I love talking with people who remember what Christmas was like in Springfield in the 1950s. I met with Mrs. Mary Ann Grief and we were talking about these times and she told me what she remembered. She is in her 90s now and still has a great memory of old times in Springfield.
One of the highlights in those times were the stores staying open late before Christmas. We didn’t have big box stores, but mostly family run stores on Main Street. Her father was Walter Bentley, who moved here in the 1940s and lived in the Bell building apartments located on the corner of 7th and Main Street. He began a dime store across the street on the corner called Bentley 5 & 10 Store. All of us kids visited that store because it had so many things that we liked. Stores back then had “lay-a-way” because a lot of people could not pay all at once. In the days before Christmas the farmers would come to town to get their tobacco check from the tobacco warehouses. They would bring their wife and children with them. When they received their money, they would shop in town for Christmas for their kids and family.
People walked up and down the sidewalk before Christmas and peeked into the windows of the stores to see what was new. There were no places to go to eat out then. Children knew of the Western Auto Store run by S. E. Meyer and family. It was the main store with toys in town. Toys then were made of wood and tin but didn’t contain batteries. They were wind-up toys and simple dolls, soldier men, cars, trucks and games. Then toys weren’t available until after Thanksgiving. Car & Home Supply, located where the G.S. Moore building is now, had metal toys like tractors and farm machinery toys in their front window. Also, the bus stop was inside the building. The bus would enter on Main Street (you can still see the outline of the big door there) then let the passengers out inside the building and drive out on the 7th Ave. side.
People would come to town on Friday and Saturday nights just to park on the street and sit in their cars and greet people walking up and down the street. Merchants were going over their sales to see if they topped last year. (no computers then) Everyone was in a good mood. People buying stocking stuffers (Christmas back then was when most everyone hung stockings with candy and fruit and nuts in them along their fireplace mantels). This was a real treat in the winter time. Some placed coins in the toe of the stockings…