From Brownshirt to Turtleneck: Memoir of a Documentary Filmmaker

By Werner Schumann

From Brownshirt to Turtleneck details one man’s unforgettable journey from Nazi Germany to America as he matured from a disillusioned Hitler Youth to an award-winning documentary filmmaker.
As Werner Schumann chronicles his disillusionment with Germany and his eventual immigration to America—where he married a Jewish emigre—he shares a fascinating glimpse into his war experiences, coming-of-age adventures, family life, and film projects.

A fascinating narrative of an extraordinary life. The section on his boyhood Nazi Germany and World War II is riveting, and the story of his amazing career as a film maker and his wonderful marriage makes compelling reading. I couldn’t put it down.
—William R. Murry, PhD., Author and Educator

From Brownshirt to Turtleneck is the gripping account of what it was like to grow up in Germany during and immediately after World War II: the almost nightly bombings, the struggle for food, the constant moves in quest of survival….
—Patsy Sims, author of The Klan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483426648

Book preview

From

Brownshirt

to Turtleneck

Memoir of a Documentary Filmmaker

Werner Schumann

Copyright © 2015 Werner Schumann.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2665-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2664-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902420

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 02/17/2015

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part 1    Growing Up in Germany

Chapter 1    Berlin in the Thirties

Chapter 2    The War

Chapter 3    A Shattered World

Chapter 4    Hope Again

Part 2    Coming to America

Chapter 5    The New World

Chapter 6    Duty Calls

Chapter 7    Only in America

Part 3    A Filmmaker at Last

Chapter 8    Norwood Studios

Chapter 9    A Free Agent

Chapter 10    Guggenheim Productions—Beginnings

Chapter 11    My Other Life

Chapter 12    Guggenheim Productions

Chapter 13    Schumann Productions

Chapter 14    Life Goes On

Part 4    The Past is Forever: Reconnecting with Germany

Chapter 15    First Visit

Chapter 16    Reunions

Chapter 17    A Very Nostalgic Trip

Chapter 18    Braunschweig Again

Afterword

Partial Filmography

Acknowledgments

Dedicated to Mutti for nurturing me and setting an example of how to deal with life’s vicissitudes, and Elizabeth for her love, support and patience for nearly six decades.

Introduction

mem·oir: a narrative composed from personal experience.

—Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary

A memoir is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked.

—Gore Vidal

Writing one’s memoir involves making some choices. What might the reader be interested in? For that matter, who might the reader be? Should it concentrate on the facts of the life, or is it more important to reflect the feelings and attitudes of the author? What of the feelings of readers who may be affected by some particular revelation? Perhaps most importantly, why am I bothering?

At the outset of this writing, I have not formulated definitive answers to all of the above issues. As far as the potential reader is concerned, I am primarily interested in leaving something about myself for my progeny. With increased age, I have taken more interest in exploring who I am. That naturally led to questions of where I came from. While I had some information (including documentation) left behind by my mother, I know very little about my father’s history and next to nothing about his forebears. Perhaps some of my descendants will appreciate learning something about me. I think they’ll want more than the bare facts. Beyond that, I promised myself to be as honest and accurate as possible, which is a difficult charge for two reasons: one, I have a poor memory for details; and two, time tends to blur and soften feelings. Scott Turow quotes one of his characters to the effect that we are defined by the stories we tell about ourselves. So, I’ll give that a try.

On the larger canvas of human affairs, my life barely registers as a tiny brushstroke (or a few pixels in today’s imagery). Yet every human life unfolds as a unique story, and mine has been an interesting journey. I have lived (and still do live) in times of great changes, and I consider myself extraordinarily lucky in having had many wonderful opportunities to experience this world. Beyond that, I am convinced that in ways large or small every human being makes a difference in the unfolding of human affairs. While I don’t believe in the hereafter (i.e., heaven and hell) or some other place where souls are allowed to reside (nor do I believe in reincarnation), I am assured that everyone leaves a legacy (besides the genetic one in one’s offspring) because of his interactions that have influenced those around him—for better or for worse.

Part 1

Growing Up in Germany

Chapter 1

Berlin in the Thirties

Childhood, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

—Ambrose Bierce

Beginnings

My earliest memory is sitting on the counter at a police station eating an ice cream cone. I don’t know how old I was, but my guess would be about three. I remember the neighborhood and the apartment building we lived in, but all of that could easily be a later recollection. We did not live there for more than a couple of years; we subsequently moved a few blocks away.

What was I doing in friendly conversation with several police officers? I was, after all, living in a police state. It was about 1933 and the beginning of the Hitler era. The ice cream, no doubt, was designed to ease the relationship between the big, authoritarian figures and this little tyke. I had wandered off from in front of our building (the apartment was on a short, dead-end street closed to automobiles), which could be interpreted as the first manifestation of my curiosity about this world and a wanderlust that has not left me yet, even at age eighty-plus. I was reunited with my distraught mother when she showed up to report her son missing.

I was born Werner Fritz Schumann on June 20, 1930, in Wittenberge, a town on the Elbe River, roughly halfway between Hamburg and Berlin, where my family moved when I was about two-and-a-half years old. For as long as I can remember, I have despised my middle name, Fritz, the short version of Friedrich (my father’s given name). In fact, except on official documents, I don’t even use the middle initial lest someone ask what it stands for. It was only much later, after I met Senator Fritz Hollings and interviewed some of his friends that their warm reference to Fritz took away some of the coarseness I associated with the name.

My mother (Mutti), Gertrud Gerda Schumann, was then a full-time housewife, caring for her two children. My father (Vati), Friedrich Fritz Schumann, was an accountant. I had a sister, Ingeburg, who was six years older than I. The age gap later made me wonder whether I had been an unplanned surprise (my parents were thirty-six and thirty-four, respectively when I was born).

We lived in Baumschulenweg, a relatively small outlying community in Berlin (District Treptow) that had only been developed around the beginning of the twentieth century. The community was ringed with parkland along the River Spree: a large nursery, a large park-like cemetery where some folks would take their Sunday strolls, and hundreds of Schräbergärten—small plots of land that city dwellers used as weekend retreats, complete with tiny cottages and lots of vegetable and flower beds.

For my parents, it must have been a good time; things were coming together. A decade and a half after being defeated in what was then referred to as the Great World War, Germany was gaining strength under Hitler’s leadership. The economy was picking up; Hitler refused to pay any more of the crippling war reparations laid on Germany at Versailles in 1918. The morale of the people was improving; once again, they had hope for the country’s future and their own welfare. Sure, there had been early indications of Hitler’s pursuit of racial purity and extreme nationalism, but for the majority of Germans, the prospect of steady employment and the sense of living in a country that could be proud again must have been paramount. I imagine that was true for my parents.

Although I grew up in this tranquil district of Berlin, it was nevertheless a solidly urban environment. The streets were lined with four- and five-story apartment buildings. I cannot remember any single-family homes. Although our street was paved with cobblestones, less than half a block away was Baumschulenstrasse, the main drag. It had smooth pavement, a streetcar running down the middle, and wide sidewalks lined with stores of all kinds. Two short blocks down this street was the S-Bahn station; the S-Bahn was an electric, above-ground train that would whisk people to the center of Berlin in twenty minutes. It was another era.

We had a two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor with only cold running water and a small garden out front; we had a toilet but no bathtub or shower. Weekly bathing consisted of filling a modest-sized basin, which was on a stand next to the kitchen sink, with hot water and then using a wash cloth and soap. Our apartment had no central heating. Each room had a tile oven heated with coal, which had to be carried up from the basement storage room. We could not afford a telephone, but we had a small, primitive AM radio in the living room. We didn’t have a refrigerator.

In the summer, an ice wagon came down the street twice a week. We bought a chunk of ice and put it in the cooler. One of my earliest tasks was to buy freshly baked rolls (the baker was across the street) and put fresh milk (from a couple of blocks away) in our tin can. Without a refrigerator, we shopped more frequently. Supermarkets did not exist, nor did we even have a general market in the neighborhood. Meat was bought at the butcher’s, flour at the grocer’s, milk at the dairy store, and so on. Twice a week an outdoor farmers’ market was a short block and a half away. Television was still years in the future, and computers were decades away: no cell phone, Facebook, or Twitter. Very few people could afford an automobile or airplane travel. The moon was an earth appendix that people enjoyed seeing on a clear night or admired in pictures taken by earth-bound telescopes. The highest a human had flown by then was far less than today’s cruising altitude of commercial jet planes.

***

The public elementary school was about a ten-minute walk from home. I started first grade at age six. The first school day was a big deal. My mother took me to the classroom, and I (like other kids) received a huge cone-shaped container filled with sweets and presents from my parents. I was eager to learn and had no trouble applying myself. All in all, I enjoyed school. Yet it also exposed me to a whole new set of boys. Sexes were segregated, and girls went to a different school. I was probably the youngest in my class and was, even for my age, short and slight. I was shy and quiet by nature. I was not only physically small for my age but also proportionately not very strong. So I was a ready target for the bullies, especially once they noticed that I performed well in class. My walk home sometimes turned into a run.

The shy and quiet behavior was mentioned in my first year’s report card, where the teacher pointed out my failure to participate in class. I took that criticism to heart; the following year I was faulted for being too talkative! Later, I tried to become more popular by being a cutup in class, which cost me a number of censures and even a beating or two by a teacher. Physical punishment was customary and occurred regularly: a slap of a ruler on the fingers or, for serious offenses, some slaps on the behind with a strop or belt, although I don’t recall the specific circumstances. None of that stopped the occasional taunting until fourth grade, when my fury got the better of my common sense, and I physically went after one of my nemeses. Miraculously, in my rage I managed to bloody him enough to earn sufficient respect. I considered my own bruises a worthy price to pay.

I had several friends, but my closest one was Jürgen Brenner, whom I met in first grade. He was almost a year older than I, a slender, energetic boy with a good sense of humor and a ready smile. His family’s wealth awed me; they lived in an elegant, large apartment on the top (probably fifth) floor of a building with an elevator (very rare in our community). They had a telephone, a car, and a maid. Jürgen had his own room, which was large enough to accommodate, during the winter months, a huge and complex electric train layout on a specially built platform. In the afternoon, snacks were offered, occasionally consisting of buttered rolls topped with chocolate pieces! Decades later, I learned how impressed Jürgen was by the modest fruit pudding my mother made in a fish-shaped mold for my birthday parties.

I was generally a healthy child, but I did have a couple of serious encounters with the medical profession. When I was seven or eight, I had a mishap on my scooter (of course, one without a motor). I took a tight turn into our street too fast and ended up smashing into a large tree trunk, with my right knee taking the brunt of the force. It was more than a bruise or gouge; it was a wound that soon became infected (antibiotics were not available yet). I was bedridden, so our physician stopped by our house daily to clean the wound, afterward praising me for being brave and rewarding me with several nonpareil chocolates. One day he took my mother aside and told her that the leg needed to be amputated because the wound was not healing, and he feared gangrene, which could kill me in a hurry. Mutti refused; she couldn’t bear the thought and felt that we should give it more time. Fortunately, she was right. A couple of days later, the knee showed clear improvement.

At age ten or so, I complained of pain in my lower left abdomen. Our family physician diagnosed an inflamed appendix—much to Mutti’s surprise, because she believed the appendix was located on the right side of the body. He arranged for admission to Berlin’s main hospital, the Charitè, located in midcity. I was rushed there by taxi, operated on, and pronounced to be fortunate, because my appendix had been close to bursting. Of course, my appendix was on the right side, but the surgeon informed us that the pain can be anywhere in the abdomen. Ah, what changes in medical treatment since then: I was kept in the hospital for five days and wasn’t allowed out of bed for three. Today, they get patients on their feet within hours and out of the hospital in a day or two.

***

Family

My father, Friedrich August Gustav Fritz Schumann, was born in 1894 in Moabit, a blue-collar district of central Berlin. His father was a printer who owned a shop that also sold stationery and school and office supplies. My grandfather had died before my birth, and my grandmother continued to run the little store. A visit there was always a delight for me. Exploring all the little goodies that have to do with writing and paperwork was intriguing, not to mention that my grandmother would always give me a treat, such as a special pencil, eraser, or other little gadget.

Vati was a relatively short but solidly built man. He was what the Germans refer to as a genuine Berliner: outgoing, quick on the uptake, opinionated, and argumentative, with a good sense of humor—you find the type in any Kneipe (i.e., neighborhood bar). He also had a short temper. Unlike Mutti, who had come from a cultured family, Vati had grown up in a working class neighborhood. I don’t recall his ever going to a concert or theater performance. Yet he played the violin acceptably well (by my childhood standards) and, by all accounts, was an excellent dancer. He was an accountant who then worked for a large trucking organization that may have been a part of the government. He later became the head of the department. The nature of his work defied my understanding when I was young: I only knew that it had to do with many papers filled with numbers. I then learned that it also involved money: Vati came home one day quite upset and eventually talked about the fact that he had spent the better part of the day unsuccessfully trying to find a certain number of pennies (I suppose that the books were being balanced at the end of an accounting period). I felt sorry for him and brought my piggy bank and offered to make up the difference. It lifted his spirits, but I never understood his explanation for not accepting same. The organization he worked for held its annual Christmas party for employees and their families in a large ballroom. I don’t remember anything about it except the highlight: in keeping with the company’s identification as a shipping outfit, Santa Claus entered the hall on a motorcycle with sidecar that was laden with presents for the children. Maybe not an ideal substitute for reindeer and sled, but to a boy perhaps at least as impressive.

Vati’s avocation was his association with the Sturm Abteilung (SA), the Nazi brownshirt organization. He also was a member of the National Socialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (NSDAP), Hitler’s Nazi party. I don’t know when or why he joined (it could have been to provide employment opportunities), but I heard him vehemently argue the party point of view on at least one occasion. Likewise, I don’t know when he joined the SA and whether he ever participated in the harassment of Jews for which the organization was known. His principal involvement with the SA was his responsibility for running a local shooting range for pistols and rifles. He was an ace pistol shot who only barely missed selection for the rapid-fire pistol competition for the 1936 Olympics.

Vati was the dominant figure in the family but was involved with us only on holidays and to some extent on weekends for outings or the occasional walk. Evenings he usually came home after the rest of us had supper and would eat his meal alone. During my younger years, my father and I had a relatively limited relationship. He never got down on the floor to play with me (I guess that wasn’t done by grown-ups then—Mutti didn’t either). But when I was eight or so he bought me an air rifle and a target holder (a steel cone that safely collected the lead pellets) for our hallway. Later he occasionally took me to the rifle range, where he taught me to shoot and shoot well (a decade and a half later my company commander begged me to join the competition rifle team). I felt very privileged as the only child among men shooting a .22 caliber rifle on Sunday mornings. Afterward he and some of the men would stop at a corner tavern and drink a beer. I would be allowed a glass of malt beer (low or no alcohol). In spite of having this joint interest, I never felt a close bond with my father.

My mother came from a very different environment. Julie Minnie Gertrud Grambow was born in 1896 in Wittenberge. Her father was a civil servant and ultimately became the postmaster of the city. He died when I was five, but from my last visit I remember an imposing, stout gentleman dressed in a dark suit. Her mother was a somewhat rotund, friendly, but reserved lady.

Mutti was a gentle, attractive woman who stood in total contrast to my father. She was reserved, sensitive, and very caring. They did share a love of music; she played the piano, and he the violin, although by the time I came into the marriage, they only played together on Christmas Eve. While she never played with me with my toys, we played board games and cards together. Later, perhaps when I was ten or older, she taught me table tennis, which we played on the dining table (which was in the middle of the living room—we had no dining room). Mutti clearly was the emotional anchor in my childhood. We were close. Her gentleness notwithstanding, she had a quiet way of asserting herself and ultimately could be stubborn and on rare occasions even lose her temper. I remember once, when we were visiting her parents in Wittenberge, she took me (about age five) along on an errand. We walked along a sidewalk that periodically had grates to cover the shafts over basement windows. I enjoyed the thrill of walking over these empty spaces. She told me not to do so, but before long I was back at it. Then I stepped on a grate that had rods lengthwise. My foot slipped in between two rods and was trapped. Even with her best efforts, I was stuck and no doubt wailing in pain. Soon a man came to our aid and freed me. I had trouble walking because of the pain, so with rising anger she turned around and marched me back to her parents’ house, where I got a full scolding and then was locked into a closet for some period. However, by-and-large she was even-tempered and generally upbeat.

It was Mutti who took me to museums and concerts, and to church. She had a strong faith that never left her, but she stopped going to church after the war. We never talked about it, but perhaps she had a reaction similar to the one I experienced—more about that later.

Sister Ingeburg, (Inge, later in the United States Ingrid), six years older, rounded out our immediate family. She was very attractive as a child, and in her twenties could well have been described as beautiful. As my nature was similar to Mutti’s, so was she more like Vati. Outgoing and temperamental, she could also be moody and very manipulative. On one hand she would treat me as a proud, protective older sibling, but then she could just as readily take advantage of me. I remember one Christmas when in two or three days she had already consumed the entire contents of her Bunte Teller (a plate each child received at Christmas filled with chocolates, candy, and fruit), whereas mine would last a couple of weeks. When I caught her eating from my plate, my fury welled up, and I hurled a too-well-aimed walnut at her. It hit her in the eye. Vati pulled the belt out of his pants and chased me around the dining table—successfully. Inge was much closer to Vati than to Mutti. She had many conflicts with the latter.

***

Life in the Big City

Because our community of Baumschulenweg was almost isolated, it didn’t feel like a big city. Except for occasional trips to museums and once to the opera (Hänsel und Gretel), I didn’t get to travel to the center of the city. At the end of our block was a small ice-cream shop. In the summertime we would get an occasional treat of a cone or a waffle (two wafers with a layer of ice cream in between). Next door to our apartment was Frau Lehmann’s small grocery shop where for a penny you could get a single Sahne Bonbon (caramel candy).

Near the river Spree was a large park with beautiful paths through a natural wooded setting as well as a developed section, which featured an artificial hill for sledding. The sledding hill was high and steep enough so that with enough weight on your sled you could get well up on a steeply banked turn at the bottom. In the winter an outdoor ice skating rink featured recorded music. Where the park abutted the river bank it had a paved walkway with a railing; it was a wonderful place for an enjoyable Sunday stroll.

On Sundays my mother and I would go to church (Lutheran). I don’t remember my father or sister ever being along. I enjoyed the ambiance, especially the singing. I believed in God and Jesus, and since early childhood had said my nightly prayers. When I was twelve I helped collect the fees from parishioners for the monthly newsletter.

In the adjoining community of Treptow was a good-sized amusement park that was open during the warmer time of year. Its feature attraction was a good-sized wooden roller coaster. My love for it was rewarded more than five decades later, when I was commissioned by the National Geographic to make a film about roller coasters!

On occasional Sundays we had an afternoon family outing to the far suburbs or countryside by streetcar or train. The stroll through nature would be topped off by a stop in a garden restaurant. These establishments invariably attracted customers with a large sign that announced: Here Families Can Brew Coffee. I don’t understand why anyone would carry their own coffee beans there, which the establishment prepared if you didn’t want to pay for theirs, but they made their living by selling you cake—ahhh, those delicious apple and plum cakes!

***

What did a boy do in Berlin in the 1930s when not in school or doing homework? Well, I had plenty of chores—errands to get things from a store; carrying coals from the basement; taking ashes out to the ash cans in the backyard; helping Mutti carry things to the fifth-floor attic, where the wash kitchen was (major laundry was done in a big copper kettle), and hang up the laundry in the attic for drying; and help carry rugs to the backyard and hang them over a beam and beat them. Still, life wasn’t all work: I had a scooter (yes, like the Razor, but with much larger wheels) and roller skates (with four wheels, not in-line—that hadn’t been invented yet) for zooming around on the sidewalks. The river had a small beach, although it was an outing just getting there: about a twenty-minute walk to the river, then crossing the river on a tiny open ferry boat, and then another five-minute walk. Indoors I enjoyed playing with toy cars and constructing things with my erector set. And at age four or five I had already acquired a girlfriend. Inge Paschke lived across the street; she was taller and nearly a year older. I enjoyed playing with her and her elaborate large dollhouse. At our apartment we would both get on the swing my father had fastened into one of the door frames (we had high ceilings and tall doors), one seated, the other standing. Her father had a movie camera and on special occasions would project some home movies. The best part was when he ran the projector backward and made Inge emerge from the pool and leap to the edge in reverse. (No, the idea of becoming a filmmaker did not strike me then.)

