Billy’s Christmas Party: A New Englander

by Jesse Halsey

Thanksgiving night our minister dreamed a dream. Vividly it came to him. A Thanksgiving turkey, one of the perquisites of this particular parish, may have been the cause—I cannot say (not being a Freudian psychoanalyst). Not with the cause, but of the results of the dream am I to tell you.

The minister dreamed that his eight-year-old Billy, who had died two years before, was hungry—hungry in the midst of plenty; and that on Thanksgiving day! The minister’s childhood was spent in New England where Thanksgiving was celebrated like our Christmas. Billy’s few Christmases had been spent in a time and in a part of the country where Christmas is Christmas. So, the next day our minister determined that Billy should have his Christmas celebration by proxy. He has that curious sort of Celtic (or is it Christian?) faith that convinces him that those who have “gone on” know what goes on here.

So the next afternoon our minister started by making a call on Anne James, a member of the Junior League, popular with all her contemporaries, an effective executive, but for some years confined to a wheel chair. She agreed to be general manager; using the telephone and direction all our activities. The four oldest members of the congregation were made honorary patrons. “Uncle Billy” Union, eighty-seven, loved and respected throughout our city, was to act as honorary chairman (for forty years the said “Uncle Billy” has entertained a score of city waife at his own Christmas Eve table). Madam G—who spent her active life as a missionary in educational work in Egypt—loved of all; Miss A—the oldest living communicant; and the jovial Mr. M—most generous of souls; these were to act as honorary sponsors.

Within ten days the following penny postcard went out (the minister has a press and does our parish printing: The cut on the card he clipped somewhere from a church paper and had it turned into a zinc etching.):

But if a sleeping baby now lay

Within a manger filled with hay

And God’s star pointed the way,

Would I believe? Would I obey?

This is Your First Card With

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Two weeks ahead of time it practices economy,

though not stinginess; the postman will be pleased,

it is mailed early.

It comes to tell you, of a Christmas Supper for the

Hundred Hungriest Children

we can find on Christmas Eve.

Every group in the Church will have some

part. You are invited to seat a guest. It will

cost fifty cents and no one person can entertain

more than ten. Send your reservations, and

come and see the children at 3:00 p.m. on December

24. If it should grow to 200 I shall not be surprised.

The difference in postage between this card

(there are 700) and a sealed envelope will be

our contribution to the party. So you understand,

and will approve.

And remember, please, that this card brings

to you and yours the sincere Christmas Greeting

of your minister and his family.

Seventh Presbyterian Church

December Eighth, A.D. 1932

The response was immediate. Dollar bills began to come in every mail. Many brought theirs on Sunday and others brought their fifty-cent pieces. Old Mintie Bates, who is cared for by the parish, brought a quarter, as did several children. Two youngsters brought their dimes.

Organization went merrily on. The acting chairman, from her chair, directed the organization. Mrs. Jones agreed to cook and serve the meal. Twenty volunteers from the Sewing Society rushed to her support. Six men offered to send turkeys. “Uncle Billy” made a bid for all the fruit. Mrs. Haney and Miss McCine volunteered to solicit the candy. Miss Kirk, a retired teacher, her hands crippled with rheumatism, asked to make the candy bags. Mr. Breton, our leading architect, directed a group of young people, who cared for the decoration. Mike Sigler, a Jewish peddler at our corner, insisted on furnishing the Christmas tree. Mrs. Shore, her sisters, her children, and her grandchildren, dressed the tree.

Christmas Eve was purposely chosen that it might be an inconvenient time for our privileged people to show their hand and heart toward the less fortunate. The Young People’s Society, who had Christmas activities of their own and were interested in home celebrations as well, insisted on washing the dishes (and incidentally, by nine o’clock that night, had the dining room and kitchen spic-and-span). The only paid help was for additional janitor service, due to the many tables and chairs and fact that Christmas Eve was on a Saturday night. Everyone gladly accepted their assigned job as if it were a Christmas privilege.

The minister felt confident that one hundred could easily be provided for. It grew to four hundred before they had finished. Two hundred names, and then two hundred more, of the neediest children in the city came to us from the welfare director at City Hall. Each child was sent a personal invitation, under a three-cent stamp. Cars were offered, although it was a busy Christmas Eve, and, under the direction of our Boy Scouts, every child was sent for, brought to the church, and later returned. This we thought a rather severe test of the congregation’s loyalty.

