The BURG

Elvira Laidlaw, co-author of Wait's Mill, told about the early 1900s worship at the new Little Brown Church on the corner of Main and Fifth streets (the First Presbyterian Church). This church was built in 1887. Before that time (1869), the citizens of Waitsburg celebrated at the new school house on Academy Street for Christmas.

Her very first remembrance was of the Christmas exercise. She remembered dimly "the first Christmas tree and the decorations - the filling of bags of popcorn and nuts. There were recitations and dialogues by the pupils, and there was music." Earlier in 1871, a church building had been erected on the corner of Coppei Avenue and East Third Street. After the church was built, the community exercises were held there instead of at the school.

The Christmas tree had to be brought from the mountains - "fancifully cut streamers made from brightly colored tissue paper draped the tree. The first lights at the school house were candles, but when the church was built, lamps were used. They were set in brackets attached to the walls.

The program was finished when Santa came. Every child and everyone was given something."

In the Little Brown Church on the Corner:

"On Christmas Eve, the church was all glitter and commotion. Bright ornaments and sparkling tapers hellip; No other church occasion could compare with Christmas Eve, the woodsy fragrance of fir and the sparkle of tinsel and colored candles.

The rousing arrival of Santa Claus, people calling 'Merry Christmas' to each other as they departed after it was over, some of them in sleighs and bobsleds with bells jingling. The walk home for those who lived in town, through the clear cold night, the snowy sidewalk creaking at every step."

Bonnie Witt and I taught Sunday school during the late 1940s and early 1950s at the First Presbyterian Church on the corner of Fifth and Main streets that replaced the Little Brown Church. Martha Kenney joined us later.

The Sunday School classes were for four- and five-year-old children. What a joy that was!

Conditions and performances were similar, but not enough snow for Santa during that time to arrive in a sleigh. We didn't have to use candles for light, or on the tree. But, our performances of the Nativity Scene with a live lamb one year, held by Tony Hulce, and properly diapered for the occasion. Everyone learned their parts, but just a few were struck with stage fright.