December 20, 1979
Page 37566
A CHRISTMAS STORY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, these are busy days for people across the country who know a little extra must be done during the Christmas season. In my State it might be taking the time to chop wood for a convalescent neighbor, or working into the night on decorations for the town square. It might be donating clothing or food or toys. Or it might be visiting an older friend, a token gift in hand. These things are not regarded as charity. They are done freely for our neighbors, and accepted in the spirit of the season. By and large, a quiet satisfaction or a cup of cheer is the only reward.
The current issue of the Maine Times tells a story of some people in Boothbay who know just what Christmas means. I ask that the article, "Jim Hannah Doesn't Look Like Santa Clause," be printed in the RECORD.
The article follows:
JIM HANNAH DOESN'T LOOK LIKE SANTA CLAUS
(By Alice T. Larkin)
When Jim Hannah spied a dimpled face smiling up at him from the rubbish he was pushing into the fire at the town dump, he stopped the grader and climbed down to investigate.
"What a shame," he thought, as he pulled an almost new doll out of the smelly heap. Jim Hanna rescued dozens of dolls from the Boothbay dump that summer. Many of them were in perfect condition, although their bright dresses were soiled, their hair tangled and matted. With Christmas coming along soon, he wondered whom he could get to help him fix up the dolls and see that they were given as gifts.
Jim decided to talk to Mrs. "Katty" Sargent, who had had six little girls of her own and now boasted 13 grandchildren. She would know about dolls, he figured. She would know what had to be done.
"I could wash their clothes," Mrs. Sargent told him, "and shampoo their hair and comb it into curls again."
Some of them really ought to have new dresses, she decided later, after Jim had left the dolls in a heap on her parlor sofa. And maybe she could knit some little sweaters and hats for them.
Running a private nursing and convalescent home in Boothbay Harbor kept her and her daughter Nancy pretty busy, but perhaps she could find time. She remembered how her little girls had loved a new doll, and she hadn't forgotten how hard it was sometimes to provide for a growing family, especially at Christmas time.
It turned out to be fun dressing the dolls, but it wasn't long before Katty Sargent decided she could use some help. Quickly, she ran down a mental checklist of her friends, until she came to Gloria Balsdon. Gloria had recently suffered the loss of her mother and other personal tragedies, and it had left her feeling very depressed. Katty had been worried about her friend. This, she thought, might be just the thing to perk her up.
"She asked me if I would dress two dolls," Gloria Balsdon recalls. "I didn't think that would be much, so I said I'd do it. Then she brought me five more. I think I dressed 36 dolls that year."
Today, Gloria Balsdon starts knitting tiny sweaters and hats the day after Christmas, "I have to," she said, "or I'd never finish in time for the next Christmas." In her tiny Sea Street cottage, the bedroom is stacked with dolls. "Sometimes," she complains, "I can't find my bed." And in the living room, Gloria tries to match up heads, arms, and legs, to make whole dolls from those that have missing parts. One cherubic baby doll is perfect except for its face, which has been scribbled on with a magic marker, but Gloria hasn't given up on it. "I'm still trying to find something that will take that off," she sighs."
This year, Gloria Balsdon scrubbed, shampooed, and made clothes for 92 dolls that Katty Sargent will pack and deliver. When word got around that Jim was rescuing them, some people started bringing the dolls directly to Gloria or Katty, but many of them still come from the dump.
"Jim really fell in love with one of the dolls he found," Gloria said, "He thought it was the prettiest thing he had ever seen, so I dressed it and gave it back to him."
Jim Hanna says he still has that doll, a life-size charmer that stands three feet tall, but he plans to give it away again.
"I want to give it to some little girl," he said, "[who] would like to have a playmate." "The first year there was just Katty Sargent, Jim, and I," Gloria Balsdon remembers. "Then the next year, Katie Copeland, down at the bank, asked us if we would work with the Salvation Army." The local chapter distributed clothes at Christmas, but didn't have enough money for toys. "Now we take care of the toys, and people bring us a lot of good children's clothing to give away, too."
About mid-November, things start piling up in the small parlor at the Sargent's nursing home.
There is always someone bringing something in, anyway. Scraps of material for doll's clothes, bits of lace, and yarn for the knitters. An 85-year-old grandfather in East Boothbay knits mittens for the Christmas project. So does Alice Grey, and last year Mary Abbott brought in 30 pair. Maidie Demeres makes net bags by the hundreds to be filled with popcorn and candy. Last year, Cecil Lilly, of Lilly's Market, donated 185 marshmallow snowmen and said, "If you run out, come back." And Catherine Chenowith pops in every now and then to donate her own toys.
"They are just like new," Katty Sargent chuckles, "I don't think the child plays with them a week, she is so anxious to bring them down here."