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Lillian Smith’s “Memory of A Large Christmas”
Lillian E. Smith published Memory of Large Christmas in 1962. The book, essentially, is a collection of humorous and memorable anecdotes about the large, bountiful Smith family Christmases. In the back of the book, Smith includes recopies for turkey dressing, pork salad, ambrosia, and more. Today, I want to look at one of the scenes that Smith relates in the book. The scene occurs at the end and involves a speech that her father, Calvin, gave after a Christmas dinner in 1918.
Smith’s family moved permanently to their summer home in Clayton, GA, in 1915 after their father’s lumber and naval stores in Jasper, FL, failed during World War I. Calvin presented the move to his family as a great adventure, and he left “like an explorer setting out for an unknown continent.” He told his family about the mountains and created a vivid image in their minds, engaging them in the benefits of moving from the swamps of Jasper to the mountains of Clayton.
In 1918, the war had caused the Smith’s financial status to dwindle, and they had to downsize. As Smith writes, “We were not alone in being poor. Times were hard in the South — much harder for most than for us, our father often reminded…
