Clabe and Leora Wilson’s older sons joined the US Navy in early 1934. For Christmas that year, their mother mailed them a package, “so you’d have just a little from home for Christmas. Doris and I made some–I guess you can tell which kind–the divinity fudge I used to make and you boys used to like so well.” Leora didn’t have a candy thermometer nor electricity.
Clipping of the recipe in Leora’s small Memorandum book:
Divinity fudge is also called “heavenly bliss,” either name is fitting.
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 cup chopped nut meats (almonds, filberts or walnuts)
whites of two eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Boil the sugar, water and syrup together until a drop of the mixture becomes crisp when dropped in cold water. Beat the whites of eggs until stiff, Add the not mixture, beating all the time. When fairly stuff, add nuts and vanilla, continue beating until very stuff, then pour into a buttered tin. When cool, cut in squares.
The Wilsons gathered a lot of black walnuts in local wooded areas. Leora chopped some for her divinity fudge.
By the Christmas of 1934, Clabe had sold their Model T “roadster” (the one on the cover of Leora’s Dexter Stories). In fact, they had no automobile of any kind until they moved to Minburn five years later.
It was always a treat when Leora’s brother, Clarence Goff, came from Omaha. Their mother, Laura Goff, lived near the Wilsons, in a house that had electricity. That Christmas of 1934, Clarence brought his mother a dandy electric mixer, a box of candy, and an already-dressed turkey. He also brought a box of ‘kerchiefs for each of the “the girls,” a football for his nephew Merrill, a pound of Prince Albert and some “cough medicine” (alcohol) for Clabe and brothers Jennings and Merl, along with candy and nuts for everyone.
Clarence Goff, a 1923 graduate of Guthrie Center High School, had his own heating and cooling business in Omaha.
Neighbors O. S. and Nellie Neal gave the Wilsons a nice fat hen, which Leora served for Christmas dinner, along with potatoes and gravy, dressing, celery, Danny’s favorite cranberry sauce, pickles, fruitcake, and Clabe’s favorite lemon pie.
The Christmas of 1934, their Navy boys were blessed with plenty to eat (even without their mother’s divinity fudge), visits with aunts and uncles and cousins on the West Coast while their ship (USS Chicago) was in port there, and they were able to send a little money home. The younger five siblings–Doris, Darlene, Dale, Danny, and Junior–were thriving, doing well in school, enjoying winter activities.
Both Clabe and Leora came down with grippe, but all in all, things felt more hopeful that Christmas.
You may find more Depression Era stories about the family in Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression.