I wrote a Merry Christmas Story and it’s time for a New Year story. Most of my Christmas story was about my mother, Dora. And that’s OK. Christmastime always make me think of family and times we had with them at Christmas time. What I would want to share with you this Christmas Season is a story about my mom and her sisters and music.

My mom’s Dad, George Washington Boyd, passed away during the terrible flu epidemic of 1918. Grandma Julia was left with her little girls, Lora, Dora, Cora, Ruth and Oma. She then married a man who had lost his wife during the same epidemic. He also had a lot of kids which I won’t name right here. Their new stepfather was named Will Armstrong and life went on.

The little girls were well looked after and loved by Will. The little girls were well known for their music and love of singing. Will encouraged this and had them sing at their chores, whether it was out in the fields hoeing of taking care of the stock and even when they did the dishes. He loved to hear them sing. On Sundays, after hitching up the wagon and packing in his large family the girls sang their way to church (a Freewill Baptist Church). It was probably three miles or more to the church which was built close to the banks of Mountain Creek.

Their singing could be heard for a good distance. Grandpa told me once that it also served as a way to announce that this was Sunday—A day to get to church. Church went all day. Singings in the afternoon after a good dinner “on the ground.” There were tables outside under the beautiful shade trees but they did go inside when the weather was too cool or bad. The little girls’ actual father had always led the music there and was in some demand in the area churches where he generously used his talents.

In fact it was while he was away in Fort Smith at a music conference that he contracted the flu that quickly ended his life. But his music lived on in those little girls. They were asked to do the annual Christmas program. And they did. Grandma Julia made all of them new white dresses and my mom told me (modestly) that “We were just beautiful in them.”

Grandpa Boyd had both a piano and an organ in the house and mom said all of them were able to chord and make some music for them to practice by. She also told me that a church member made his way to Wister and bought enough apples and oranges and Christmas candy for each child at the gorgeous little church. A tree was cut and put up in the church. Decorations were made and by the time for the Christmas Program the little singing girls were ready.

Mom (again, modestly) told me everything went well. All the music was done to perfection. Oma, the youngest, closed the program with a solo. Oma stood on a table and sang in a clear and beautiful voice that mom said she could still hear. She imagines Oma’s Christmas song could be heard for a very long distance. I don’t know who had to do the clean up but mom said the girls were all loaded in the back of the wagon where an abundance of quilts cushioned their ride and kept them warm and the wagon jolted its way back to the foot of Wolf Mountain.

No. Mom said they did not sing their way home. “We were tired and used up I guess because we all fell asleep before we went very far.” It was a happy Christmas in 1920.

Now I just want to wish all of my readers a “Happy New Year in 2025.”

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail.com