One Christmas in Old Tascosa - Casandra Firman

One Christmas in Old Tascosa.

By Casandra Firman as told by Quintille Speck-Firman Garmany. Foreword by Red Steagall and illustrated by Judy Wise. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2006. xi, 90 pages. 2 photos, 12 illustrations ISBN 089672588X $21.95 cloth
http://www.ttup.ttu.edu/ ttup@ttu.edu

Tascosa now includes Cal Farley’s Boy’s Town. Before that it was the wild and wooly West with Indians, buffaloes, gunfights, cowboys, and dancehalls. Between the two, the town virtually went to the ghosts. But here is a sweet story from the interregnum.

Garmany was a seven-year-old in 1931. The Depression Dust Bowl was on, but few would have realized it given how simple life was in Tascosa. Having more than one pencil was a student’s wealth.

At the time Tascosa’s lone resident was Frenchie McCormick, an elderly woman with a dancing history and an honored wedding vow to remain in Tascosa. Nearby in a one-room school house Christmas was approaching and the children’s Pageant was finally ready. And it was nearly, completely, absolutely wrecked. It wasn’t the children, the building, the costumes, or even a too-playful dog. It snowed on the day before the evening’s performance, so heavily that the audience could not come. Parents knew their children were okay with the teacher in the schoolhouse, but they could not get through the snow. And without an audience to love and smile over the Pageant’s young performers, it would be a failure. Then through the blizzard, Frenchie McCormick was spotted coming through the deep snow. The children warmed Mrs. McCormick. She took her place among the chairs out front. And she loved the youngsters’ presentation. And the children loved her for being there – just to see them.

Red Steagall, a Texas poet laureate, and Richard O’Brien append a song “Frenchie McCormick.” Merry Christmas!