Despite our best intentions, Christmas traditions change. Children grow and start families of their own, economic prosperity wanes and grows, wars are waged and won (or lost), and pandemics descend and retreat. Here’s a glimpse into the changing atmosphere surrounding the celebration of Christmas for Danville in years past with the intention of offering some perspective on these trying times. (Above image from unknown Danville performance of 1920, Danville & Pittsylvania County Memories, Danville Register & Bee)
On September 29, 1930, the mills of Danville which famously hummed day and night, came to a sudden and ominous stop when textile workers went on strike. The silence lasted through Christmas and into the new year.
“Along Main Street cedar trees were strung with many-colored lights, but in the mill districts there were not even the usual ten-cent store decorations.” So related Julian Meade in his book I Live in Virginia. These were the years of the Great Depression which, thanks to self-sustaining industries like tobacco and textiles, Danville largely escaped. Unless you were employed in one of the mills. The Mill itself had cited the economic difficulties as the reason for recent wage cuts. It was the final straw after several years wherein mill management piled on more and more work for less and less pay. Needless to say, the Christmas of 1930 was not a normal one.
“There was no community tree now that the welfare house had closed. There were no signs of a festive season in the village. When the birthday of Christ came it was like any other day of the strike. … Churches could not observe the significance of the day when congregations, even families, were sharply divided; in some instances, the son was striking and the father was swearing by the mills. The meaning of the season was hopelessly lost. … There was discord everywhere.”
The strike went on until January of 1920. Things, for a while, improved. More strikes came and went, and life went on. The world entered a second great war and, on the other end of it, found Communism on the rise. Nevertheless, a general sense of hope and well-being prevailed.
By the end of the 1930’s, the economy was booming once more, particularly in Danville. Owing to the textile mills, Danville became something of a hub for fashion. L. Herman Department store drew crowds of shoppers with each of its fashion shows. Can you imagine the downtown stores filled like this today—the pandemic not withstanding?
Christmas of 1950 saw the invasion of the Red Chinese into South Korea. President Truman addressed the nation.
“When we get through, we will have a peaceful world and a world that is safe for you, and myself, and everybody else to live in.”
If only it were so.
Despite the fears of the age, celebrations lived on in the 1950s. The economy had once more recovered, and Danville, with its bustling population saw its citizens throng the downtown area with shoppers, a site that is hard to imagine now.
Christmas of 1955 had Danville excited for the return of Camilla Williams.
“Camilla Williams, operatic singer who has been appearing in the new Vienna Opera House rededication is leaving there on Thursday next to fly to New York and hoping to ‘make it for Danville’ so as to spend Christmas with her mother, Fanny Williams, who lives on Broad Street,” announced the Danville Bee.
“Her mother said that she had heard from her daughter saying that unless something happened at the last minute, she was confident that she and her husband would be in Danville for the holiday.”
And finally, this offering to the Danville Bee in 1955 from an unknown author.
“While peace may be vicarious in a troubled world, Christmas always eclipses the more doleful speculations. It has been so through history even in the Cromwellian days when a studied effort was made to ‘put down’ Christmas because there was nothing in the Bible to endorse great festivities. The people, in spite of the hard-and-fast attitude of the Roundheads observed Christmas clandestinely with the shutters closed, and with merriment in the home. After the passing of Cromwell and the arrival of a more liberal age, Christmas returned in full panoply, and has so remained.
“Presumably our secular disorders and alarms are something apart from the day we celebrate. In terms of modern history, the world situation is darker than it was a year ago with a sad realization that the best efforts made by people who put the humanities before politics have made little progress towards international understanding or a workable system by which different people can live according to their own lights without being at each other’s throats.
“But even if there is no stable peace on earth and considerable watering down of goodwill towards men, Christmas remains, at the local level, where it always has—a festival of thankfulness for what mercies are bestowed upon us and comfort in the realization that it is a time for old friends to be renewed and for the making of new ones.”
May it be so. Merry Christmas to all of you and thank you for spending a little time with us this Christmas Season. May 2022 see you richly blessed!
Sources:
The Danville Register & Bee’s “Flashback Friday” weekly feature and archives.
“HOME” ornament photo courtesy of Thomas Scott
