Mom's Letters to Grandma and Grandpa Trump

While we were going through things after dad died we found a file with letters mom had written to Grandma and Grandpa Trump while they were on a "work" mission to Hawaii. I am so glad grandma kept these letters and gave them back to mom because they are a fascinating look into mom's life while she and dad were in medical school. Imagine starting medical school with five children and having two more while in school. All the while living in a tiny cinderblock apartment in Stadium Village, the student housing for the University of Utah.

A couple of years bfore med school.

I would have loved to have read these when I was a young mother and told the nieces and nephews I would record them for all to read.

Dec. 5, 1960

Dear Dad and Mother,

Merry Christmas! We have about 6 or 8 inches of snow outside and it is about 25 degrees. We really had a storm and all the roads were slippery ad right now the world is just beautiful. I am finally getting ready for Christmas. I haven't heard from you for so long I still don't know what to send you but i guess you are even busier that I. Bruce si working hard on finals which come in two weeks. He will be out of school the 17th and i thing Roark will be out of school about the 22or 23. it is really fun. I finally got a skirt and vest made for Jeanne and now I have to get Jayne' made. Their dolls this Christmas are so small it makes me swear every time I start to sew for them but it is fun.

We were quite upset about David when we heard of his sickness. That would be so miserable and we do hope all is all right with him now. The first six months are the hardest according to many returned missionaries. 

We are all well and fee so blessed. I had a stomach upset and stayed down for most of one day but i am fine now. If i just wouldn't gain so much weight i"m sure I would feel even better. I haven't really gained an awfully lot but it is too much and fora more than is necessary. I finally finished my maternity outfit and it is so pretty. In fact I like the material so well i hate to see it in maternity clothes. We went to Mother and Dad N's for Thanksgiving and it was very nice. Nancy had a little baby boy (I think I told you) and Ann and Bob were there so were 14 grandchildren and the oldest was 5 years. That is quite a collection. The children were remarkably good and, of course I thought ours were the best behaved. Stacey is so cute. We just love her but she is really becoming a little hellion ofa two year old. The other day I was changing the bed linen and I had the clean sheets on the bench. she was awfully quiet and when I checked on her she had spread a sheet out and was sprinkling it with the milk in her bottle. She was doing a very good job I might add but I didn't was milky sheets. Right now she got into the crackers and was passing them out to Jeanne and Jayne and their tow friends they have visiting them. The children have such a hard time because there just isn't much room and they just don't know what to do with themselves. Brett is visiting his friend and Jeanne and Jayne wanted to go. I thing three children is too much to invade any one household, in fact two children are a lot but these girls that are here are quite close in age and the older one couldn't come because the younger one put up such a fuss and then wouldn't have anyone to play with. So they both came and have been good. one is the twins age and the other is Brett's age. the children are growing up so much it doesn't seem possible. For the first time the other day Roark said he wanted to be a doctor. Bruce tied a piece of narrow rubber tubing around his are, (you know how they they do when they draw blood from your arm) and showed hi how to find the veins and then did it on Scot and me and Roark was quite impressed. Roark is quick but actually too quick and doesn't take enough time to observe. Scot is very slow and observes everything. Both of them decided after Bruce left that they would like to be a doctor. Bob gets a little discouraged because Scot isn't at all impressed that he is going to be a lawyer but he is very thrilled with the fact that Bruce will be a doctor and can do thing on him right now. I wish you could see this Stacey and watch her. She is the cutest thing. She is learning to say a few words and she is just a mast at facial expressions. She has picked up so many actions and expressions from Brett it is funny. That Brett is a joy too. He'll come up to me and say "I love you Mama, I lobe Grandpa Trump too." He has asked several toe when Grandpa Trump will be home and why he is in Hawaii. He is the hardest on of all and yet in many ways he is so easy. All he wants for Christmas is a "cockin rifle". He wont be able to cock it, but that is what he wants. His little mind just amazed us it reasons so well. He is a quiet little boy most of the time and then it seems as if all hell breaks loose.

