A Christmas Remembrance of the Sherrill Nash’s
Sherrill Nash was the first editor of the Starkville Daily News in 1960. His father was a physician in the Tupelo area. His parents died at an early age and Largus B. Camp of Starkville adopted him. He served in World War II and these memories are included. These Christmas memories were written by his wife, Virginia, who was the lifestyles writer of the paper.
In the Sherrill Nash family, Christmas was always a time of carrying out traditions. The oldest of these was being together as a family on Christmas Eve. During the evening, the Christmas Story from Luke in the Bible was read, as the family watched the lights twinkle on the Christmas tree in the living room, while perhaps enjoying cookies, candy or fruitcake. Any packages under the tree were not to be opened until Christmas morning. If Christmas came on Sunday, the family always attended both Sunday school and church; then they could be off to the grandparents’ home for Christmas dinner.
On Christmas Eve, however, as soon as the children were in bed and asleep, the father and mother would very quietly take the toys from their hiding places and put them around the tree. Sherrill, the father, always insisted on having a real live tree, usually a small cedar. The trip to the country to fine just the right tree was always a delightful occasion in itself. The fragrance of the tree filled the warm room on Christmas Eve as the parents, Virginia and Sherrill, worked quietly to get everything ready for the next morning.
The little girls, Carolyn and Suzanne, always awoke early on Christmas morning, slipping quietly into the living room to peak. Once satisfied that Santa had already made his visit, they would run into the parents’ room to wake them, urging the father and mother to “Come and see what Santa left us!” There would be dolls and dishes, and little tables and chairs, and doll beds, and books, a tent for Suzie and a new bicycle for Carolyn—never any “boy” toys such as trucks, cars, trains or guns.
After the presents were played with, the father would go to the record player and put on two old records. These were 45 rpm plastic discs made during World War II when Sherrill was in the Army. The first record was made in a USO booth set up in Times Square in New York City in 1944. Service men stranded in the city during Christmas were invited to make a recording to mail home to their families. Sherrill had made such a recording, and each year as we played again we realized how fortunate we were to be together as a family. Tears came into our eyes as we heard Sherrill speak of little Carolyn whom he had seen only a few times; how he imagined her blue eyes would sparkle and how her baby laughter would sound when she first saw her Christmas tree and the toys underneath it.
Sherrill’s second record was made in December 1945 in Anchorage, Alaska. There, he was literally snowed in, but he had mailed home a photograph of himself and other GI’s pulling a beautiful fir tree through the snowy woods to be set up inside the mess hall. The Negro Heavyweight boxer, Joe Louis and a troop of U.S.O. entertainers were to be in their camp for a Christmas performance. Sherrill’s voice quivered with emotion as he told his family how much he longed to be with them at Christmas. His good news was that he hoped to be discharged soon after the first of the year.
After Sherrill came home from the Army, the family moved to Starkville where Suzanne was born in 1947. In February 1948, the Nashes moved to Memphis. Now it is 1958. The Nash family has built a new home just two blocks from Kingsbury School where both Carolyn and Suzanne attend and across the street is St. Stephens Methodist Church. Sherrill is in the advertising business. Virginia has earned a B.S. degree in elementary education from Memphis State University and is a fourth grade teacher at nearby Wells Station School.
Carolyn was a good student and became involved in extra curricular activities. She took art lessons, dancing and baton twirling, ice skating, piano, horseback riding and was an ardent Elvis Presley fan. She was in the second year of band at Kingsbury. Because she wore braces on her teeth, the band instructor, Jack Foster, recommended that she choose the flute as her instrument. She had used the school’s flute so far, and now her parents resolved to buy her a flute of her own for Christmas.
A few days after Thanksgiving, Sherrill and Virginia went Christmas shopping. They picked out a beautiful silver flute in a black leather case lined with blue felt at the Melody Music Shop. Even though the flute was to be wrapped in Christmas paper, the parents wanted to keep Carolyn guessing up until the last minute. They knew she would easily recognize the flute by its shape, so they asked the store clerk if he had a large box to put it in. He did have one, he said, and the parents followed him to the back of the store where a gray-haired African American man wearing eyeglasses was wrapping purchases at a long wooden table. In a few minutes he was ready to wrap the flute. He tore off five or six feet of pretty Christmas wrapping paper placed the large box in the den after and proceeded to wrap. Once he used his eyeglasses to hold the paper in place while he reached for the tape. Now the job was finished. Sherrill handed him a dollar, and the man smiled and wished him a Merry Christmas.
On Christmas morning of 1958 Carolyn found her name on the big box under the Christmas tree. As she pulled off the paper, her first surprise was a pair of men’s eyeglasses neatly folded inside the Christmas wrapping. Her second surprise was the new flute. How she did love to plan it! She played it all through high school and for three years at Mississippi State University where she was a member of the Famous Maroon Band and a baton-twirling majorette.