STAR VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
HISTORICAL BOOKS INVENTORY DETAILS
1.
Overview
Title: The Christmas I Remember Best
Author: Charles A. Olson
Subject: Personal History
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1964
Number of Pages: 4
ID#: 482
Location: Website
2.
Evaluation
Evaluator's Name(s): Kent and Polly Erickson
Date of Evaluation: January 2015
Keywords: Osmond
Included Names: Andrew Neilson, Paul and Christina Olson, Archibald Gardner
3. Synopsis
This account tells of a very challenging Christmas experienced in Osmond,
Wyoming in 1899. While returning from Utah with supplies for their families, their
wagon tipped overand they lostalmost everything. As Christmas approached, they
found themselves without flour. A surprise visitor left them a sack flour. That
visitor was Archibald Gardner.
4. Other
sprinted in the Star Vallev Independent in "Looking Back at Christmas"
by Martha Clines
LOOKING BACK AT CHRISTMAS
by
MARTHA CLINES
The Christmas story was found in the Dec. 24, 1964 Independent
and was by the late Charles Olson who was born in Afton on Dec.
7,
1890.
THE CHRISTMAS
I
REMEMBER BEST
by
CHARLES A. OLSON, 1899
The Christmas
I
Remember Best,
winter in Star Valley.
recently moved to a
had been and was
a
hard
Andrew Neilson and Paul Olson had
small community called Osmond.
This little
town had formerly been called Dry Creek but now it had a new
name, having been named after George Osmond, the Star Valley
Stake
President.
Paul had two children by a former marriage and his wife
Christina had three children by a former marriage.
Five other
children belonged to Paul and Christina, totaling ten children to
feed and there was not much food and very little clothing.
Paul and Andrew had each built a log cabin consisting of log
walls and a dirt floor and board windows that could be dropped
when the weather was nice.
They had come to Star Valley with
high hopes for the future as the smoke from the smelter in Sandy
was causing both of them distress.
Every winter they would
return to Sandy to work in the smelter to earn money for supplies
8
to keep their families from starving until they could harvest a
crop.
This winter was a hard one for both Paul and Andrew.
Two
of Andrew's children died with diphtheria and couldn't be buried
until spring.
Andrew made wooden coffins out of slabs and buried
them in the snow until the snow melted in the spring and they
could be taken to the cemetery.
On their way home from Sandy that fall they passed through
Montpelier and bought supplies to take home
families.
to their needy
They spent every cent of their hard earned money for
flour and a sack of precious sugar and a few clothes for the
children.
On the way home the roads were terrible with big chuck
holes, mud and snow.
The streams that they were forced to cross
were swollen and clogged with driftwood.
in the swollen stream.
The horses floundered
It was then that the wagon tipped over
and the precious flour and other supplies were lost.
It was
lucky they were able to save the team of horses and the wagon.
It was heavy hearts and empty pockets that Andrew and Paul went
home
to their wives and families.
surely
will
Christmas?"
be
a
hard
winter
for
Christina said,
us.
What
will
The children wouldn't even have bread,
"Paul,
it
we do for
but Paul and
Christina went to work with a prayer in their hearts that some
way they could feed their hungry children until they could return
to Sandy and earn more money to buy provisions to fill their
empty larder.
Paul went to the canyon and got a tree and carried i t home
on his back.
He also got some sagebrush to sweep the dirt floor
in their log cabin.
The children were delighted to see the tree,
but there weren't any shiny ornaments to trim it with.
Christina
had filled a straw tick with oat straw and she cut a tiny hole in
the tick and took out some of the precious straw.
Then she
opened her trunk that she had brought all the way from her home
in Sweden and found some pretty colored paper.
She cut some
round rings and got some thread and needles and let the children
string the golden straw between the pretty colored paper.
children were delighted with the tree.
The
But the hearts of the
parents were sad indeed with no money to buy flour.
What would
become of them.
They lit a fire in the wood stove and the cheery sparks few
up the chimney making the house more cheerful.
Then Christina
found a tallow candle she had been saving since they came to the
valley.
For their Christmas Paul had caught some trout and shot
two jack rabbits that she could cook in deer fat that she had
saved,
but without any bread or cookies,
Christmas
i t would be a
sad
indeed.
But hark, what was that? It sounded like a sleigh.
It was a
cold bitter night and the sleigh runners creaked and made a sound
like sleigh bells.
crack.
We children opened up the board windows a
Sure enough there was
the horse to the gate.
a onehorse sleigh.
A man tying
Then with a pack on his back he was
making his way around to the back of the house.
The snow was
piled high against the windows and the children ran to open the
door, but the man with the pack was gone.
sack half
full
What a
of
There was a seamless
flour.
wonderful Christmas we children had.
some biscuits and some cookies with real
10
flour,
Christina made
deer fat and
saleratus for leavening, and salt that Paul had secured from that
salt flat in the canyon.
Our tree looked so pretty with golden straw and-pretty
colored paper.
We
sang Christmas
carols
thanksgiving was from all our hearts,
and our
father,
prayer of
mother and
children.
We children learned later that Santa Claus that year was
Archibald Gardner, and for many years thereafter.
The tracks
made in the snow were made from gunny sacks tied over his shoes
with twine strings.
Archibald Gardner owned and operated a flour mill in Swift
Creek Canyon above Afton,
i t was not unusual when a family found
their flour bin empty to find a sack of flour on their doorstep.
No one saw who put i t there, but they knew in their hearts i t was
Archibald
Gardner.
11