Stacey just saw the bus is waiting to go outside to meet Roark. She is so thrilled when he gets home. Brett just came home and seven children all talking at the same time is just too many so I will close and get the two girls off to their homes and get lunch for mine before they starve to death.

We love you and would so love to hear from you. We know you are busy. I don't think I have ever wanted you to be home as much as I have this Christmas and for this baby. We still don't know quite how we are going to manage the children. We have been so blessed I really don't worry but I do wish you were going to be here. Take care of yourself and write. (I just wrote to David and I have written him two letters. Don't worry about my writing. I will try to write once a week. Now That i know he gets his letters twice a week I will try Harder. If I didn't get a letter off in time to get to him on Saturday I just wait until the next time.

You have a birthday coming up, Dad, can you thing of anything you'd like us to send you. We love you so much and would like to show you in some tangible way. How are you feeling. Is your weight down enough for me to make some candy for you?

Love,
All of us

Healing is Hard

I wrote my last post about Dad's funeral at the airport as I was waiting for a flight to St. Louis to be there for Matt and Erin and family after their car accident.  It was almost three weeks after the funeral and this post is almost three weeks after I got back. I am just a little slow.

Matt texted us on Saturday, February 13 to say they were OK but had been in an accident and were in an ambulance on the way to the ER to have Ian checked out. Along with the text he sent this picture:

They were going about 30 mph through a green light and the car on the right had a flashing yellow light. The driver was on his cell phone and got confused when the car behind him honked. He turned into Matt and Erin's Pilot, hitting them head on.

As soon as Ian got out of the Pilot he collapsed to the ground and said his stomach really hurt. The EMTs checked them all out and decided they needed take Ian to the ER and have him looked out. The next thing we heard was that they had decided to send Ian to the St. Louis Children's hospital and have him checked out there. The doctors thought they saw some fluid in Ian's belly on a CAT scan but they weren't sure, he was still in a lot of pain, was throwing up and started to run a fever. 

The doctors there decided to admit him and watch him overnight. By late the Sunday morning Ian's fever was higher, he was still throwing up and morphine wasn't helping the pain. The trauma pediatric surgeon told Erin he thought he needed to go in and take a look. He could do it lapriscopically and the best case scenario would be there would be nothing wrong, but he was worried there might be damage to an intestine.

Almost three hours later Matt called us and said that Ian was out of surgery. Of course we were waiting anxiously for news. I have to admit even though I knew Matt would let us know as soon as he heard something, I texted a few times for updates. The surgeon had to repair a hole in Ian's lower intestine and his colon was crushed up against his spine. The surgeon spent a lot of time making sure there were no holes in the colon as well. Thankfully there were not. Matt sent this picture of Ian in the recovery room.

Those are restraints on his arms so he couldn't pull out his nose tube and IV lines. 

I was ready to jump on a plane that afternoon, but Erin wanted her sister Cathy to come first and then I would come to help when Ian got out of the hospital. I waited until the next Saturday to come, but it was hard.

Ian was in the hospital for eight days making, what seemed at the time, slow progress as we realized how severely injured he was. They had to put a PIC line in to get him nutrients because he couldn't eat anything. He had to be sedated while they did this and for some reason this put us all on edge. While they were putting the PIC line in they found he also had a collapsed lung so pneumonia was a worry until he could get it re inflated. This required all kinds of respiratory therapy that was very painful to Ian's poor abused belly. It was harder that anything a nine year old should have to do.

I finally got there late Saturday night. As I worried, prayed and worried some more I needed something to do. Ian's favorite quilt was an old ratty whole cloth tied quilt that Mom and I made for Matt's bed when he was Ian's age. I refused to mend it any more the last time I was there. I had started a scrappy "Trip Around the World" quilt last year but didn't like the way it was going, so I put it away for while. After dad died I figured out how to fix it and worked on it as kind of therapy for myself. It was almost three quarters pieced when we got the news about the accident. To take my mind off of the worry I finished the quilt so Ian would have a new comfy cozy quilt to recuperate under. I decided to use fleece for the back so it would be soft against Ian's skin. I figured I had over 60 years of scraps in that quilt: vintage fabric from the 40s, fabric from mom's stash and from my own stash. I used Halloween, Christmas, Easter, baby, Charlie Brown, Hawaiian, and tons of florals and prints, at least 150 different fabrics. I called it "I Spy" because every time you looked you could find something different. This is the only picture I got of the quilt, but it says it all.

