Changes

Until my Ross grandparents died, we visited Kansas City every year, usually during Christmas week. The Brethren did not believe in the usual Christmas celebrations. Not until I was a teenager did my mother buy a Christmas tree. Yet our parents did not deny us Christmas presents or, as noted already, the thrill of seeing Santa Claus with Uncle Alf. On Christmas morning, we found presents – articles of clothing, usually, but they were not under a tree and they were not wrapped. We found them in the parlor on the sofa or one of the arm chairs. After breakfast, we went to a conference “meeting” at the Gospel Hall, the first of many until the final meeting on Sunday night.

=Sources=

* excerpts from previously unpublished autobiography of C. Donald Cole, deposited in my archive a few years before his death.