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Ann Arbor Yesterdays ~ Not For Self, But For Others

Ann Arbor Yesterdays ~ Not For Self, But For Others image
Parent Issue
Day
26
Month
December
Year
1960
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Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
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Ann Arbor Yesterdays - Not For Self, But For Others

By Lela Duff

This Christmas season I have had two especially heart-warming experiences: a visit to the workshop of “Santa’s Helper,” and the opportunity to be present at the Christmas party for sick children at University Hospital. Never again will I listen to the cynics who maintain that Christmas nowadays has sunk to pure commercialism.

Through The News I had been familiar for years with Albert Warnhoff’s kindly features as he talked with celebrities or displayed his home-made toys for sick girls and boys. I was pleased, then, to accept his invitation to view his year’s accomplishments before they should be dispensed to the various hospitals.

There is no staginess about the Warnhoffs’ preparation for Christmas. As we made our way through the living-quarters of the unpretentious little home, we noted only the piles of cartons of hand-dressed dolls and home-made puppets contributed to his effort by The King’s Daughters. At the foot of the narrow cellar steps one had to look sharply for a path through the rows and rows of toys piled to the ceiling of the small, old-style basement. A number of large power tools donated by service groups and a minimum of bench space left hardly more than a single-file route from which to view the amazing collection.

Featured in the foreground were a number of fenced-in farmyards two or three feet square dominated by ingenious windmills with fans turning and a farmboy busily pumping. Most of them were set in motion by electricity, but one could be wound up by the mechanism from an old Victrola. Mr. Warnhoff tells me that he could put to good use the inner parts of any old spring-wound clocks my readers might be throwing away. All the appropriate farm animals, delicately carved, were standing by, ready to take their places near the watering troughs when the paint was thoroughly dry.

Hundreds of other animals formed pull-toys on wheels: birds, dogs, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck, etc. For toddlers there were many kinds of wheeled vehicles, the bulkier of which had to be stacked high in the garage: walkers, wooden tricycles, etc., as well as rocking horses, rocking boats, low chairs and stools, and firm sets of steps to climb on. There were whole outfits of doll furniture—tiny tables, chairs, cradles, etc. There were charming penny-banks, made like churches and little red schoolhouses. And everywhere there were hundreds of dainty Christmas angels.

“If I had my life to live over,” Mr. Warnhoff remarked, “I’d do exactly this same thing all over again.” When I was leaving, he presented me with one of his little wooden angels, and as I looked upon the shining countenance of this humble little man in his work-sweater, I had a sudden queer feeling that I had been entertained by ”an angel unawares.”

The Christmas party I want to tell you about was different -from any other party I have ever attended, because all the 140 guests were in their beds, and the “party” came to them. Santa Claus himself had come from the Northland (at least as far north as Fenton.) He was heralded by a little procession of hospital teachers, nurses, Galens, Kiwanians, and King’s Daughters who moved down the ward corridor ringing sleighbells and singing (rather weakly) the carols played by a Mrs. Santa Claus on her accordion.

Pushed along with them were huge cartloads of big red tarlatan bags filled with sturdy, functional toys and gifts. At each door Santa was handed in turn a specific bag and told the child’s name and just which bed to approach. Leaning down and calling the child gently by name, he would linger for a few moments of quiet private, conversation while he presented the bag of gifts.

Each bag had been filled by the teachers of the hospital school with the individual child in mind, the age, sex, aptitudes, and special handicaps of all being considered. The retail price of the articles in any one bag would range from $3.50 to $5, without counting the handwork included. A reserve supply was laid aside, too, for other children who might be brought into the hospital between the time of the party and Christmas Day. Mr. Warnhoff’s gifts are saved for Christmas morning and for special occasions throughout the year.

The cost of the gifts for this party is borne by the Galens (senior medics), who began their annual tag day on the streets of Ann Arbor back in 1928. It has enabled them to finance many other projects in the hospital school as well. Kiwanis has also backed the school in many ways, but their contribution to the Christmas party is Santa himself, who is an ex-state governor of the club.

The pioneers in the educational movement in the hospital, however, are the King’s Daughters, who started in 1915 with a Sunday school in the old red brick buildings; who paid the salary of the first professional teacher in 1922; and who have given the project their devoted year-round support ever since. I have used their motto for the title of this article. The hospital school staff now numbers 27 specially-trained teachers, their pupils ranging from one-year-olds through high school.

The very tiny children some times look bewildered or even frightened to see this strange gentleman in a red suit with astonishing white beard charging down upon their beds amid an unfamiliar clatter in the corridor, but only, one poor little chap cried inconsolably and had to be lifted up an cuddled on a nurse’s shoulder. Two or three others were obviously feeling just too sick to notice the unexpected antics of adults but seemed mildly comforted by Santa’s kind eyes and reassuring voice.

As Santa moved on, it was fun to see the animation with which the formerly spellbound youngsters, though often impeded by casts, splints, and bandages, began trying out their toys. A favored item seemed to be a doctor’s kit.

Of course most of the children reacted joyously to Santa’s approach, while some were real charmers or little “hams” who put on a good show for his benefit. In the sterile ward for the seriously burned children, our last stop, a little colored boy raised his sweet soprano voice in solo to "Mrs. Santa” Muehlig’s accordion and filled the long ward with carol after carol, every note and word reaching to our group away down at the doorway. Next to him a chubby little white girl on a revolving frame expressed a desire to sing, and gave us “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” with great vigor and the clearest enunciation but in a very strange low pitch — for the little darling was a monotone!