Furnerals and Family Reunions

I have to finish dad's furneral before I can write about Matt and Erin 's accident. 

The best part of furnerals is the family reunion that happens. Lots of pictures were taken as cousins reunited. Dad's furneral was as much a time to celebratie as a time to mourn.

It was totally unplanned, but John and I ended up sitting by mom during the fureral and my children and their families filled in the row behind us. When I heard Ezra, Travis, and Lily singing the opening song together and turned to see the sharing the same hymn book I became a little teary. 

We even got a pretty decent family picture taken by Leslie. It doesn't happen very often that everyone is in their Sunday best at the same time.  

All the cousins that could come did, even though some of the spouses had to stay home. Colby and Seth were the only one who couldn't come. Seth just left for Germany and Colby had a new rotation he could leave. 

Most of my cousins came to the fureral.. Guy picture: back row; Roark, Brett, Chris, Scott, John; front row; Uncle Bob, Aunt Maxine, mom, Steve Engebretsen, and Brad Ipsen ( Suzanne's husband.) 

I think mom looks so alone in these pictures even though she is surrounded by family and has been without dad for so long. It seems the death of a beloved spouse is even more lonelier than the mere separation of illness and dementia.

Girl picture: back row; Barbara Gustavesen, carol Van Wagoner, Julie, Ann, Melanie: front row: Susan Gustavesen, Suzanne, Aunt Maxine, mom, Jayne, me, Shelley: floor: Stacey. 

I love this picture with the Scott and Julie Nevilles: left to right, Jayne, Julie, me, Scott, Roark, Brett, Stacey, Chris, Shelley, Suzanne, and Ann.  We were very close as children even though we only saw each other once or twice a year. Julie was one of the rare individuals who was able to join Jayne and my twinship with no perceived slights for anyone. 

 

Thoughts and Pictures of the Week Dad Died

Some highlights of dads death and funeral week

Chris and Meg and family visited Dad on December 31st. I was surprised how tender Ezra, 

Travis and Maggie were with dad. I was a little worried the visit would freak them out, but they seemed fine. The expressions on their faces are very indicative of what they were thinking. I think this is the last picture taken of dad. Chris has since said he was glad they took the time to visit. He looked pretty bad. I don't know if I want to remember dad this way and may delete this picture. 

Mom and I went to see dad the day before he died. I spoke of part of this visit at the fureral. After we left dad's room, mom stopped to talk to some the the aides and residents. I went back to dad's room to see if he was still asleep. His eyes were open and he held up a hand. I went in and took it. He grasped my hand with a surprisingly firm grip and looked at me.  I kissed him and told him that I loved him and he was still my favorite dad.  His grip relaxed and his eyes closed so With one last look I went to find mom. As we were walking back to the car we both commented how poignant the visit seemed, but we didn't want to read too much into it. 

When Roark called the next night at 10:45, just after I got into bed, I knew he was going to tell me dad had died. My first thought was that dad did it. He finally passed through the veil and was whole again. I felt relief and joy.  Mom, Roark and Melanie, Brett and Kerri, Shelley, Ann, John and I gathered around dad's bedside. The aides had shaved him, changed him into a white shirt and smoothed the bed clothes. They told us that as they were getting him ready for bed, he took a rattley breath and died. It was completely unexpected but what we had been praying for. I had to hold his hand one last time, but he clearly wasn't there any longer. We all sat around dad with almost a giddy feeling of thankfulness, at times being maybe a little disrespectful of mom's tender feelings. 

The best part about dad's death was that all my children and grand children came for the funeral. Matt and Erin got in the car that weekend and drove straight through from St Louis. This meant so much to me because it has been really hard for Erin to think about driving cross country, but she did it anyway. They spent the first of the week with her sister Seana and came up to stay with us on Thursday. Chris and Meg stayed with Annnie. Both Matt and Chris brought their dogs so often we had 6 grandkids and 5 dogs including Annies's frolicking in our backyard snow. The snow as deep enough to sled down the stairs or ride the sleds over the big rocks to the soft (hopefully) snow below. They even hauled the sleds all the way up the hill behind the house and tried to ride them down, but it was more like pinballing off the trees than sledding. It did my grandma heart good to watch them. 

The morning of the visitation everyone but me met Thomas and Monica up Millcreek Canyon for a mountain adventure. Matt and Erin's kids don't have mountains where they live and they wanted to see them. I stayed home to work on my talk. When I saw these fun pictures I kind of wish I had gone with them, but I was stressing over my talk and it came together while everyone was gone. Notice you can see parts of five dogs in this picture. 

Dad's Furneral Talk

Mom wanted all seven of her children to talk at dad's funeral. This is my talk.


Mama often said that when she and dad got married they only had two things in common: love of the Lord and love of each other. These were the two constants in our lives. One family home evening dad talked about this scripture: Jacob 2:7-8

7 And also it grieveth me that I must use so much boldness of speech concerning you, before your wives and your children, many of whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate before God, which thing is pleasing unto God;

8 And it supposeth me that they have come up hither to hear the pleasing word of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul.

             Like Jacob.  Dad was always concerned his wife’s tender feelings and wouldn’t let us children be the cause of her wounded soul.  He loved and cherished her and we knew it. We never could get away with talking back to her or being disrespectful. That is the only time he got mad at us. Brett remembers dad throwing him down the stairs twice for sassing mom. Probably an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
            We children idolized dad. He was the fun parent. Poor mom was the boring stay at home parent that took care of the humdrum everyday things.  Sorry mom, it’s true. We got to do cool things with dad. We never realized what mom did behind the scenes to make dad so great.
Mom was taught by her mother who taught her that the needs of her husband should always come first. But that didn’t mean she was a door mat. One day after John and I were married mom spoke her mind about something and John said “so that’s where Jeanne gets it from”.
            Dad came home every day from the clinic for lunch and a nap. And mom, bless her heart made sure he had something to eat and took a nap with him. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I married for time and eternity, not for lunch. 
How mom got through medical school with 6 children and one on the way is beyond me. During most of their school years, mom wrote to her mother and step father, while they were on a mission to Hawaii where Grandpa Trump was doing sheet metal work for the temple grounds and Polynesian Cultural Center. One letter I read was dated May 23, 1961. In part she wrote:

This is a rough year and a good one to get over with. Bruce has enjoyed it so much altho (sic) the pressure kind of gets to you once in a while. We have been going around in circles lately. Did I tell you Brett fell off his trike and I had to have a stitch put in his head? Well, this was a few weeks ago and he is fine now but after that Jeanne came down with a strep throat about ten days ago and then last week Stacey came down with it and in the meantime Jayne had fallen down and just barely scraped her knee. I put a couple of band aids on it to protect it in case she fell down and I didn’t take it off until the next evening. It looked slightly inflamed then and by the next morning it was really infected. Bruce cleaned it out and said it was a staph infection. It seem to be getting worse so I called the doctor and had him call in some medicine for her so she was on oral medication and also a salve for her knee. Then----Last Saturday was cleanup day in the Village and Jeanne tripped over a trike and fell on a rake and split the skin on her knee. One of the rake tines went about two inches up into her leg and the doctor had to take four stiches in it to close the wound. He was cleaning it out with a syringe and it disappeared up the hole that the tine had left. We didn’t think it was too serious until he noticed that. It still needed attention but that type of wound is hard to heal. It seems to be healing beautifully tho (sic) and Bruce will take the stitches out Sunday. He wasn’t here when it happened and another medical student picked her up and looked at it. I was returning a ladder and heard her cry and when she didn’t stop I knew it was serious so I ran. I finally got ahold of Bruce at the hospital and he came right home. She had a pretty rough night that night but she is fine now and quite pleased that hers was even “worser than Jayne’s.” Roark came home from school yesterday with a good case of strep throat, but he is on the mend today so I think all is well with us now.

             Mom was so good about making things work so dad could do what he wanted and still include the family. Dad would say “Let’s do this” and mom would say, “OK, how can we make that work for the whole family.” 
          Dad loved camping and fishing and many vacations were spent in the mountains. Mom even made a week at Fish Lake doable for dad. She did get dad to compromise, so one year we went camping, the next year we went to the beach.
         Somehow between the two of them they made our family want to be with each other. Often we would turn down invitations from friends to do things with the family because the family was going to have more fun. This desire to be with our family has extended to the next generation. We have several pictures of dad hiking Mt Baldy in the Uintas with his grandchildren. I remember coming home on summer without John and going up to the Uintas with dad to hike Mt Baldy. Thomas couldn’t have been more than six or seven. I pushed and pushed the kids to keep up because I wanted them to be worthy of hiking with dad. He finally looked at me and said, “Back off, your kids are doing great.”
         I remember the last trips dad went with us. Rafting the Snake below Jackson, his last trip to Jayne’s beach house in Mexico, and Roark taking him canoeing at Mirror Lake when he was 82. It was then we realized that the dementia was taking him. The trips no longer lit up his eyes, and we only saw confusion.

            Still mom thought she could make things work for dad, help him relearn things his brain forgot. She tried so hard to heal his wounded mind and body. On our last visit to the care center the day before dad died, he was asleep in his room. He looked so small and worn. Mom sat in the chair by the bed and took his hand. His eyes opened and he grasped her hand. After a while, she leaned closer to him and said: “Bruce, you know I love you, but it’s OK. You can go now. Your mother and father are waiting for you, do you see them?” He nodded and closed his eyes. She sang “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today” and “High on a Mountain Top”, the two hymns we are singing today. They were his favorite hymns.  After a while we kissed him goodbye and left.

           Mom, thank you for helping dad be such a great dad. I learned how to be a wife and mother from you. 

Bruce Taylor Neville MD June 26,1930-January 6, 2016

I was given the honor of writing dad's obituary and life story. The first two pictures are the pictures mom chose for the obituary, the first because it showed his Air Force wings, the second because it showed the man she knew and loved. The other pictures I added for my blog because I want them in a narrative. 

 Bruce Taylor Neville M.D.

Bruce Taylor Neville, dearly loved husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother, and uncle left this world on Epiphany, January 6, 2016 due to the frailties of age. He was born June 28, 1930 in Salt Lake City, the son of Joseph William and Julia Taylor Neville. He had four siblings, including his identical twin brother Robert (Maxine) Neville, Joseph (Evelyn) Neville, Anne (Robert) Gustaveson, and Nancy (Drew) Van Wagoner.

He had a lifelong inseparable bond with his twin brother, Bob, which was not dimmed by distance, time, or age. When he was five, his family moved to Cedar City and later Escalante, Utah where his father worked as an engineer for the government, building roads in central Utah. Living in the mountains above Escalante in a small cabin was an idyllic childhood for the children, though probably not for their mother.

                The family moved to Ogden, Utah when Bruce and Bob were 9 years old and eventually settled in Washington Terrace. Bruce was amazed and disappointed that the Wasatch Mountains were not the red of his familiar Escalante.

During World War II, Bruce and Bob rode their bicycles to deliver telegrams to the families of fallen soldiers. They graduated from Weber High School and later Weber College. They both served LDS missions in Germany and were companions at one time, much to the delight of the German people.  

                The twins served in the Air Force from 1953-1957 following their missions. They were in the Strategic Air Command working as performance engineers on the B-36 bombers, training to deliver the atomic bomb to sites in Russia.

  Bruce received his wings from the Air Force and soon after married his beloved Beth Ann Hill on May 14, 1954 in the Salt Lake Temple. They had seven children in seven years: Roark, Jeanne, Jayne, Brett, Stacey, Shelley, and Ann.

