Christmas in July

 

Both of my parents grew up on farms near the city of Hastings, Minnesota.

The Brennan homestead stayed in the family until the mid-1960’s, when my dad's younger brother sold the farm and moved to Forest Lake, Minnesota.

The Stenson farm has a much longer history.

After renting a small home near what is now Highway 61, Martin Stenson and his young bride, Amelia, had saved up enough money to buy a home of their home. The house that they settled on, located on what used to be Rural Route 3, was built in 1896.

 They borrowed some money from a relative, and moved in sometime in the fall of 1929 - just before the stock market crashed. Somehow, they managed to hang onto the farm during the Depression years, and Martin and Amelia stayed in the home until the early 1960’s, when they moved into an apartment on Vermillion Street in Hastings.

At that point, Martin transferred ownership of the farm to his son Harold, who worked for a seed and feed company in downtown Hastings.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2009/10/voice-from-grave.html

A few years after moving into the farm, Harold’s first wife, Bernie, died suddenly from a rare medical condition at the age of 27, leaving Harold to raise 5 children. With help from his sisters, he raised some great kids, and he prospered.

When he was in his 60’s, he met a woman named Bernie Kimmes at a local restaurant. At that point, she was a widow with six children, and the children from bath families got along well. So well, in fact, that his daughter Kay, and her son Willie, eventually got married. Since they liked to do things in style, they got married on a sailing ship in the Caribbean in 2002, and a bunch of us celebrated with them at my cousin Pat’s place in Minnetrista shortly after the wedding.

Harold and Bernie developed a strong relationship, and they got married when Harold was 65 years old. They remained married until 2005, when Bernie passed away at the age of 80.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/twincities/name/bernardine-stenson-obituary?pid=3335615

Starting sometime in the 1960’s, the Stenson clan started a tradition of having Christmas on the farm, and the tradition persevered for a number of years. When the Stenson and the Kimmes families merged, the logistics of all those people in an enclosed space became problematic, so the celebration shifted to July, and it became Christmas in July. The new tradition lasted until 2013 or 2014, which is when Harold moved to a senior facility in Hastings. After Harold passed on in 2017, at the age of 95, Christmas in July went dormant for a few years.

The COVID pandemic dashed any hopes of getting together again in 2020, but the dream still had not died.

In March of this year, I got an invitation from my cousin Jon, who owns a farm in Hudson, and he announced that he wanted to host this year’s Christmas in July. Since Sharon and I live about 1500 miles from Hudson, we knew that we would not be able to attend. However, since I had been using Zoom to teach classes for most of the school year, I decided that connecting with Zoom would be workable. Sometime in May, I set up a Zoom meeting, and sent the coordinates to my cousins.

On the morning of July 2, I started the meeting, and anxiously waited for the arrival of my cousins – who did not show up.

Apparently, the folks in Minnesota had difficulty getting into my Zoom meeting, but one of my cousins had set up a meeting of their own – and it worked. As a result, I was able to talk with a variety of my cousins for about 90 minutes, and I was also able to take a brief tour of Jon’s farm.

The old farm stayed in the family until the fall of 2018, when the house and 5 acres of land were sold. Wisely, the Stenson children kept the reaming acreage to avoid paying capital gains taxes, so the Stenson legacy at the place lives on, even though the Stensons no longer live there.

https://www.redfin.com/MN/Hastings/11851-Neal-Ave-S-55033/home/146253084

Will there be another Christmas in July celebration next year? Time will tell, but I sure hope so. It was a LOT of fun chatting with cousins that I had not seen for YEARS.