Christmas Day 1905

This is a repeat of a previous Christmas season post. Perhaps it will become a yearly tradition, as it is one of my favorite passages from Big Trouble. I always know there will be new readers discovering it for the first time and family and friends that won't mind reading it again.

“At noon on Christmas Day, the governor and Belle attended the traditional family dinner at A. K.’s house. The hustling young entrepreneur and his family occupied an imposing Colonial Revival mansion, its great front portico supported by three Tuscan columns, approached by a new cement sidewalk on North Kimball Avenue, where the city’s “quality” clustered in the lee of the Presbyterian Church.”


Photograph circa 2007. In need of further restoration.

“….a gracious A.K. welcomed the boisterous clan beneath his portico. No fewer than thirty Steunenbergs gathered around the heavily laden table, headed by the seventy-two year old patriarch, Bernardus, a shoemaker by trade, a Mexican War veteran who’d come west from Iowa to join his children earlier that year. Seven of his ten offspring were there that afternoon: five sons—Frank; A.K.; Pete, the most raffish of the brothers, a part-time printer who sometimes dealt cards at the Saratoga; Will and John, lifelong bachelors and partners in a shoe store (“Fitters of Feet,” they called themselves) just behind the Saratoga—and two daughters—Elizabeth (“Lizzie”), married to Gerrit Van Wyngarden, a Caldwell contractor who’d built both Frank’s house and the new Caldwell Banking and Trust building, and Josephine (“Jo”), at thirty-four still unmarried, who made a home for John, Will, and Bernardus at her commodious house on Belmont Street, while finding time to repair Franks’ shirts as well. The “plump” and jolly” A.K. played Santa at his own festivities, distributing elaborately wrapped gifts to all the children.”
--Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas

Of course, the family could never imagine that this would be Frank's last Christmas at his brother A.K's, with only five days remaining until the tragic events on December 30th, 1905. A reminder to us all...enjoy the day as you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Click here to see a blog post about the home of A.K. and Carrie Steunenberg.

Click here to see the 1880 Census entries for the Steunenberg family.

Google Street View.

From our family to yours, we wish you a Happy Holidays and a Healthy and Prosperous 2010.

John, Cindy and Caley Richards