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A WARTIME CHRISTMAS

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By GARY R. MORMINO

Tribune correspondent

Published: December 14, 2008

Part 1 of 2

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, newspaper boys hawked Sunday's heavy editions with special urgency. The first Sunday in December marked the opening of the high season, the unofficial beginning of winter and the arrival of the first tourists.

It seemed as if, finally, the first glimpses of prosperity had dashed the hard memories of the 1930s.

By late afternoon, however, news from Hawaii sobered the giddiest hotel operator. December 1941 was the month of reckoning. By radio and newspaper, Floridians learned that war had consequences. Western Union messengers delivered a telegram, dateline Pearl Harbor, to the family of Theo Byrd in Tampa: "Your son, Private Theo F. Byrd Jr., was killed in battle today."
Tampa residents quickly learned and relearned that a gold star hanging from the window of 2803 Fountain Blvd. signaled a terrible loss for the Byrds. Many more gold stars would follow.

Between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day, before Midway and D-Day, there was the Christmas of '41. For most Americans, it was their first wartime Christmas since 1917. It was bittersweet: Sons, husbands and fathers would all too soon be in harm's way, but neither Imperial Japan nor Nazi Germany could disrupt a sacred holiday, perhaps the last for many young men.

O Slender Christmas Tree
"For the duration," along with "Gold Star Mothers," became standard phrases in the wartime lexicon. Already, sugar bowls were disappearing from diners' tables and new tires from dealers' showrooms. Holiday firs and spruces had been ordered, but Christmas '41 would be the last time for years that many families decorated trees.

Ornaments became victims of war and politics. Americans had become accustomed to Japanese and German ornaments, but war, patriotism and embargoes forced families to improvise.

Rene Gonzalez, a child in 1941, reminisced that it was "the last year we were able to get a Christmas tree." He recalled an elderly lady "who lived behind Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ybor City. She refused to take down her tree until her son came home. By the first spring, that poor tree had lost all of its needles."

In Ybor City and West Tampa, a new sense of religious dedication surpassed devotion to Noche Buena, the traditional Christmas Eve feast. Gilda Ferlita Capitano, a young girl in the early 1940s, recalled the war's grip upon elderly Italian women: "The older women from Sicily all made promises to St. Joseph if their loved ones returned unscathed."

Hound Dogs, Blue Christmases

A bright spot in the winter of 1941 was Thomas Parker, one of Tampa's best-known characters. As a young man, Parker had worked in the Great Parker Pony Circus. In 1941, he was the field agent of the Tampa Humane Society. He also began the city's first pet cemetery.

Parker would always be remembered for Christmas '41, when the Humane Society had a surplus of mutts. Displaying a talent for promotion that later endeared him to Tennessee country singer Eddy Arnold, Parker dressed as Santa Claus and held a party for Tampa children.

Between performances by clowns and monkeys riding a miniature merry-go-round, Parker gave away 100 puppies before an audience of nearly 1,000 children. Other than an out-of-control billy goat that charged the Christmas tree, the event was a huge success. A reporter described the scene as a near riot.

A few months earlier, within a hound's bark of the Humane Society's building on Armenia Avenue, the National Guard had opened the Fort Homer Hesterly armory late in the summer of 1941.

Fourteen years later, Parker, by then known as Col. Tom Parker, hosted another riotous success at the armory, when he invited a Tennessee rockabilly singer named Elvis Presley to play a concert. By Christmas 1955, Parker had signed the singing sensation to an exclusive management contract.

Gary R. Mormino is co-director of the Florida Studies Program at USF St. Petersburg. He invites your letters and stories - including any you have about Christmas 1941. Reach him at gmormino@stpt.usf.edu or in care of the Florida Studies Program, Snell Hou

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