Ancestor Archives: Helen MACY PEARMAN's Favorite Christmas Story

 

by Rocky Macy

Helen LaRhea MACY PEARMAN was not an ancestor of mine, but she was a close relative and very good friend whom I am choosing to include in this family chronicle.

 

Helen was born on October 13, 1915, to Walter “Jack” and Ethel Blanche (NUTT) MACY in Newton County, Missouri.  She passed away on April 12, 2007, in Neosho, Newton County, Missouri.  (Helen’s obituary states that she was born on October 13, 1917, but she is noted in “Macy Family,” a book by Betty Tuggle BELL which Helen helped to edit and put together, as being born on October 13, 1915 – an entry that she no doubt made herself or approved.)

 

Helen and my father, Garland Eugene MACY, were double first-cousins.  Her mother, Ethel Blanche NUTT, was a sister to my father’s mother, Hazel Josephine NUTT, and Helen’s father, Walter “Jack” MACY, was a brother to my father’s father, Charles Eugene MACY, a situation which made for a very close-knit group of cousins.

 

Helen and I were good friends, and our friendship was strengthened during the early 1990’s when I was going through a personal rough patch and Helen gave me several weekends of sanctuary in her home. She was a charming hostess who went above and beyond in seeing that my needs were met while I was a guest at her place.

 

I remember Helen as being a wit and a storyteller who had a remarkable memory for tales involving the MACY family.  She told me once that as soon as she had graduated from high school she took as job as a waitress at a small café in Neosho.  It turned out that the café sold beer in addition to food, and that as a part of her new job she had to serve beer to the customers.  “And wouldn’t you know it,” she laughed, “on my first day of work as I was busy serving beer and food, who should walk in but Grandfather Macy!”

(That would have been her grandfather, and my great-grandfather, William Stephen MACY.)

 

In addition to knowing a wealth of family history and having a wonderful collection of family stories, Helen was also a social butterfly in the Neosho.  Her late husband, Vince PEARMAN, had been a deputy with the Newton County Sheriff’s Office, and she and Vince were well known throughout the area.   One time I had a pair of tickets to a formal banquet in Neosho that was honoring several prominent citizens.   I had been forced to purchase the tickets through some now long-forgotten social obligation, and really had little interest in going – and no date.  I asked Helen, just on a whim, if she would lik to attend with me, and she readily accepted.

 

We sat at a small table with Fred and Sue Clark who owned and operated the city’s largest funeral home.   Fred and Sue were both well acquainted with Helen and enjoyed conversation with her throughout the evening.   While we were there many other local dignitaries stopped by our table to chat with Helen and exchange pleasantries.  I remember thinking that with the wide variety of people whom she knew, my cousin would have made a wonderful local politician!

 

Helen passed away in 2007.  My father and I stopped in to see her not long before she passed.  She was living in a very plush apartment in a care home in Neosho and was very frail.  My father asked her if she knew us, and she said, very delicately, “Why yes, I believe I do.”  She looked at my dad, “You’re Garland,” and then at me, “And you’re Rocky.”   And we settled in for a very nice last visit.

 

I thought of Helen this summer when I was cleaning out a shed at the farm and came across a newspaper clipping about her.   She had entered a writing contest with the Neosho Daily News in which readers told a favorite Christmas story – and Helen’s entry had come in second! The story was in the form of a personal reminiscence for her grandson, Michael Wolfinbarger.   It is a funny and sad Christmas tale that reminds me of O. Henry’s classic story, “The Gift of the Magi,” in which a young married couple each struggle to make the other’s Christmas special, and in the process create an awkward situation that ultimately makes the holiday even more memorable than it would have been otherwise.  Here is Helen’s Christmas story of the first Christmas that she and Vice spent as a married couple:

 

 

“My Favorite Christmas Story”

By Helen Pearman

Neosho

Age 74

 

“The hissing and crackling flames in the fireplace were frolicking with the zestfulness of youth, slowly becoming glowing embers fading away.  The cozy warmth wrapped iself around my grandson, Michael, and I, as we sat there lost in thought.  Soon he would enjoy, with the love of his youth, Kathleen, Christmas Eve in their first home.

 

“Listen, Michael, to this story of what was to have been our first Christmas Eve.   Your grandad and I were married in the summer of 1935.  Missouri had endured hard times in the 1930’s.  Jobs were scarce;  the pay was $1 a day.

 

“Your grandad and friends went to California to seek their fortune, not gold in “them thar hills,” but gold hanging from the trees – golden lemons and oranges to earn $.35 an hour.

 

“Early one morning after a heart-breaking farewell with my family, my cousin and I were on our way to California for Christmas in his newly acquired big Nash.   It had seen better days, but we were impressed with its elegance.

