Christmas In The Shenandoah Valley Of Virginia

                           

Since 1726, most of my mother’s family has been blessed by being able to live their lives in the shadow of the Massanutten Mountain which lies in the middle of our beautiful and beloved Shenandoah Valley. 

The Shenandoah Valley is divided into two smaller valleys by the Massanutten or Peaked Mountain which is a complex ridge that extends for a distance of approximately fifty miles from Strasburg southwest to Harrisonburg. The main valley, just south of Strasburg, is about five miles wide and is drained by the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, while the narrower Page Valley is drained by the South Fork of the Shenandoah River and is approximately less than a mile and a half wide at the Town of Overall which was once the antebellum Town of Milford. In reality, there are two valleys within a valley. 

I am positive that most of you are aware that today’s Interstate 81 borders the western side of the Massanutten with US Routes 33 and 340 bordering the eastern side.  This is important because the geography of an area has a profound effect upon the human history of that area. We know that the oldest rocks in the Blue Ridge are to be found in the eastern part of Rockingham County near the vicinity of Swift Run Gap or the area which Virginia’s Governor Spotswood explored in his 1716 journey across the “blue mountains.”

There are basically two very old roads running into this geographic area: The Warrior’s Trace also known as the Great Wagon Road which runs from north to south and enters the Shenandoah Valley from Pennsylvania and Maryland [basically today’s Interstate 81] and the road which crosses the Blue Ridge to eastern Virginia [basically Rt. 33].  Hills, ridges and streams provided many secondary routes of travel during the early years of settlement.  Much of the Valley’s early commerce such as grain, wool, lumber, and tanning bark moved down the forks of the Shenandoah River to ports further north and also to the east.

People of various nationalities made their way into the Shenandoah Valley using these two major pathways resulting in our people being multi-lingual.  Two newspapers were read in the Valley prior to the American Revolution: the German paper out of Philadelphia and the English paper from Williamsburg.

