Quincy Morris Place
1954 Bridge Club. Youngsters in the front, left to right: Philip Myers, Margaret Myers in her cowgirl outfit with her doll, John Myers, standing, Don Henry, standing, Merle Henry sitting, Carol Ann Greene sitting, Jim and John McWilliams boys kneeling, Mark Greene sitting. Front row, left to right: Peggy Shanks, Annalee McWilliams, Gerdina Shanks, Freida Yochum, Catherine Greene, Dorothy Henry, Bertha Myers. Back row, left to right: David Myers, Ralph Shanks, Donald Greene, Jim McWilliams, Willard Henry, Leonard Yochum.
For several years, our Christmas tree couldn’t be set up and decorated until about 5 days before Christmas. That was because our tree was actually the leftover Christmas tree from the school, and Christmas break started 5 days before Christmas. Rather than let the tree go to waste (and rather than buy a tree brand new), WD would bring the school’s tree home on the last day before break.
Since there weren’t a lot of other tree decorations and ornaments, the “icicles” became crucial. In this picture you can see the discipline with which the icicles had to be hung—each strand had to be hung individually and never clumped or tangled up with any other strand. And each one had to hang absolutely straight down. This was a painstaking process and caused some disagreements and impatience during the decorating. Didn’t matter. The icicles were the most important component of making the tree look magical.
For some unknown reason, this year’s tree was completely missing its top and had an enormous gap in branches on the lower right side. Our family had a white foam star on a pipe cleaner to attach to the top of the tree, but sadly this tree had no top, and therefore it looks like no star. However, when I was working on restoring this old picture, it looks like there was an attempt to get the white foam star somewhere near the top of the tree. It looks like it fell off its perch and is dangling from the pipe cleaner.
Our brother John’s birthday is on Christmas Day. So he has been shortchanged on birthday parties all these years. His birthday was celebrated—more accurately, acknowledged—on Christmas Eve. When Christmas morning finally arrived, it was all about opening the presents under the tree. That was followed by a unique breakfast that the three boys feasted on—Aunt Marie’s homemade bread-and-butter pickles on toast.
Then the new Monopoly game was set up and the three brothers brutally boxed me out on owning any property of value, having convinced me that Baltic Avenue was coveted real estate, and made me cry.
This was likely the revenge they exacted for the beautiful “walking” doll I got for Christmas.
This photo of Philip photobombing as some kind of funny monster, with our cousin Roger Ferguson looking on, was very likely taken on Christmas Eve. All the gifts have been wrapped and are under the tree, and Christmas Eve was the traditional time we invited extended family to our house. The Myers boys and the Ferguson boys were thick as thieves, and the Ferguson’s mother, Aunt Marcelle, the most fun imaginable.
Although the technical quality of this photo is pretty terrible, it is also rare and important for its content to suggest how much we enjoyed life in the Morris Place.
Photo discovered in Philip’s archive in Venice, FL, and scanned there by Margaret, May 2022.
Original History