Christmas Past in early Los Alamitos

The Holiday season is full swing now– which means Youth Center Christmas tree sales at the Ganahl Parking Lot, Holiday Crafts sales, sports teams selling wreath and poinsettias, realtors driving Santa Claus through Rossmoor and Los Alamitos, students caroling at the some of the area’s senior citizen homes, family drives to check out the amazing Christmas decorations in Suburbia and Rossmoor, not to mention many other personal traditions, many of which go back to the old days of the 1950s and 1960s (and can be read about at the “You Grew Up in Los Alamitos…” facebook group page).

But what did people do for Christmas back in the real old days of Los Alamitos – i.e., pre Rossmoor.  It turns out old Los Al had more than its share of Christmas traditions right from the town’s beginning.

Nellie Butterfield  who lived on Chestnut Street during the town’s first six years writes of Christmases around 1900:

“The lower grade schoolteachers, especially Miss Swerdfeger, helped the children rehearse and put on fine programs for Christmas and Easter.  At Christmas, there was always a big decorated tree, lighted with candles, at the church and the parents of any child in town could attend and put gifts on the tree for their children.  My Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Hooker gave the girls an orange wrapped in a handkerchief, which made them happy.”

During the years 1898 and 1899 drought severely impacted many local farmers so dances were held near Christmastime with proceeds going to help the families of those farmers in trouble.

But good rains soon returned to the area and the beet growers thrived.  This meant longer factory processing campaigns which ended close to Christmas.  So by 1910, the newly formed Beet Growers Association and the sugar factory owners had started combining on a party to celebrate the ending of the campaign and the Holidays.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the 1910 affair was attended by a “big crowd of upwards of 500 people” who “ate, and ate again, until their wants were fully satisfied.”  The article continued:

“General Manager J. Ross Clark, accompanied by his son, Walter M. Clark, manager, were guests of honor. Games and trap shooting were some of the sports indulged in. W. H. William was the lucky winner of four turkeys and J. H. Mills of three out of the fifteen prizes. Several sheep, a goat and a big ox were roasted and served, the feast winding up with tamales pies, ice cream and coffee. Everybody, rich and poor, were fed and to those unable to attend generous portions were sent by friends. The feasting continued until the chilliness of the evening admonished the lingerers that it was time to seek their homes. This was a fitting celebration of the most successful harvest season in the history of the factory.”

By this same time, a little to the south, Fred Bixby had assumed control of the Bixby Ranch (the lands south of present Orangewood and north of what is now Garden Grove Boulevard, the 405/22 freeway, and 7th Street.  With his wife Florence, they soon began hosting a Christmas party for all the ranch employees and even some of the tenant farmers.  This tradition lasted for years and by the 1930s Fred and Florence’s four surviving children and their families gathered at the rancho to celebrate Christmas, along with the ranch hands and their families, who were always included in the gift-giving,

The Los Alamitos Sugar Factory closed in 1926, but the town’s merchants soon formed a Chamber of Commerce.  By the late 1930’s, this chamber worked with other Orange County chambers – including the OC Coast Association – to host a big Holiday decorating contest – dubbed “40 Miles of Smiles.”  The contest was forced to take a break during World War II, but was resumed immediately after the war.  In December 1945, Laurel School won one of the competition awards for its Nativity scene.

The area wasn’t totally without Christmas traditions during the war years.  In 1923, Mrs. Frank Tischler, who lived at 511 Green Street, began visiting local homes and passing out gifts to local children.  As times got tough during the Depression and war years, Mrs. Tischler bought “a really professional Santa suit complete with silver spangles and a flowing white beard” and her gift-giving activities expanded to include visits to Laurel School and homes and schools in Garden Grove and Seal Beach, and then to children of sailors at the new Navy air base.

A Press-Telegram article from December 1948, noted that Tischler’s Santa schedule was now so busy she needed a ledger to keep track of her more than one hundred Santa visits.

Tischler turned down financial remuneration many times, saying “I get all the pleasure anyone could ask in the pleasure of children.”

“No matter what the distance, how foggy the night, or how late the hour, if a grown-up has invited her, Mrs. Tischler will be battering the door, bent double under the weight of her pack of toys, plus a couple of oversized pillows inside her suit, and waddling into the room to give tots a thrill they’ll never forget.”

One of those tots visited by Mrs. Tischler was current Los Alamitos City Council member Marilynn Poe, who to this day still remembers when she was a little girl and the door bell would ring and when her parents opened the door, there was Santa ready to pass out some gifts.

In honor of her 25 years of playing Santa to local children the Los Alamitos Chamber of Commerce made Tischler the guest of honor at the chamber’s January 1949 installation banquet.

That same year the recently formed American Legion Auxiliary held its first Christmas Gift sale, with proceeds from the sale of “handmade articles, including ceramics,“ going to fill the Christmas baskets of local needy persons.  The following year the Legion expanded the campaign to include a toy drive , and gift wrap assistance for patients at the Long Beach Veterans Hospital.

I’m sure there were many other Christmas events and traditions that went on around here prior to the construction of Rossmoor and all the other tracts.  If you know of some, let me know and I’ll add them to the list for when I recycle this story at this same time next year.

 Local writer Larry Strawther is the author of the just released book, A Brief History of Los Alamitos & Rossmoor, 160 pages, published by The History Press.  As we go to press, copies should be available in local stores or through the author who can be contacted at localsports@earthlink.net.  Larry also publishes the LocalSports blog, and this  local history website — www.losalhistory.com if you didn;t know where you already are.

 

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