Bruce started medical school at the University of Utah when Beth Ann was expecting their fifth child. He graduated in 1962 shortly after their seventh child was born. During medical school, he worked all night every 5th night as a lab technician at LDS hospital to support his family. He joined Drs. Ralph Peterson and Joe Amano at the Clearfield Clinic as a family physician and later worked with his son Dr. Roark Neville at Davis Family Physicians. As a physician, he was loved by his patients for his kindness and compassion and respected by his colleagues.  He served as the President of the Davis County Medical Association, President of the Ogden Surgical Society, and President of the Utah Academy of Family Physicians.

Bruce loved learning about new things and sharing them with his children. He enjoyed golf, fishing, hiking, sailing, canoeing, alpine, and cross country and telemark skiing. His love of the outdoors continues with his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren as they seek adventure wherever they go.

 He had a firm testimony of Jesus Christ and faithfully served in many callings in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. From 2000-2002, Bruce and Beth Ann were called to the Sao Palo, Brazil mission where he served as the physician to the missionaries in the Sao Palo MTC and the ten northern Brazilian missions.  

His and Beth Ann’s legacy are their children: Roark and Melanie Neville, Jeanne and John Lingard, Jayne and David Rogers, Brett and Kerri Neville, Stacey and Steve Engebretsen, Shelley Neville, and Ann Neville; 23 grandchildren, and 38 great grandchildren with 4 more on the way.

Friends may visit with the family on Friday, January 15, 2016 from 6:00 -8:00 p.m. at the Lindquist Mortuary: 1867 North Fairfield Road, Layton, Utah. The family will also receive friends on Saturday, January 16, 2016 from 10:00-10:45 a.m. at the Farmington Greens Chapel: 79 South 1525 West, Farmington, Utah with funeral services following at 11:00 a.m.

 

Christmas Eve Pizza

Note:  Alicia Moritisen Walters, one of the girls I taught in Mia Maids 15 years ago, asked me to write a story for a book she was self publishing about the magic of a child's Christmas. I was a bit perplexed about what to write because my mom and especially my dad didn't embrace the Santa myth and I played it down with my own children as well. In fact when Thomas was five a friend of mine asked me to ask him not to tell her son that Santa wasn't real. In typical Thomas fashion he said "I would never do that mom, it is important to Greg."  I have taken "literary license" with some of the events, mainly with the timeline to make the story fit Alicia's parameters. But the gist of the story is true and I vividly remember putting those olives on my fingers.

Christmas Eve in my Grandparents’ basement in the 1960s was where I learned that black olives were meant to be worn on my fingertips as well as for eating. My Grandmother had long, silver hair that she always wore elegantly wrapped around her head like a crown. She taught English at the high school and was somewhat intimidating to my brothers, sisters and me. Grandpa had eyes that twinkled and looked impossibly tall with a thin, pencil mustache. Our family didn’t eat at their house often because the seven of us, born seven years apart, were too many and probably too noisy for Grandma and Grandpa to fit around their kitchen table. 

This is how I will always remember Grandma and Grandpa

But that all changed on Christmas Eve. They always invited our family and our cousins and aunts and uncles for a traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We all went down to the basement kitchen and large family room. It was so exciting. We didn’t know anyone else who had a kitchen in their basement! Grandma used it to can fruits and vegetables in the summer because it was so much cooler in the basement than upstairs. The only furniture in the kitchen was a vintage, metal-legged table piled high with food. There was: turkey, rolls, a green molded Jell-O Christmas salad with marshmallows, nuts and cream cheese and the relish dish. It was a divided,  cut-crystal plate that held: carrot sticks, celery stuffed with peanut butter, pickles and a pile of pitted, black olives.