 

“My first trip, so exciting.   Every state had a beauty of its own – the pages of my high school day geography coming alive.

 

“Evening found us ready for some sleep.  Opening my suitcase, I found a Bible from my daddy – probably cost $.50.   Never was there a gift so fine.  Between the pages was a letter from my mother.  I do not remember, Michael, what she wrote, but I quietly cried myself to sleep deep in the heart of Texas.

 

“Early morning we were on our way again.  We are not so impressed now with our Nash.  We changed that word to depressed.  Every time it stopped, we had to push it to get it started.  Slurp, slurp, its favorite drink was oil.

 

“In due time, at 10:00 on Christmas Eve, we drove onto the streets of Glendora, Calif., cradled there in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, sparkling with holiday lights.  Each beam seemed to send out a special welcome.

 

“Quickly we found the Gem Apartments.  With my heart pounding, I rushed up those stairs to knock on our friend’s door.   Their welcome smiles changed to a painful look saying, “Young lady, your dear husband has gone to Missouri for Christmas.”

 

“I hung my head to hide the tears.  Out there on those wide open plains rushing down that endless ribbon of highway, in the night, two sweethearts who yearned for the sweet togetherness of their first Christmas Eve, had met and passed, unbeknown to each other.  Lo and behold – they were rushing along in opposite directions!

 

“We had other Christmas Eves in that beautiful city.  In time we made our home in Missouri, sharing 45 Christmas Eves;  our 45^th was our last.

 

“Tonight, Michael, as we watch these lively flames and then the dying, glowing embers reflecting life itself, my prayer is that you and Kathleen be blessed with a long lifetime of Christmas Eves, ever realizing that ”until death do us part” is life fully fulfilled.”

 

(Helen was seventy-four when she wrote that piece and entered it in the Neosho Daily News contest.  That is the same age that I am now – just one more connection to my very special double first-cousin, once removed.  I still think of her often.)

 

Helen MACY PEARMAN passed away on April 12, 2007, and her funeral was arranged and handled by Fred and Sue Clark (our dinner companions from the banquet nearly twenty years earlier) of the Clark Funeral Home in Neosho.  The following obituary ran in the Neosho Daily News:

 

“Helen LaRhea Pearman, 89, Neosho, died at 1:30 p.m. Thurs., April 12, 2007, at Spring Hill Assisted Living, following a short illness.  She was born Oct. 13, 1917, in Newton County to Walter Jack Macy and Ethel (Nutt) Macy.  Mrs. Pearman was a lifelong area resident.  She was the first woman ever to be chosen to manage a Sears store, and managed the Neosho Sears store from 1963-1978.  Following retirement from Sears, she worked at Blue Ribbon Real Estate in advertising and public relations.  She coached girls’ softball teams and was instrumental in founding, and coached, the famous Neosho Gidgets girls’ traveling softball team.   She was very active in the Belfast and Rocketdyne Road Churches of Christ.   She loved flower gardening and felt that her love of growing flowers was the best gift her mother ever gave her.   She loved writing letters to her children and grandchildren, and to the Neosho Daily News.   Many of her articles were published and enjoyed by many.  In her retirement years, Helen enjoyed traveling with her husband Vincent in their travel trailer throughout the country.   She loved camping out at area creeks.  When it came to family and friends, Helen was always there to give any type of support that was needed.  She was a loving wife and mother, and was very proud of her family.   Helen was preceded in death by her husband, Vincent Pearman, her parents, three sisters, June Conell, Marilyn Reding, and Barbara Macy;  a brother, Sonny Macy:  and a great-grandson, Daxton Wolfinbarger.  She is survived by four children, Gary Pearman and Lucy Estes, Neosho;  Dianne and Gary McNeill,  Bartlesville, OK;  Darlene and Jim Wolfinbarger, Tulsa, OK;  and Larry and Julie Pearman, Neosho;  nine grandchildren;  Janna an Bob Jacobs, Greg and Kenya Pearman, Craig McNeill, Scott and Valerie McNeill, Jeff McNeill, Mike and Kathleen Wolfinbarger, Kristi and Chris Carter, Matt and Traci Wolfinbarger, and Shelbi and Darrin Widener;  15 great-grandchildren;  and many nieces and nephews.”

 

Helen was buried next to Vince in Belfast Cemetery in rural Newton County, Missouri.  Belfast Cemetery is located on land that was originally part of the old homeplace of her great-grandparents, Charles and Mary Jane (MEADOR) MACY.   In her final resting place Helen MACY PEARMAN is surrounded by many, many friends and relatives -  a circumstance that would have pleased her very much.

 

Rest in peace, Helen, and thanks for being such a good cousin and friend!