Our street had very little automobile traffic. In summer a horse-drawn wagon came regularly carrying block ice. The housewives would respond to the bell and come out to buy a piece for the ice chest—I doubt that anyone in our neighborhood had a refrigerator. Once a week the trash truck would come and pick up trash and ashes (we had no central heating; every room had a coal-fired tile oven); the men wheeled the big cans from the backyard and returned them to their assigned places! The occasional peddler with his hand-drawn cart offered to sharpen knives or collect rags. That was about it for the traffic. So the street was our playground—there were no public playgrounds with slides and swings as are common nowadays. The rough cobblestones made for difficult running and strange bounces in the pickup soccer games, but it was what you grew up with. We also played hide and seek within a one-block limit and a version of stickball (softball without pitching). The smaller children and the girls played hopscotch on the sidewalk.

Of course, boys had other things to do, like playing cops and robbers or Indians and cowboys (we were all avid readers of Karl May’s many books about the American West). And then we came up with an occasional piece of mischief. On the other side of our street was an apartment building that had doorbells in the shape of knockers. One day we organized an operation that had several of us stationed on the four floors. We had picked a time of day when it seemed likely that all the housewives were at home (married women ordinarily did not have a job), probably late afternoon, then in a flurry of activity we fastened string from one door knob to the bell on the next door, from that door knob to the next one up a flight and so on. When all was done and all hands were back on the ground floor, we rang the first bell and bolted. Unfortunately, we never knew if it worked as planned, but in our imagination we could see each door in succession being yanked repeatedly and causing the bell on the next apartment to summon the neighbor.

On an occasional Saturday afternoon I had a special treat: a movie at our one and only theater, the Sylvania. I remember especially enjoying the Laurel and Hardy comedies dubbed into German and titled Dick und Doof (Fat and Stupid).¹

***

Christmastime was wonderful. Like so much in life, the anticipation was probably the best part. The Advent season started on the fourth Sunday before the holiday. The dining table was graced with an Advent wreath that held four candles. One was lit at suppertime (the main meal was eaten at midday). The following Sunday two candles were lit, and so on. Starting with the eve of St. Nicklaus Day (December 6), every evening we children would put a shoe in the space between the double windows. If we had been good that day, next morning we would find that St. Nicklaus had left some candy or an orange in it. Otherwise it contained a small branch (symbolizing a switch for spanking). Probably never happened to me!?!

We also got an Advent calendar that was taped to a window. Every morning we got to open that day’s little door, behind which was a luminous picture of something promising, such as a fancy new toy. It was reassuring to see each day the number of closed doors dwindle.

In Germany Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day, is the big event for the children. Vati would only work half a day. After he came home, the living room was off limits to us children. Of course, it was the longest afternoon of the year. Finally, early evening, everyone got dressed in Sunday finery, and the children (all two of us) assembled at the living room door. When Vati opened the door, at first only a crack, Mutti was at the piano, and we got a glimpse of the beautifully decorated Christmas tree that had miraculously appeared there since noon. As we all sang Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht (Silent Night, Holy Night) the door would be opened all the way, then we sang all three (!!!) verses of O du fröhliche, o du selige, gnadenbringende Weihnachtszeit! (Oh you merry, oh you blessed, grace-bringing Christmas time!). Only then were we allowed inside to exchange greetings and admire the gifts under the tree. We experienced nothing like today’s plethora of presents. The custom was one present from each family member to each family member. Maybe the children received an extra one, though nothing was marked from St. Nick’s. Even in houses that did have a fireplace, the fellow never came into the house beyond the shoe at the window. The tree itself was beautifully decorated with a star on top and numerous colored balls, etc., as well as tinsel (glittering foil strips) draped over the branches. Cookies and candy and chocolate goodies were hanging from the branches. Most glorious of all, the room was glowing from the light of the