Herein lies the theme of this 1939 holiday story recalling those impoverished days in America.

Late in the Great Depression, most of my clothes were homemade, and my shoes were fixed again and again in Grandpa’s shop. My “Gramma,” Nettie Doyle, administered home haircuts with love, and we ate well from simple farm fare.

During one of Grandma’s shopping trips near Christmas, we hurried through the Sears-Roebuck store. I pulled loose as we passed within view of the toy department. Wandering through the aisles, I came upon the most-prized toy of that time, the electric train. I paused and had a fanciful vision of the toy under our Christmas tree. But, there was no possibility of that, for rural electrification hadn’t come anywhere near our farm.

Next to the electric train sat a windup model consisting of a sleek black-and-silver engine, bright red-and-silver passenger cars, accompanied by a set of detachable track links.

A faint hope emerged that I might get the windup model. Suddenly, a strong grip on my arm spun me around, and Grandma, checking size, held a pair of bib overalls to my frame.

“ Lookee, Gramma, it’s the train I want,” I said pleadingly while pointing to the toy. But abruptly we moved on, and all I heard were mumbles of, “We’ul see, we’ul see.”

School wound down to its mid-winter break, and the last day was devoted to singing carols, cutting out red Santa and green Christmas tree profiles, and stringing popcorn on thread. Santa visited the school, and I recognized my uncle Orville Doyle, the Master at Warren Lodge, and his Masonic Brothers handing out an apple and a small brown sack of hard candy to each child. Such gifts were all the children received that holiday.

As the rickety wooden school hack bumped along gravel roads on the way home, I thought of the windup train. I had a vision of Santa opening his pack by the tree where boughs tinkled with ornaments and shimmering tinsel. From out of his pack came the black engine with a chrome key on its side, then the red-and-silver cars, and, finally, a bundle of track.

A soggy mitten slid past my face ending the vision. My friend Kenneth sitting behind me leaned forward whispering, “I’m a getting’ the big ole red fire truck we was a lookin’ at in the catalog.”
I said, “I ain’t sure I’m getting’ the train I wants, ‘cause Gramma said, ‘If wishes were horses, sure an’ the beggars ‘ud be a ridin.’ And that’s all she’d say.”

Christmas Eve, after milking and supper, Grandma whisked me up to my loft room and warned, “Santee don’t come ‘til the wee ones are fast asleep. Now be sayin’ yer prayers fer ‘em youngens without a warm bed the likes ‘o yours!” She turned down the lamp wick and backed out the door saying, “Sweet dreams, laddy!”

Next morning, the sitting-room stove cracked and popped as I sat cross-legged before the Christmas tree. On the end of each bough, tiny candles sat unlit. A few brightly wrapped packages lay on a white bed sheet covering the tree base. Between the packages, a little wooden train lay snuggled in the sheet’s folds. It was no fanciful dream, just a plain wooden engine with red drive wheels, pulling a wooden coal car, followed by a tanker car, a boxcar, and caboose—all coupled with screw hooks.

I pulled the little train out onto the oval braided rag rug, and a momentary sadness engulfed me. A tear formed in my eye. As I reached for a tiny rectangular tag on a red string trailing from the caboose, a wrinkled hand came over my shoulder and grasped mine. Gramma said softly, “Yer Granpa made ‘at in his shop fer you. Now don’t be a showin’ no disappointment, lad. Sure an’ there’s no boy got a train handmade by his granpa!”

Upon returning to school, I heard stories of fire trucks and dump trucks, but none of these toys were lovingly fashioned by the expert hands of an Irish Freemason grandfather. The little rectangular tag on a bright red string read, “To Doby from Santee.”