Whenever Dolores Gleason thinks of Butternut Street — one of the primary roads running through Syracuse’s North Side — she thinks of a kind lady who brought Christmas to life for the struggling Gleason family 40 years ago.
“It’s a memory that I still cherish and think about,” said Dolores, who lives in Liverpool in the Sunflower Drive tract off Electronics Parkway.
“It was in the month of December 1974, and my husband and I were driving down Butternut Street to our small, two-bedroom apartment on Graves Street.
“It was an economically tough time for us. We had an almost 5-year-old little girl and a son who was born in September who had just been released from St. Joseph’s hospital after a two-week stay. Things were kinda tight that year for Christmas.”
Unexpected generosity
“Just before we reached the one-way street off Butternut (before Park Street) that led to our apartment, I saw a sign in a window that said artificial Christmas trees $5 and $10 dollars. That was barely about all we could afford. So we stopped, and I knocked on the door and asked about the $5 Christmas tree.
“The lady said she didn’t have any more of them but she did have a couple of $10 trees left. She brought me into the living room to show them to me. They looked absolutely perfect to me! But I had to tell her that I could only afford $5. That wonderful lady said, ‘Awww, okay. It’s Christmas! You can have it for $5.’
“I almost cried. I rushed out to have my husband pay her and put the tree in the car. I have never forgotten that wonderful lady — she made it a wonderful Christmas for our family. I wish I had asked her name. But that truly shows how the Butternut area was back then!”
North Side blues
Nowadays, negotiating Butternut Street can be like running a gauntlet. Gang bangers and muggers mix among the mom-and-pop businesses that dot the street. Several murders have shamed the neighborhood over the past few years
But 40 years ago things were different. Neighbors there knew and cared about each other, as Dolores described. And for decades that discounted artificial Christmas tree became a symbol of joy and good tidings for the Gleasons.
“In fact, we used that Christmas tree for about 20 more Christmases,” Dolores said. “We packed it up and brought it with us every time we moved. I really didn’t want to part with that tree.
“The lady who sold it to us probably doesn’t live there anymore, but I hope she knows that she helped our family have a special Christmas.”
Expecting church changes
The Rev. Father John Finnegan has a hopeful heart.
He’s the longtime pastor of Baldwinsville’s St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, which will link up within a year or two with St. Stephen’s Church in Phoenix. So will two Catholic parishes in the town of Clay, Pope John XXIII Church and Christ the King Catholic Church.
The consolidations are the result of shrinking congregations, decreasing Mass attendance and an ongoing shortage of priests, according to the Most Rev. Robert Cunningham, Bishop of Syracuse.
Despite the growing pains of change, Fr. Finnegan looks forward to the future:
“All parishioners in all four parishes presently are praying the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into the harvest,” he wrote to me in a recent email. “Necessity is at the root of what is taking place, and the purpose of the many meetings which have already taken place and which will take place in the future is to guarantee that parish parishioners will have ample opportunity to attend Mass as has been their happy custom to this point in time.
“Parish structures certainly will change and there will be considerably more lay leadership and involvement in the church that will evolve. Trust in good solutions is firmly based on what Jesus said, namely that his church will remain until the end of time.”
Chocolate Morgans
When you brew that cup of cocoa you leave out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, consider warming it up with a hot shot of rum.
My friend Merlyn Fuller, the writer-musician who lives in nearby Jordan, recommends mixing hot chocolate with rum.
“I suggest Capt. Morgan’s Spiced Rum or Kraken,” she said. “And whipped cream doesn’t hurt it a bit.” She calls the warm cocktail “Chocolate Morgans.”
