News From Around The County
He Fixed My Car, and My Christmas Glen Gillette In 1958, I was a first-year high school teacher in Beatty, Nevada. On Dec. 22, I headed home to Idaho in my 1951 Hudson to spend Christmas with my parents. Just south of Fillmore, Utah, a radiator hose broke and the car started to overheat. I hitchhiked into Fillmore and got […]
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Strangers Carried Us Home Rafael Villalobos I joined the Army on Dec. 15, 1959, when I was 17. Five days later, I had the choice of going home for Christmas or staying at Fort Carson, Colorado, and pulling KP duty for 15 days. A fellow recruit and I wanted to go home, but we didn’t have enough money for bus […]
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A String of Blue Beads Fulton Oursler Peter Richards was the loneliest man in town on the day Jean Grace opened his door. You may have seen something in the newspapers about the incident at the time it happened, although neither his name nor hers was publicized, nor was the full story told as I tell it here. Pete’s shop […]
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’Tis better to give Jennifer Yardley Barney I knew I was not supposed to be quite so excited. I was too old for that. At age eleven, the oldest and my mom’s “grown up” girl, I had to keep my cool. I was in middle school after all. But every chance I got, when I was alone, I checked each […]
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Pepper’s Last Gift Zach Hively Whatever life threw at us each year, come Christmas our family had one constant tradition: our dog Pepper opened our presents for us. When our beloved Black Lab mix had been a gangly adolescent puppy, we had only given her unbreakable gifts to unwrap—things like pajamas and steering wheel covers. She proved to be so […]
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A brother like that Author unknown A friend of mine named Paul received a new car from his brother as a pre-Christmas present. On Christmas Eve, when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it. “Is this your car, mister?” he asked. Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me […]
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A Rifle for Christmas Rian B. Anderson Pa never had much compassion for the lazy or those who squandered their means and then never had enough for the necessities. But for those who were genuinely in need, his heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, […]
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Christmas Day, 1914 My dear sister Janet, It is 2:00 in the morning and most of our men are asleep in their dugouts—yet I could not sleep myself before writing to you of the wonderful events of Christmas Eve. In truth, what happened seems almost like a fairy tale, and if I hadn’t been through it myself, I would scarce […]
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A Boy Learns a Lesson Thomas S. Monson In about my tenth year, as Christmas approached, I longed for an electric train. The times were those of economic depression, yet Mother and Dad purchased for me a lovely electric train. Christmas morning bright and early, I thrilled when I noticed my train. The next few hours were devoted to operating […]
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The Postman Lifted Us From Depression Martin Klapper My parents, at the height of the Depression, were forced to go on home relief, which is known as welfare today. It was 1935, when I was 10 years old, and we lived on the first floor of a walk-up apartment on 43rd Street, in Brooklyn, New York. A few days before […]
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