Carl Grueninger, Jr with aunt Betty Grueninger Stearns
Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
Sometime in the late 1950’s Aunt Betty moved back to Cincinnati from Asheville, NC. Around 1965 she called my father and asked if I could help her after school get a Christmas tree, because cousin Bill has been working late the past week and can’t do it. I was around 11 or 12 years old. Dad took me out to the garage and gave me the hand saw and some rope to tie the tree to the roof of her car. He reminded me how to cut the trunk of the tree and place it in a bucket of water in her garage.
So the next day after school, Aunt Betty drove up in her 1956 Buick sedan, a two toned blue (bottom part of the car) and white (top). Wish I had that car today. We start driving to Mt. Airy Forest, which is the largest city park in Cincinnati. As we are driving around the park she stops the car and points to a 4 ft tree she wants. I told her this is a city park and you can’t cut down trees in the park. How do I know this? The signs around the park warn you not to do this or you will be fined and or arrested.
Aunt Betty tells me she pays taxes to the city for the park and she should be able to get a Christmas tree from the park. She tells me that in Bryson City, they would drive through the park and cut down a tree for Christmas. I oblige and cut the tree down and we tie it to the roof of her car. No one sees us and we drive home to her house, where I place it in the bucket in her garage.
That night after supper, my father asks me if I helped Aunt Betty get a Christmas tree and I tell him the story. He laughs and then tells me to never repeat this story and especially never tell my mother or grandmother.
—Carl Grueninger III
I hope you enjoyed Carl’s Christmas memory as much as I do!
Last night’s video: Oyster Stew & Ambrosia for Christmas Eve.
Tipper
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Great story!
Loved this sweet story. Hope there is a statute of limitations on how long that would be a crime. Hahaha. Also 58 years ago it’s a good thing cameras weren’t in use. MC & HNY Everyone.
I enjoyed this story very much, thank you for sharing.
As always praying for Granny.
What a funny story! I was so happy to see Granny in the photos and she looked so pretty in her Christmas colors!!
Happy Holidays Acorns!
Besides the subjects, 4 things stood out for me in the photo:
1) The 1940 Ford sedan with 1942 plates (the first year of WWII)
2) The Carolina Motor Club badge attached to the license plate holder
3) The rain barrel
4) The shadow of the area light presumably place at the peak of the garage roof.
Wouldn’t that light “placed at the peak of the garage roof” be the sun? Couldn’t the light that lights up their faces be that same sun. Don’t they have slight sun grins because the sun is shining in their eyes? I’m probably wrong about that as I am usually wrong about most everything, but I’ve never been know for my observational skills.
I misspoke when I sighted that light at the peak of the roof when the fixture is clearly visible. Apparently I didn’t notice the lamp itself when I posted as much as I did the shadow and knew immediately what was casting the shadow.
That was so funny!! Enjoyed Carl’s memory of Aunt Betty!!
Oh my goodness! Too funny !
Now that’s a cute story!! Thanks for sharing.
What an awesome story! Love it.
I have probably posted about this before but …. a puzzle in my life has concerned “collecting” from public land, specifically national forest. I grew up within one and we commonly collected incidental things from it; bean sticks, rich pine kindling, Christmas greenery, fish bait, wild edibles, ginseng, arrowheads. This was in a very different administrative time when no permits were required for any of these things. Now, it is very different. So the puzzle I am left with is how we could ever feel morally OK about things that would now mean a federal case with at least a fine and maybe jail time? I was raised to think of morals as absolutes all the time I was living them as relative without seeing the mismatch. The apostle Paul also did that, up to and including arresting Christians and testifying against them. He later said, “…I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” Elsewhere, he explained that without a (authoritative and just?) law against it, there was no violation of conscience. But that means law makes conscience?! And what a can of worms that opens.
Reminds me of my mom who would dig up small trees, bushes, ferns or wild flowers that she saw on the sides of the back roads driving over the mountains of WV. She always had a small digging shovel, gloves and a trash bag in the trunk of her car for this very reason. That was how she got plants for landscaping around our childhood home. She simple didn’t know that we weren’t supposed to dig up any plant life along the back roads. That’s just what people did back then in WV. She stopped after us kids got older, mainly because all the landscaping around the house she wanted had all been thriving from past diggings, but also because someone had enlightened her it was against the law. She felt bad about it, took shovel, gloves and trash bags out of her trunk and never did it again. That was over 60 years ago, but today’s post brought back those memories.
We were lucky. We always had Christmas trees either on my grandpa’s farm, daddy’s farm, or our neighbor’s farm. Between all of us we had a good supply of white pines. Sometimes we would cut them
off the State Right Away. They were always cleaned off when they got larger so I guess we did the highway system a favor.
Granny looked sooo lovely in the photos Katie uploaded to the Pressley Girls channel! I hope she felt well and you all had a special day together.
That’s actually Carl Grueninger, Jr in the photo with Betty Grueninger Stearns, wife of I.K. Stearns who took the photo. The Carl who told the story is Carl G. III (Betty was his great aunt). Carl and his sister donated the Stearns-Grueninger photograph collection to Hunter Library. It’s a fantastic group of photos, most of which are – like this one – color images.
Color photos taken by non-professionals from the early 1940s are exceptionally rare, and this would be an amazing collection just on that account. I.K. had a wonderful eye for photography, and many of his images – particularly those of people – are superb. Carl’s donation of the collection to Western Carolina was a major factor in getting another collection, that of Kelly Bennett (a friend of I.K.), transferred to the university.
Don, thank you! I used what the collection had on their website 🙂 I updated the post with your information. I’m so glad they donated the collection!! And I appreciate your work on both those projects.
Yes, color photos were scarce, especially in rural areas and in that time frame. I noticed that one is crisp and of good quality too. I’m guessing a Chevrolet. The tag indicates the expiration is “42”. I know civilian automobile production/sales/etc./ was very tight-regulated and almost non-existent after 1942 until the end of the WW2, and in cases, past then. Regardless, I enjoyed the post.
I remember thinking I would cut one of the many perfect cedar trees for a Christmas tree along the Highway until I read it was illegal. We bought an artificial tree after Christmas sale and now use it.
Good morning everyone. We are on our way to my daughters this morning, along with my son and family, to celebrate Christmas again. It’s going to be so much fun. I am bringing ham, potato salad, tossed salad, and homemade bread. I am so excited to see the grandchildren all together. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas season! I loved your video last night. I had been cooking for today and sat down to relax with my friends at celebrating Appalachia!
Good Morning Tipper. Oh my goodness I would have been scared to death to steal that tree at his age. I’m glad his Daddy didn’t punish him. I’m sure he had words with Aunt Betty though. I loved seeing last nights video. I used to make a Clam Chowder by mixing a can of New England Clam Chowder with a can of Manhattan Clam Chowder. I’d microwave 2 large potatoes and dice them up to add in. Then top it off with 1 can of half n half and 1 can of beer. It was good. But we can’t have it anymore because f My son’s shellfish allergy. I hope the boys grow up to share in the tradition with you. Maybe Kati will try a spoonful some day. When I was younger I’d eat anything my Daddy ate just to feel close to him. I didn’t get to spend much time with him because of his going off to war with the Army. He was my hero and I’d do anything to be closer to him. I used to pretend to fall asleep in the evenings watching TV beside him on the couch. He would carry me to bed almost every night. I loved being in his arms. I’m praying for Granny and everyone up Wilson Hollow and all the Acorns here. Everyone better spend some time getting firewood in. It’s gonna be a cold January. I love y’all.
This story made for a good laugh this morning. Praying for Granny & hope she had a good time with the family celebrating Christmas this year.
It reminds me of the time I went camping in the National Forest as a teenager. When I came home I proudly handed daddy some rhododendrons (or mountain laurel.) He then asked (because he knew we had gone camping in the National Forest the night before) where I got the little plugs. I replied “the forest” and that’s when he (clutching his invisible pearls) gave me a full blown speech about forest rangers having more power than a state police officer and how I could have been arrested, etc. for STEALING. Those plugs died eventually and to this day I don’t take fauna from forests…but yeah, my hillbilly mentality can’t agree more with the aunt’s philosophy of “ I’m paying taxes and the tree is part of the agreement of taxes for one teeny pine branch y’all will never Miss…!!!” I like the way this lady thought and how she drove herself in a cool car. What a gal! PS who wouldn’t like to collect a few roses out of White House Rose Garden? I mean it’s by and for the people… ok I’m going away now…
If you need rhododendron blossoms just come to River Road in June/July and get yourself a nice flower pot full. We have them that we have gathered for years. Ours don’t reproduce by seed but by runners.
Absolutely wonderful. KP
That’s a funny story! They were lucky not to get arrested!
I enjoyed watching you making the ambrosia but I would leave out the coconut and marshmallows. I make a version of this, too.
My husband loved oyster stew and I made it for him but couldn’t eat it myself. Not a fan!
I hope y’all had a blessed Christmas and look forward to seeing videos of the events.
Prayers and love❣️
That’s a funny story! My husband told me when he and his brother were kids, they were tasked with cutting down the Christmas tree one year. So they went a lookin, and cut down 2 different trees, which happened to be their neighbors trees and they were tree tops cut out of the trees. My husband was the one who did the climbing as his brother who was over 6 feet at that age was afraid of heights. The first tree wasn’t pretty enough, so he climbed up the 2nd tree and used a hand saw to cut out the tree that they took home. Later they realized what they had done and they both don’t know how they didn’t get caught cutting out the trees since it was in plain view of their neighbors house.
good morning, thank you for Carl’s story, God bless everybody have a great day
To me this is funny. Being raised and living all of my life in the country, I know many of the once popular wild growing red eastern cedar Christmas trees were stolen by people city folks driving around until they saw one they wanted. I always thought something ain’t right about using a stolen Christmas tree when celebrating the birth of Jesus.