At three o’clock our guests arrived. Kate Douglas Wiggin is needed to describe these Ruggles! Coats were checked by Girl Reserves and all finally seated in the big parish hall. Portable movies (or rather talkies) gave a half-hour’s varied program; then came the skillful manipulation of the marionettes by Mrs. G, an adept amateur. This gave the children unbounded delight.

Promptly at four, in step to a pealing Christmas march echoing from the whole parish house through the church organ loft, the children went downstairs for dinner. Tables were spread for three hundred in the dining room. (Our minister insisted on the best china. “No paper plates,” said he. “Fear of germs? No, not at Christmas! Scald the plates, but don’t use paper.” His word is law, so the best was used.)

The Mayor carved the first turkey; a hundred plates were ready hot in the kitchen—turkey and all that goes with it. Another hundred followed in a jiffy, a third, and then part of the fourth. (The Scouts had gone out with a bus to look for the last twenty on the city streets; and the found them. Hastily washed, they came; not dressed in their best like the others, but happy.)

The tiny tables from the church kindergarten were arranged around the brilliantly-lighted tree that stood in the big gymnasium adjoining the dining room. The sliding doors between the two rooms were up and all was festive and gay. Chairman Anne, from her wheelchair, looked on, still our executive officer. “Uncle Billy” and his three assistant patrons all came to act as hosts. The young people waited on tables and for an hour music and laughter filled the rooms.

When all were fed Santa Claus appeared. From somewhere he brought a big shopping bag for each child, with the child’s name on it (the three hundred odd who had written invitations). In the bag was an apple and an orange, a pound of candy (in one of Miss Kirk’s bags), a popcorn ball, and an age-appropriate toy (furnished by the mother and father of a little maid who went away at Christmastide). The big boys had knives; the girls, most of them, dolls; and even the late-comers found filled bags—though necessarily unnamed ones.

Three children ‘phoned in that they had missed the auto, so their dinner even to ice cream, was sent them!

Everyone worked with a will; nearly four hundred of the neediest had a gay Christmas Eve and the minister’s Billy—did he know about his party? “Why not?” says our minister. “Why not?”

December 1938 Letter from John Herrick to Jesse Halsey regarding writing from Herrick's mother concerning both men.

"he never crawls"

Frank Nelson incarnates my ideal of a Christian minister. He is first and always a gentleman. He has human sympathy and unfailing enthusiasm. He never apologizes for his religious convictions nor is his religion something superficial; rather it is part and parcel of himself, its spirit evident in all he says and does.

He has great executive ability, he has stirring convictions, his ethics adorn his doctrine. I have seen him in tight places, he never crawls.

He has the kind of preaching ability that moves the hearer to action and to a deeper faith in goodness and in God.

He is an ideal pastor with that rare intuition of knowing when to speak and when to refrain from speaking. He is the friend of every good cause, the helper of all who are in need. Many of us rely on his good judgment and covet the contagion of his persistent, consistent, tireless energy, and enthusiasm.

I like to hear him pray, I like to hear him preach; both put me in touch with that supreme reality that I call God. The prophetic note is often his, the apostolic fervor, also the humility of the true Disciple.

Four decades of heroic service—and still at it. The Lord prosper his way in blessing, who has been a blessing to so many thousands, as to me.

-Jesse Halsey

Jesse Halsey Diary: May 1933

[Cincinnati]

Sunday afternoon, May 28, at two o’clock, Helen, Abby, and I left here for Berea, stopping a few minutes with the Herrmanns. After a hurried supper in Berea, I preached in the college chapel for the closing service of the year—fifteen hundred mountain boys and girls. Talked to them on Zechariah 2, “The City without Walls.”

Next morning about 10:30 started for Hendersonville, going by way of Knoxville and the Smoky Mountain Park. The road across Smoky Mountains into Ashville is not finished, but we skirted the northern edge, which is very beautiful, and at 10:30, passing through a heavy rain, arrived at Hendersonville.

Cousin Mary has almost lost her eyesight through cataracts. Two years ago she broke her hip and gets around with difficulty. We spent most of the day with them, leaving at five o’clock. We drove through the mountains to Chimney Rock, back to Ashville, and so on along the French Broad River in the sunset, arriving at Newport, Tennessee, just after dark. Here we spent the night and about five o’clock the next morning started for home (400 miles).

We stopped several places along the way to see interesting things, brought home a few laurel and holly plants, stopped at Berea a few minutes and arrived her at 6:10 P.M.

