Christmas of 1930 promised to be a dreary one in Autaugaville, Ala. It had been just over a year since the stock market crash officially started the Great Depression, but hard times began months before for farmers in this central Alabama town, where the boll weevil was wreaking havoc on crops.
The hardships were evident to Edward and Ercille Pearson, who owned a local general store. Each day, the Pearsons saw the wistful eyes of children as they roamed the shelves of dolls and train sets and jars of penny candy while their parents bought the groceries to feed their family, according to a 1958 article in The Huntsville Times.
Edward and Ercille had been married eight years and had made a decent living with the store, at which they sold everything from groceries to plows to furniture, according to the Pearsons sons, James and Rufus, who were interviewed for my 2011 book “Christmas Tales of Alabama.”
The store was, for a general mercantile of the day, considered fancy. Its floors were concrete rather than plank, and an Artesian well in the center of the store served as a drinking fountain…