THE CHRISTMAS ORGAN by Marisa Masterson

It's Christmas Eve. Darkness has fallen. Already, you've had your traditional meal. As a farm family, milk is handy and oysters that come in the small wooden barrel are available this time of year. So your family has oyster soup and a variety of cookies you've baked over the last few days. Gingerbread, tea biscuits from the recipe your mother brought with her from Cornwall, sugar cookies--they've enjoyed them all. Tomorrow you will bring out the Christmas pudding, but tonight is Christmas Eve.

Pioneer Log Villiage, Reedsburg, WI
with Rebecca Hovde

Like many families on that evening, you will attend church. First, though, you will have your own family celebration. Smiling at your little ones, you head to the organ. It's time to sing carols.

Pump or reed organs were a common sight in many homes by the late 1800s. In fact, several million were manufactured in the United States and Canada between the 1850s and the 1920s. They were especially popular in small churches in the west because they could give an organ sound without the large pipes associated with a real organ. The portal version, a harmonium, could be transported easily with a traveling pastor who had a wagon or buggy. Some were even made to fold up into a suitcase for easy carrying. Of course, these would have fewer keys and only a few stops.

Stops! I'd guess you're wonder what those are. They sit above the keys and allow for a variety of sounds when pulled out. This would be similar to the effects you can get with an electric organ. However, these sounds would be produced by reeds. The performer would need to pump the pedals to get any sound from the manual--the keyboard.

Parlor organ with decorative top

Some of these instruments were smaller than a piano and fit nicely into a small house's tiny parlor. They were easy to order in the more isolated areas of the country. Grander examples of the reed organs were beautiful pieces of furniture with the high top placed on it. Imagine that top decorated for Christmas with the family gathered around it. Mother played the carols while Father and the children sang along. In my novel, A Farmer for Christmas, I made sure to include a parlor organ that was used on Christmas Eve.

Tops often had mirrors and even inset cabinets to store music.

This was the way I grew up. As a preteen, I sat at the  beautiful pump organ and played the carols on Christmas Eve as my family sang along--the third generation to do that. We even had a set of old hymn books for the occasion. Only after singing and reading the Christmas story in Luke did we open gifts. As was traditional in the family, gifts were always opened on the 24th. That dated back to family traditions started in Cornwall.

Tea Biscuits (The Hunter Family Recipe from Cornwall)

4 c flour

1 c sugar

1 c shortening

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 c raisins

1 teaspoon baking soda added to 1 cup milk (1 tablespoon lemon juice to milk to sour it)

1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix all dry ingredients together cut in shortening mix to pie crust consistency. Add raisins and coat well. Add in milk and mix it all up.

Turn out on floured area. Roll out to 1 inch thick. Cut and put on ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 350* for 10 to 15 minutes. Do not brown.

https://www.amazon.com/Snowy-Delivery-Christmas-Ornamental-Match-ebook/dp/B081PBQCFY

https://www.amazon.com/Keeper-Christmas-Spinster-Mail-Order-Brides-ebook/dp/B081BCGP2S

HOW TO FEED BABY? by Marisa Masterson

1897 Nestle's formula advertisement

A baby is left on the steps one wintry night. A man and woman join forces to provide it with warmth and food. Perhaps they might even give it a home. This is the premise of my latest novel, A Snowy Delivery for Christmas. While writing it, I needed to research how my couple, living in the 1920s, would feed this baby.

In so many wonderful romance novels I've read, a motherless baby is passed along to a wet nurse. While that sets up the possibility of romance between the grieving father and the woman nursing his child, what happened to a baby if no nursing mother was available? How did babies survive in a time before Playtex Nursers or Doctor Brown bottles?

Gag! They, ugh, would hold a baby up to the teat. As in animal teat. At one point in France, it was considered normal to hold the baby up to an animal teat and allow it to nurse. I suppose desperate situations demanded desperate solutions. The alternative to this was awkward and time consuming. The infant had to be fed milk from a spoon. Problems with choking immediately come to my mind as I imagine this way of feeding.

Why use an animal teat or a spoon? Other methods of feeding babies were available. Pewter containers with a spout were popular (known as bubby pots). A rag was tied over the holes in the spout (imagine a small watering can) for the baby to nurse. It wasn't a nipple, but it did work. 

So why did babies fed this way tend to grow ill? Bacteria! In fact, most of the earlier methods of feeding babies allowed for a growth of bacteria. Of course, the existence of bacteria had yet to be proved at that time so people could observe the effects and make the connection without knowing exactly why the containers made the babies sick.

In 1841, the first glass bottles were developed by an American, C. M. Windship. Imagine this, though. The bottle had to be fitted over the mother's breast. The point was to trick the baby into thinking she was breastfeeding. That idea didn't last long. Soon bottles closer to what are available today were developed. Still, the modern heat-resistant upright glass bottle wasn't available until the 1950s. 

Tube Feeding

The most distressing part of my research concerned the nipple. I say distressing because of my modern understanding of bacteria. In preparing my granddaughter's bottle, I wash the parts in hot water and then sanitize them in boiling water.

Before rubber was available dried cow teats or leather were used as nipples. Some nipples were fashioned out of cork. I can imagine a parent's frustration at that point. The leather or dried teat would give the baby bacteria and make her sick. The cork wouldn't regulate the flow of milk and could choke the baby. Bottles with tubes seemed the best solution, but those allowed for a growth of bacteria in the tube. Again, the babies grew ill when using that method of feeding.

Killer Baby Bottles

Rubber Nipple

Oh, the miracle of rubber! A rubber nipple was introduced in 1845. What a wonderful invention. Too bad that it smelled horrible. Who wants to suck something that smells offensive? Advances by the early twentieth century changed the rubber nipple so the odor was gone, making it the accepted way to feed a baby. Accepted that is if breastfeeding wasn't an option. The push away from this natural form of feeding a baby didn't happen until later in that century.

After witnessing my daughter's struggle to feed her new baby, I am glad for Doctor Brown bottles and modern materials. Still, I pause to consider the history of trial and error that brought us to this age of safe and hygienic options. Shudders run through me as I think over the information I read while research the history of bottles and nipples. 

Sources used while researching:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684040/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_bottle

Christmas, 1921
Victrolas, flappers, and a rooming house where two lonely people live. Good thing for them that Mrs. Klaussen, their landlady, has Christmas magic at her fingertips.

Del Peale and Josephine Withers have both loved and lost. That is why neither has pursued their mutual attraction. A newborn left on the front steps brings them together. A cold house forces Del to face the home he shared with his wife and son. Is it enough to let them see that love is still possible if they share that love?

Will strange twists and an abandoned baby be enough to lead them to a Christmas wedding? Perhaps Mrs. Klaussen will need to step in with a miracle and a very special Christmas ornament?

https://www.amazon.com/Snowy-Delivery-Christmas-Ornamental-Match-ebook/dp/B081PBQCFY

About Marisa Masterson

Marisa Masterson and her husband of thirty-one years reside in Saginaw, Michigan. They have two grown children, one son-in-law, a precious new granddaughter, and one old and lazy dog.

She is a retired high school English teacher and oversaw a high school writing center in partnership with the local university. In addition, she is a National Writing Project fellow and a regular contributor to the Sweet Americana Sweethearts and Sweethearts of the West blogs.

Focusing on her home state of Wisconsin, she writes sweet historical romance. Growing up, she loved hearing stories about her family pioneering in that state. Those stories, in part, are what inspired her to begin writing.