The Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present

I was chatting with someone just a few days ago. I asked them what their plans were for Christmas and they asked me mine.

Oh...how times have changed.

When I was little, my grandparents were the center of the universe and wherever they were - that's where Christmas was.

Initially, Christmas was at the apartment building - 808 Clay Street.

(Pictured: Wayne E. Roy, Irene Roy, Kristina Frazier, Frank Frazier, Patricia S. Frazier - Christmas 1967)

Everyone - my Aunts (Carolyn and Barb), their husbands (Jim and Bob), and my parents, plus me, my sister, and eventually my two cousins - Wendy and Cindy...we all gathered here and celebrated Christmas.

Church was a priority. My great-grandmother (Helena Starost Roy Kline) was a devout catholic and my Grandpa and his three daughters were obedient attenders of catholic mass - especially on Christmas. Cathedral was just a hop, skip and a jump away - which was good because we could walk there and back from the apartment building.

As you can see from this picture, my grandpa is dressed up. This was his "Sunday suit" - or at least that is what I called it. He wasn't one to wear fancy things - but you could count on the suit coming out for Christmas, Easter, weddings, funerals, and baptisms :).

My grandma wasn't much of a church goer. She would stay behind - busying herself in the kitchen. You could always count on pleasant smells (and sometimes unusual as my grandma was known to stray from the typical Christmas feast).

My grandparents moved to Jackson, Michigan sometime in the early 70's.

Even though my family (and Aunt Carolyn's) was in Fort Wayne and Aunt Barb's was in Elkhart - it was never doubted that we would all travel up to Jackson, Michigan and celebrate Christmas together as a family.

(Pictured: Kristina Frazier, Patricia J. Frazier, Cindy Baughman, Wendy Welker - Christmas 1975)

We would usually drive up the day / night before so that my mom and aunt's could help my grandma with all of the cooking.

Grandpa liked to sit in his big, overstuffed brown recliner chair, watching his black and white television, smoking his cigar.

The four cousins - well - we had an absolute blast! I have to tell you that only having one sibling at the time (my sister) was boring and frustrating. Getting to hang with Cindy and Wendy was awesome because it was fresh blood to pick on! Normally though, we'd play board games, dress- up, go out side and sled, etc....There was never a time where we sat around and asked to go home. Being at grandma and grandpa's house was always awesome.

This is where I distinctly remember the grown-ups and kids table. The grown-ups sat around the dining room table and the four girls - well - we got our own table. It was a 4 x 4 card table with folding chairs to boot.

(Pictured: Patricia S. Frazier, Frank Frazier - Christmas dining room table, 1975)

Some other traditions that stand out for me - my grandma allowing us to pick one ornament from the tree to take home and my grandpa getting on the floor and handing out the gifts, one by one. As a kid whose family struggled to make ends meet, Christmas was the motherload from a gift perspective. The night before we opened gifts - none of us girls could hardly sleep.

In the late 70's, my grandparents moved back to Fort Wayne and they lived in the Sheridan Court Apartments on Union Street.

(Pictured: Kristina Frazier, Frank Frazier, Patricia S. Frazier, Patricia J. Frazier, Jason Frazier - Christmas 1978)

This was the very last Christmas that we would spend together as a family unit - that is - me, my siblings, and my parents. My parents split up a month after this and everything in our lives changed.

Despite my parents divorce (and my two aunt's all divorcing and re-marrying), my grandparents had this unspoken thing about keeping the Christmas tradition alive.

In the early eighties, they moved to a house on Third Street. And even though I was in high school and my sister, and cousins were also moving up into "that age", the Christmas tradition was not to be messed with.

The main difference about the house on Third Street is that instead of just visiting it, I also lived there for a period of time. It didn't ruin my excitement about seeing everyone and by this time, I was starting to like some of my grandma's weird food selections :).

(Pictured: Kristina Frazier, Cindy Wilkins, Wendy Welker, Patty Frazier - Christmas 1985)

This picture here - is extremely precious to me. It's the very last photo of me, my sister, and my two cousins...taken with my grandfather. Five months later, he would become very ill and less than a year after that, he died.

Christmas has not been the same since.

My grandma lost the spring in her step and eventually, we all drifted away.

There have been a couple times that an effort has been made for all of us to get together.


(Pictured: Cyndi Wilkins, Kristina Frazier - Christmas, 1994?)

But most of the time, it doesn't happen. Some of it had to do with the strain in the relationships between sisters (my mom and two aunts) and sometimes it was just a question of other obligations and/or distance that some lived away from Fort Wayne.

To be quite honest, there have been several times - holiday or not holiday - where I have chosen not to take part in a family get together because of my own anxiety. Since the death of my grandfather and the multiple changes that my cousins have gone through - I just don't know how to "be" around them. For years, my sister, Cindy, and Wendy - we were glue for each other...Through the second round of siblings (ugh - all boys!), to the divorce of our parents (and their subsequent remarriages). The multiple moves, the multiple dysfunctions of the family (i.e. drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, sexual abuse, depression...). The boyfriends, the jobs, the cars, the booze...

Now, it is as if we don't even know each other.

So you remember, at the beginning of this entry, I said that I was chatting with someone about what our plans were for the Christmas holiday...

