Flossie the Christmas Angel

A True Christmas story By Lourena Akins

“Mom, here comes Flossie”

Yes, I always got excited when I saw our next-door neighbour coming. I could see her home from my little cot Daddy had put by my window. The hours were long for me because I was only seven years old. Hadn’t walked for 2 years. Flossie came every day. I was a skinny kid and Flossie was so big to me. Daddy said it is because she has such a huge heart.

“Well, how’s my little girl today? Have you got your letter to Santa written yet?” Flossie asked me. “No, because Mommy said that Santa isn’t coming to our house this year.”

I looked at Mom, standing tall, pale and tired beside the coal and wood stove, and then at Daddy sitting in a chair. He’d just got home from Simcoe hospital with a broken shoulder, unable to work for months.

“Well, you write the letter, and I will mail it! I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said with a big smile. She was always smiling. I loved Flossie so much!

Eaton’s catalog had so many things in it, I’d make an order out of there-yes, sometimes for the whole family, I wouldn’t ask for anything for myself.

“We really don’t have enough money for the stamps,” Dad said. “Well, Flossie said that she’d see that Santa got it!” And Flossie never broke a promise to me or anyone.

I heard Mom say she had seven cents until she could go tomorrow and do housework for the policeman’s wife. She was promised a dollar if she started early and finished late.

I knew Mom had fainted at Constable Ferris’ home. She had not eaten for 3 days so us kids could eat.

Mr. Marlatt, our town grocer, always let Mom and Dad have the necessities until spring when there was work again.

PORT DOVER

Dear Mr. Marlatt – all the kids in Port Dover loved to go into his store – Oh! That big barrel filled with peanuts.

He’d say, “You can have free what you can hold in one hand” Maybe I’d be able to walk there again with dad some Saturday night. I used to love Saturday nights.

It was always like that in our little town. All the fishermen repaired nets and strung nets all winter hoping the spring catch would be good.

Work was plentiful during the fishing season and that money had to be saved for a long winter. Dad had been unable to work and there would be his doctor and hospital to pay. And always medicine for me. My brothers would go out early, three or four o’clock in the morning with their little ferret and hunt rabbits.

After the rabbits were cleaned, they were given .25 cents each. We would at least have a rabbit for our Christmas dinner, or maybe – just maybe – they could trade a couple or so for a chicken.

Chicken from Quanbury’s, our neighbours who had a chicken farm.

Even if Santa didn’t come, we would have a Christmas dinner. I always told that Santa visited all good children. I had tried to be good. So, why wouldn’t he come?

Just because we were poor, why would that have to matter as long as I was good?

Christmas Eve! Five excited kids and two sad parents. Us kids insisted we have a tree, so the boys took the axe, and it wasn’t far to go to chop down a tree.

We had made decorations out of popcorn a neighbour had given us, and some ornaments from some pretty colored paper. How could Santa miss us, now that we have a tree?

“Now to bed -all of you” – and when Daddy spoke, we jumped. But then a knock at the door. “Santa left this at our house by accident. It has your name on it.” It was Flossie!

It was the biggest parcel I’d ever did see. She put it under the tree. “There I told you Santa would come.”

Next morning Flossie came over. We opened the box. Yes – just as I ordered – a present for everyone – even a doll for me.

A special doll, an ‘Eaton’s Beauty’ and I didn’t even order that! It cost a dollar and a half – Gee my sister Marguerite and my mom got the nicest sweaters and a heavy Mackinaw coat for my Daddy. That’s just what he said he needed and buy if he had lots of money – and it just fit.

One of my hard candies had a flower right in the center. You could suck this kind for a long time so they would last. Yes, even a jaw breaker – a black one, and a candy cane too.

There was a hockey stick and puck for the boys. We even had an orange each and hard candies for each sock.

FAITH

Flossie was as excited as we were. She was happy! She couldn’t afford it. As I look back now, she must have taken most of her summer savings to keep a sick little girl’s faith Santa Claus.

Little did Flossie Cousins know what she did for me. There has never been a better Christmas since, but I will always try to help the less fortunate and try to be like Flossie.

Today, I realize how lucky I was then that I had a house to live in, and how we could gather coal along the railway tracks for our stove.

This article was written by Mrs. Vandersluys of London, Ontario, the former Lourena Akins, raised in Port Dover, and is dedicated by Mrs. Vandersluys to Flossie.

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