We all know that our area was physically invaded, burned with many farms and businesses  totally destroyed less than one hundred years after the Revolution during the War Between the States. The following engagements are long remembered by Valley residents: 1862- First Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, First Winchester, Port Republic 1863- Lee’s Gettysburg Campaign, Second Winchester, Manassas Gap 1864- Lynchburg Campaign, New Market, Piedmont, Lynchburg, Early’s Maryland Campaign, Monocacy, Cool Springs, Rutherford’s Farm, Second Kernstown, Sheridan’s Shenandoah Campaign, Guard Hill, Tom’s Brook, Cedar Creek 1865 - Sheridan’s Expedition to Petersburg and Waynesboro. If we are very lucky, we do remember memories and stories our own grandparents shared with us about their own childhood, exactly as they lived it here within our beautiful Shenandoah Valley.  My grandfather was born the 18th of December 1893 or only sixteen years after the period of “marshall law” had come to an end in Military District One which was, the Commonwealth of Virginia. Exactly what was Christmas like in this area which had experienced such devastation?  Why do children remember certain things from their childhood? What makes one day stand out as being special in a child’s memory? When I was a child, I did take the time to ask my grandfather about his Christmas.  He picked me up and sat me down upon his knee and said, “Well, you know, Christmas was different back then.  We lost so much during the war that… well, we were very poor.  Santa came to see us, but he only left an orange, some nuts and a little candy in each of our stockings… .” After a moment’s pause, he went on to explain that his mother got up a little earlier than usual to start their special Christmas breakfast.  The way he said, “special Christmas breakfast,” let me know that this was, indeed, important to him. With a smile on his face, he continued, “On Christmas Eve day, Momma always baked her special  applesauce cake with the black walnuts in it that we children had gathered and cracked for her in the evenings after supper as we sat around the fireplace before we went to bed. We could hardly sleep that night as we thought about eating the cake that had made the whole house smell so good. We always had eggs, meat, oatmeal, hot breads, butter, jams and fruit pies for breakfast; but on Christmas morning, Momma always fried the gallon of oysters daddy had gotten for our breakfast.  As I grew older, I made a point of asking other older folk about their childhood memories of Christmas.  I soon discovered that all shared just about the exact same basic memories.  It seemed that all mommas also baked a coconut cake sometime during the week of Christmas.  Sometimes this special cake was baked on Christmas Day or shortly thereafter. Most families decorated this cake with candied orange peel or made orange marmalade from the orange rinds to go between this cake’s layers.  Of course, they had to drain the milk from the coconut and then crack the shell, peel the brown skin from the fresh coconut and then shred it to put on the freshly baked cake. Eventually, I understood that in my grandfather’s generation, Christmas gifts were for the benefit of the whole family.  Boys received guns, knives, etc. as they acquired the skills necessary to use these items correctly and had an actual need for them. Girls learned to sew, knit, crochet, and embroidery about the same time their brothers were learning the manly skills necessary for every day success in their lives.  They received crochet hooks, knitting and sewing needles as the need arose. Brazil nuts, chocolate drops, peanut brittle, and pink and white coconut candies filled the areas in the children’s stockings left by the round oranges. About 1900, boxed chocolate covered cherries were added to the above as a specialty candy available for the whole family to enjoy during the Christmas holidays. All of you who have been in one of my classes or lectures, have heard me say repeatedly that you absolutely, positively cannot judge the past upon today’s values. The Christmas holidays are an excellent example as to why this should never be done. How many of you have heard the common phrase, “Why, our family was so poor that we only received an orange for Christmas?”  If you persisted in asking  what else was in the stockings, the answer would be that it also contained a few Brazil nuts and some candy. While these statements are very true, they are also very deceptive as to what they tell about those holidays.  Let’s step back and remember that both of the major roadways into the Shenandoah Valley were not hard surfaced but were dirt and gravel pathways.   Let’s also take into consideration that Christmas is a winter holiday and add our winter weather to the road situation.  Add to the above facts, we know from written records that it was literally one day’s journey by stage coach from the Golden Horseshoe Tavern at the base of the Blue Ridge in present day Greene County to the Shipp Tavern near the base of the Blue Ridge in Rockingham County.   Now, let us carefully consider the reality of the Christmas gifts as described above: 1. The nearest oysters live in the Atlantic Ocean and had to be gathered, shucked of their shells and packed in a container to be brought to the Shenandoah Valley to be prepared for Christmas breakfast.  2. Brazil nuts are rich in dietary minerals, fiber, vitamin E, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, zinc, thiamin, and selenium.  Even today, six of these nuts supply ten times the adult recommended level. These nuts grow on large trees in Guianas, Venezuela, Brazil, eastern Columbia, eastern Peru, and eastern Bolivia. They also occur in large scattered trees on the banks of the Amazon River, Rio Negro, Tapajos, and the Orinoco. 3. Any kind of candy was considered special because it contained sugar which was not grown in the Shenandoah Valley.  Molasses was available and many families would make taffy.  Molasses and honey were also used on hot breads. 4. Scurvy is a serious disease which is caused by a diet that lacks vitamin C. Patients develop anemia, debility, exhaustion, edema or swelling in parts of the body and sometimes ulceration of the gums resulting in loss of teeth.  During the American Revolution men could not serve in the military if they had no teeth because they could not eat military rations of hard-tack, dried corn, etc.  Eighty-six years later, during the War Between the States, scurvy was still considered a serious disease.  Citrus fruit was known to help prevent scurvy; therefore, a gift of an orange could prevent scurvy. Sailing ships carrying oranges which originated in China and had then spread to the Mediterranean area, could take months to travel to the United States.  It was not unusual for one half of the orange cargo to rot before they reached their destination. This caused the orange to be a very expensive item. At Christmas, many folk remembered family members who were no longer with them and tried very hard to make Christmas time memorable for their own children.  It is important for us, living today to remember that an orange was more expensive than the best mountain bike of today.  Most of our families were farmers who were doing their best just to rebuild their lives and educate their children. If you then add in the cost of the oysters, coconut, candy and nuts it is easy to understand that a family worked all year just to give their family members things that were very special on Christmas. One other thing always comes to mind as I remember the way mom’s family celebrated Christmas: two large country hams were always served.  Granddaddy always had a two year old ham for “his” Christmas dinner and, in addition, my grandmother always cooked her ham which was only one year old.  Indeed, they seemed to enjoy teasing each other about the quality of their respective choices. Perhaps, it had nothing to do with Grandmother’s family being of a Germanic heritage and while my Granddad’s family was of Scotch-Irish descent. At Christmas, I choose to give boxes of chocolate covered cherries to honor the memory of my grandfather and yes, we still serve fried oysters, a country ham and the traditional coconut cake.