Sleighbells and Bobsleds

Not the Goffs nor the Wilsons, but the photo does show the moveable runners under the bobsled box. Large bells on leather straps were added to the horses’ harnesses to jangle as the horses trotted. Oh!

Christmas, Early 1900s

From the memoirs of Leora Goff Wilson: “We went [to our Jordan grandparents’ home near Monteith, Iowa] in a bobsled one Christmas. We put straw in, covered it with a blanket or two to sit on. As we went down the lane, Pa [Sherd Goff] says, ‘Look at the reindeer tracks, Santa’s  reindeer.’ They were cow tracks, but we believed Santa was there. We were so thrilled and happy.

“I had hung my stocking on the back of a chair Christmas eve, but in the morning my stocking with a beautiful doll in it was on the cabinet close by. Mamma said, ‘Santa thought it might fall from the chair,’ so that was a good thing, I thought, for Santa to think of.” 

That memory was from when Leora Goff was about ten years old. I hope sleigh bells were part of this scene, although she didn’t mention them.

Christmas 1924

Two dozen years later, Leora had married Clabe Wilson and had six children of her own by the Christmas of 1924. This is a memory of her oldest daughter, Doris, when the family lived southeast of Dexter, Iowa, where Clabe was a tenant farmer for B.C. Hemphill.

Christmas dinner was at Leora’s folks’ home in Dexter, about three miles away. Because of a nice snow the night before, Clabe filled Mr. Hemphill’s bobsled with hay to soften the ride. The bobsled was a wooden box with moveable runners, front and back. He hitched up a pair of horses and harnessed them with bells on leather straps.

Dale and Darlene Wilson, age 3, November 1924, Dexter

All of the Wilsons bundled up, with the three younger children snuggled under quilts with their mother. Delbert (age 9), Donald (8), and Doris (6) stood up front by their dad, who held the reins. The delighted family glided over the snow to have Christmas dinner with Grandpa and Grandmother Goff, and the rest of the clan living with them in the small town of Dexter. Bells jangled, horses snorted frosty breaths.

 Brothers Merl and Jennings Goff lived with their folks, along with Jennings’s two motherless children. Clarence Goff, a younger brother, was came from Omaha for the feast. Doris perched on the piano bench, she remembered. Grandfather found catalogs to boost the smaller children to better reach the table. Grandmother served squares of cheese on toothpicks, which was a new wonderful thing to the youngsters.

And oh, those sleighbells (listen) on their way home!

Sleighbells