Happy Holidays from all of us at the Pitt Meadows Museum and Archives. We were lucky enough to receive some of Don Merkley’s Christmas Cards when he was writing them in the 90’s. These cards were full of stories of his childhood, and we think that in the spirit of the holiday, we should celebrate these memories.

 

What follows are his stories:

 

 

Right after supper, the snow stopped falling, so my brother Harold and I trudged over to Bill and Bob’s house and hollered until they came out. While the four of us were standing in the snow, deciding what to do, their older brother Doug went by, heading for the barn, and we all followed him, single file. He harnessed up their grey mare in the pitch-dark, then hooked her up to their long ladder. We all got on, and away we went!

 

We sneaked past their house and turned west towards the tall trees far in the distance. Once there, deep in the forest, we veered off the road onto a crescent driveway that led past old Gordon and Elsie’s house. Silently, and unnoticed, we sledded past their front window, eventually returning to the road and heading homeward. On the way we made a short detour past old Tom’s granary where we scooped a few hands full of oats into a gunny-sack. Back at the barn we hung the harness on its peg; and gave old Polly a rub-down with the empty sack. She sounded happy. Then we hung the ladder back on the fence.

 

No one had seen us. No one had heard us. It started to snow again; very hard. It was late. We all went home to our beds.

 

                                Merry Christmas:

                                                                Don ‘89

 

 

 

 

There’s Jitters, Bob and Bill, Jock and Willie, and Harold and I. We’re all around 12 and 14 and we built this tree-house during the spring and summer. Now, in winter, we hold meetings around a fold-down table, deciding how next best to terrorize the neighbourhood.

 

To the right of the trap door is an open cupboard, bare mostly, except for the top shelf which permanently holds a 2 lb. package of green tea and a very large bundle of bamboo chopsticks; both donated. The lower shelf holds a Gramophone and a stack of records with good titles like “Aunt Martha and Uncle Josh putting up the kitchen stovepipes.” And “Official Army Bugle Calls.” Side 1 and Side 2. Opposite the cupboard is a little pot-bellied stove. We make pop-corn in a shaker over a fire kindled with chopsticks and fuelled with little rounds of dead Vine-maple.

 

At our last meeting, we decided to have Xmas dinner in the fort and all our parents seemed really pleased and each outdid the other. None of them have much money because of the Depression and except for pepper and salt, everything came off their farms. We had two roast chickens, stuffed; mashed potatoes; gravy; carrots; and peas and turnip and brussel sprouts; pickles and relish; cheese and honey and jelly; plus jugs of fresh milk. We ate every single bit. Then we finished off with apple pie and mince-pie and sponge cake which we washed down with mugs of freshly made green tea.

 

What a feast! We took all the dirty dishes home for them to wash. 

 

                                Merry Christmas

                                                Don ‘90

 

 

 

My brother is ten and I’m twelve and we got up before daylight and peeked through a hole scratched in the frost-fern to see if it was snowing.  It’s just clear and cold. We lit the kindling in the big air-tight heater, snatched a couple of presents from under the Xmas tree, then hopped back into bed.

 

After breakfast with the family, and the tree over, we went out to the wood-shed and wired on our stilts. Hay-wire twisted with pliers is the only way to keep them tight when playing soccer, but it cuts off the circulation a bit. We went over to see what Bob and Bill got, then all decided to hike the half-mile to the Alouette River to walk on the ice. Just then their Mom came out on the porch with a sewing-machine and said, “Boys, this has to go to Mrs. Smart, right away.” Parents don’t tell us how, so after a bit Harold went and brought his old wagon and away we went, two miles there, and right back again. We were nearly frozen!

 

It’s after dinner now; I don’t know what the other boys are doing, but I’m still thawing out my toes by the stove, while reading my new Boy’s Own Annual; and writing you this letter.

 

                                Merry Christmas

                                                Don ‘91

 

 

 

After I put up our tree this morning, Mom handed me an express-parcel to deliver to the C.P.R., down by the Fraser River. I set off with a couple of apples in my jacket; it’s a two-mile hike. I was resting on the wharf, finishing off my second Northern-spy, when Dave came along the tracks carrying a hatchet, planning to cross the river to cut a tree and asked what I was doing. “Nothing.” I said.

We emptied his dugout of rainwater and rotting leaves, chopped some paddles, and set off. The water was clear and green, unlike the roily freshet. Little pans of ice floated by from far upriver. We beached near an old farmhouse and Dave went inside; I waited at the gate, cracking some nuts with the hatchet. It was getting cold when he finally came out, warm and dry; full of milk and cookies. He said his friend Hamilton had sent to Ontario for the nut tree, a hard-shelled almond. We crossed the road to a bog, chopped down a big jack-pine, loaded it across the canoe and set off with one inch of freeboard only. We lugged it up Carr’s Hill to his house and put a stand on it.

 

It was dark when I got home, cold and wet, tired and hungry. Mom asked what I’d been doing. “Nothing.” I said. I ate my supper and went up to my bed.

 

                                Merry Christmas

                                                Don ‘92

 

 

 

During the holidays it snowed a lot, then It froze. Now the roads are all icy ruts and the cars can’t travel, so we kids have Laity Hill all to ourselves. Our gang, and everybody else around, take their sleds there everyday but new snow fell last night, about an inch, and now everything is extra slippery. It’s too hard to pull our sleds back up again so we took the two strongest ones and spiked them to a twenty-foot ladder, just one spike at the front so we could steer it.

 

We started at Piler’s Corner with the biggest kids pushing. Everyone was on and we were going lickety-split when we went past Blackstock Road and the runners sounded like a freight-train by the time we passed Laity’s laneway. There was no way we could stop it, or get off.

 

It’s a half-mile ride, and we were still going like greased-lightning when we hit the ruts at Smart’s Corner. The runners all sheared off, the ladder broke, and we all piled up against their bob-wire fence. Nobody got killed but we could have!

We dragged the wreck into the farm-yard then we all hobbled home along the lower road, laughing and singing and joking and talking loud the whole way.

Boy, did we have fun!

 

                                Happy new Year,

                                                Don ‘93

 

 

 

  

Since Christmas 1989 I’ve been writing recollections of boy-hood events that stretched from 1931 to 1936. These six cards were illustrated by four different artists who carefully depicted these events from my primitive sketches.

Now, I’ve decided to pursue some other projects begging attention; otherwise it could be Christmas cards to the year 2000, as there is no lack of subject matter. It has been a lot of fun!

 

Hoping this finds you happy and well, with all the best for the coming year.

                                Merry Christmas

                                                Don ‘95