After I told this person what I was doing, all of these memories came flooding back to me (in about a span of four seconds). I remember writing to her, "it's bizarre how relationships change over time". That was my way to acknowledge that my Christmas has a definite hole in it. The absence of my grandfather, the silent treatment from my father, and the evaporated relationships that used to be - Me, Patty, Cindy, Wendy.

This Is Where It All Began...

* Note: All lyrics from the song, Dare You To Move, by Switchfoot

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here...
Everyone's here...
Everybody's watching you now...
Everybody waits for you now...
What happens next?
What happens next?

When I start to tell the story of how I came into existence, I have to put in lots of qualifiers to situations. Why? Because naturally, my parents weren’t typical (or maybe they were?). They were only statistics because they chose to be. And they chose to be because they were in love.

I was born on October 12, 1966 at 7:48 p.m. in Parkview Memorial Hospital. Those of you who were born in the late 60’s early 70’s probably know that it was called the “baby barn” because it seemed like the only place where babies were surfacing in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

1960's Postcard View

Parkview Memorial Hospital
2200 Randalia Drive
Fort Wayne, Indiana

My mother met my father when she was sixteen and he was nineteen.

He had moved up to Fort Wayne from Straight Creek, Kentucky and he lived in a tiny apartment somewhere close to where my mother and her parents lived.

They met at a laundromat. I believe it was not too far (maybe across the street) from the apartment building that my grandparents managed on Clay Street – but what the name of it was (and I know it no longer exists) – who knows. Side note: I did some research and this one I have plotted in the map to the right - may be the spot where the love connection happened.

The laundromat was owned by someone named Clyde Briggs and Clyde (who I have no memory of), was someone who my grandparents used to help out a lot.

This laundromat had both a jukebox and a pinball machine. It also had one of those cool vending machines with candy and a pop machine that dispensed bottles. (Trying to create the awesome scene – is it working?!)

That’s how my parents met – at a laundromat.

My mother was quite a rebel. It’s something in her I’ve always admired. And have been frustrated by. She hated rules. She hated catholic school. She hated her parents. She was a typical teenager.

She fell in love with my dad. Why? I don’t know, she’s never told me. But the result was that she moved into his apartment and kept quitting school (and my grandparents kept re-enrolling her).

My mom and dad wanted to get married. My grandparents said NO. They were keen on my mother finishing high school (she was only a sophomore) and let’s be “frank”, they really didn’t want their daughter marrying a hillbilly from Kentucky. There were plenty of nice boys who were raised right there in the good ole fort.

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

So my parents decided to send a “screw you” message to my grandparents – they got pregnant on purpose.

This, of course, infuriated my grandparents. And I’ve been told that if abortion would have been legal back then, they would have forced my mother to take that route. Thank gawd for small things like abortion not being legal then.

Defeated, they agreed to let my parents get married and on May 17, 1966, they were married by a Justice of the Peace. I was due on September 4, 1966 which made my mother about four-five months pregnant.

My mother’s doctor, who took care of her while she was pregnant, was someone named Dr. Meyer. I don’t know much about him (I did a pretty thorough search and found a Dr. Herman A. Meyer who might have been the dr. she went to) however, in true fashion, my mother never listened to him either.

Obituary for Dr. Herman A. Meyer

The week I was due, my parents took off for my dad’s hometown (Straight Creek) which sent my grandparents into a tizzy. I have no idea why she did this but I assume that she just wanted to get away from the pressures of life as she knew it in Fort Wayne.

They eventually came back – especially when her due date had passed. By this time, she was gi-normous. Apparently, I just wasn’t ready to come out and greet the world. And back then, I guess, they didn’t freak out if you were over your due date like they do now.

On October 12 (it was a Wednesday), my mother was feeling some discomfort. She went to see Dr. Meyer who said, “You’re in labor – make your way to the hospital”.

Which meant, do the opposite.

She went home. She was craving some beans so she soaked them, cooked them, and ate them. By this time, the doctor, wondering where my mother was, called back to the apartment building and my Aunt Carolyn (her older sister) had to drag her on over to Parkview. I guess she wasn’t convinced that it was time to give birth.

What happened after that – well – I do know – she was taken to the hospital, she was put under, and I was born. I was a whooping 9 pounds – absolutely humongous back in 1966. With today’s knowledge and technology, I shouldn’t have been taken much closer to my original due date.

This is the spot where I would insert a picture of me as newborn however, I don't have one and frankly, I'm not sure if one exists. Side note: I wonder if Parkview keeps archived files of these things???

So, here's one of me, my Grandpa Roy, his mom Grandma Kline, and my mom...outside of Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. If I was a betting woman, I would guess that I am almost a year old. I'm not sure who took the photo. Maybe my Grandma Roy? Definitely not my dad.


I don’t know where my father was when I was born. Maybe he was there, maybe he wasn’t. My mom doesn’t talk much at all about this time in her life. Or really, any time in her life. Anything I have been able to find out has been because of my grandma, and my two aunts.

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

Addendum: Good Ole Aunt Barb sent me some other pictures that I didn't have. The first is another high school picture of my mom. The second and third are pics of me less than a year old.