When to Stop

I was standing yesterday in front of the public library looking at some of the books displayed. A man, rather poorly dressed, very modestly approached and ventured, “Is this Mr. Halsey?” When he repeated it the second time I heard and said, “Yes.” He went on to say that he heard me preach a couple of weeks ago one Sunday night in the Bethlehem Church. I said, “Yes, and I talked too long.” He said, “O, say; there is a book in this library about that called ‘When to stop.’” Then in a very businesslike fashion giving me the author’s name and publisher continued our conversation along other lines.   --Jesse Halsey, c1932

Letter from Sir Wilfred Grenfell to Rev. Jesse Halsey, 1932

Eulogy: Frank Nelson

Frank Nelson by Rev. Jesse Halsey

Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel? And like the little boy in John Bunyan's Dream Story, when Mr. Greatheart, the guide, is called away, I feel like saying, "You have been so faithful and kind, how can we go on without you?"

Frank Nelson was a friend to all sorts and conditions of men and women high and low, rich and poor--to each he gave of the rich treasure of his soul. His counsel was sought by a multitude of persons but each to him was an individual, not a "case." Time, money, thought, himself he gave. During the last five years his body sometimes rebelled, but to no purpose; straight and unbent in body and mind and spirit, straight on he went with his appointed task and with His Master we can say "It is finished."

As one who has watched hi for a quarter of a century with growing admiration and pride in his friendship, there are certain great qualities that impress me as the undergirding of his life. Among them are these: patience with people, courage of utterance (and performance) on questions of public policy, sanity of judgment, burning religious passion, and enthusiasm unquenchable in all that he said and did.

He was modest in the face of a crescendo of accomplishment. He took a downtown Church in its decadence and raised it in membership and power of influence to a cathedral quality. He was the unmitered bishop of his city--men of all religions and of no (vocal) religion turned to him as spokesman and guide. All that he did for humanity, in and through his church, or in himself, had a supernal quality that reminded us constantly that man doth not live by bread alone. The word of God, richly in true wisdom, was on his tongue--in rebuke of unrighteousness (scathing and prophetic words), in encouragement of goodness (heartening words), in consoling tenderness and understanding for the sorrowing.

He walked with God, sane and orderly in his thinking; his utterance was always warmed with enthusiasm--enthusiasm for goodness and all lovely things.

He believed in God with all his mind and strength and he believed in his fellow man--not abstractly but in person and in deed and in truth. Rich in good works going to an abundant entrance he leaves behind many a pilgrim who will continue the steep climb because he set our feet on the climbing way. Like Chaucer's parson: "first he wroughte and afterward he taughte."

Once, years ago, in a great convention of social workers, Mr. Nelson was scheduled to speak. He affronted his audience with a sermon on "Immortality"! And he made the unseen so real that resentment melted into reverence and men and women came away believing (some for the moment and some for life): believing in God as the only sure foundation for human thought--and action; believing in a God who is able in time and in eternity to carry His children. In that kind of a God, incarnate in Christ, Frank Nelson believed; that God he trusted and served. And he preached that Gospel. (He preached entirely naturally, homiletically untrammelled--utter contagion, Christ revealing.)

His greatest feat professionally (how he would despise my description) was undoubtedly the Three Hour Service on Good Friday. Year after year (nigh on to two score) his exposition of the Seven Words was freighted with human sympathy and Divine Grace. "He knew what was in man." He saw God. A deep-dyed (incarnadine) mystic (in spite of all his disclaimer) he reached beyond things seen to the Eternal. No crucifix was needed in his Church on Those Days (or any other)--the Crucified was there.

He carried our city on his heart and shoulders, just as Isaiah loved Jerusalem, and as Sir Walter loved Edinburgh. He fought her battles, unafraid.

He served Christ's church and God's kingdom in ecumenical breadth and with Apostolic fervor. His Church (Christ Church) was a house of prayer for all peoples more than any church I have ever known. He adorned the doctrine of God our Saviour  in all things. Many of us will miss him as an elder brother; heaven seems more real--and more desirable--since he went there.

We sang it as his funeral--or tried to. It was his favorite, announced non all appropriate occasions--John Bunyan's pilgrims' song:

"He who would be faithful be 'gainst all disaster
Let him with constancy follow the Master."

"You have been so faithful and kind, how can we go on without you?" That is my feeling but it must not be my last word; it is unlike our Mr. Greatheart for me to be saying it. But I have the fitting word--again it is not mine but Bunyan's:

"After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-Truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, that his pitcher was broken at the fountain. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, 'I am going to my Father's; and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that an get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles Who now will be my rewarder.' So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."