One Christmas Eve I watched an older cousin stand around the table before the blessing on the food. I saw her sneak an olive, but instead of eating it, she put it on the end of her first finger. She glanced around, saw that no adults were looking and poked another finger into an olive. Pretty soon all ten fingers were tipped with shiny black olives. She walked away from the table nibbling at the olives on the ends of her fingers. I couldn’t wait to try it. I knew my Mother wouldn’t approve. It was bad manners to play with your food. And ten olives for one child was way too many. So I decided to just do one hand. Five olives were still a luxury. I walked over to the relish dish and hurriedly loaded the fingers of my left hand with olives. Just as I finished I looked up and saw my Mother watching. I knew I was in trouble. But she just smiled and said “Make sure you eat them all.”  They tasted delicious.

Christmas Eve with Uncle Joe and Aunt Evelyn's family. From left to right: back row; Aunt Evelyn holding David, Aunt Gay, Grandma's sister, Stacey, Mom, Brett, Uncle Joe, Joey, Roark, Grandma, Grandpa; front row: Valerie, Jeanne, Jayne, Annie, Shelley and Jared in front.

In the 1970s Christmas Eve dinner was moved to my cousins' or our house as Grandma and Grandpa got older. We still had our traditional dinner except one terrible year. An aunt and uncle had just moved from back east and volunteered to have Christmas Eve at their house. She had some new, fancy ideas for dinner instead of our old-fashioned, traditional meal. When we got there, all we saw was a soup tureen and a basket of crackers the table. We were appalled to learn that Christmas Eve dinner was tomato soup! No turkey, rolls or a relish plate!  Just plain, old tomato soup. We didn’t care that it was homemade or “all the rage.” Tomato soup was for Saturday afternoon lunch with grilled cheese sandwiches, not Christmas Eve dinner! My poor aunt never lived it down.

I eventually got married and started a family of my own.  After college, we moved far away from our families across the country. I had kept up the traditional Christmas Eve dinner including the relish plate with black olives, and taught my children how to put them on their fingers. One Christmas Eve a friend and I planned to have Christmas Eve together. Between us we had eight children ages three to ten.  We were both away from our extended families and thought it would be fun for the children to get together.

Christmas Eve was on a Sunday that year. While we were at church that morning, a terrible thunderstorm came through and the entire area lost power. We were hopeful it would come back on so we could cook the turkey. But as the hours passed it became apparent that there wouldn’t be enough time for the turkey and rolls to cook. When the power finally came on we wondered what we could do to still have a special, Christmas Eve dinner.

We both examined the contents of our refrigerators and between us, we realized we had the ingredients for homemade pizza, including the black olives. I made the dough and we put all the toppings out on the counter. We told the children we were going to have a special Christmas Eve dinner: personal pizzas. We gave each child a piece of dough and showed them how to shape their own individual crust on the cookie sheet. Then they got to choose their own toppings, as much as they wanted. I watched one of my children load his pizza with as much pepperoni and cheese as it could possibly hold!  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I was watching and would make him put some pepperoni back. I just smiled at him and said,  “Make sure you can eat it all.”  As we sat around the table eating our Christmas Eve pizza I looked at the smiling pizza-smeared faces. “This is the best Christmas Eve dinner ever!” they all agreed.

This picture is a few years before the Pizza Christmas Eve, but it is one of my favorite Christmas photos.

The next year I asked my children what they wanted for Christmas Eve dinner.  In unison they all yelled, “Homemade personal pizzas!”  “But what about turkey and rolls and a relish plate?” I asked, “It’s a tradition.” “We can have that on Christmas Day” they said, “we want pizza like last year!” I thought about it and realized that my children didn’t have grandparents and cousins around to celebrate Christmas Eve with, so why not make a new tradition for our family. We have had our traditional homemade pizza on Christmas Eve ever since. Even now, when my children and grandchildren live far away from me and Christmas Eve is smaller and quieter, I have no desire for turkey and rolls. I make personal pizza and always load mine with black olives. And sometimes I slip one on the tip of my finger for tradition's sake. 

It was that stormy Christmas Eve that I learned that while some traditions, like my beloved decorations and music will always remain the same, others can and should be exchanged for something different. Sometimes the best traditions are not planned, they just happen.