 Home | Recent News | Topeka | Helen Lederer 19 Nov 2007 Helen Lederer's home a "Winter Wonderland" |  | Helen Lederer holds her singing snowmen.The snowmen were just one of the many Christmas items on display in her home this past holiday season. | |
Step into Helen Lederer's room and you won't actually hear the words, but the song "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" will surely come to mind.
Christmas is undoubtedly Helen's favorite time of year, and it shows by the trinkets and dolls that fill her apartment during the holiday season. Among her treasured items are animated, plush snowmen that go into action with the push of a button. Not only do they wish everyone a Merry Christmas and sing solos and duets, they do a little torso-twisting that reveals how truly merry they are.
In keeping with her "White Christmas" theme, Helen also has a doll that breaks into its own version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." However, considering the doll is a moose, it may be more appropriate to say, "We Wish you a Merry Christmoose." The Christmoose is trained to move his antlers to the rhythm from time to time.
Not far away from the moose, Helen keeps a little gingerbread girl who frequently wishes her a merry Christmas.
Helen may love Christmas, but she also cherishes her family memories, and she freely shares her stories.
Her stories go back a long ways. Her grandfather was the first non- Indian born in Leavenworth County. By the time Helen came along, her grandfather was having trouble seeing in the dark. He (or Helen's grandmother) told this story: He got up in the middle of the night one night, and when he became lost in the dark he said, "Mary, where am I?"
She looked around a bit before saying, "Fred, I believe you're in the closet."
As he was.
One item in her home that brings back memories is a wall clock that chimes the song "My Favorite Thing" on each hour.
"I got that for my 80th birthday," Helen said. "On Sept. 30, my five sisters and brothers came back from California for my 80th birthday. They had a band here and everything."
Her husband's family is also the source of many amusing stories.
"My husband had an aunt and her name was Echo Carter. She went to a hospital and said "I'm Echo Carter' and they thought she said she was there for an electrocardiogram. So they gave her one."
As for her immediate family, her husband and his brother had jobs that required frequent overtime, and she would keep supper warmed until they got off work.
"One time they came home late and my husband said that night they were told they could have all the beer they could drink as long as they kept working."
And they kept working quite a while.
"The next day my sister-inlaw called and said they were being worked too much," Helen said. "She said her husband came home that night and his eyes were red and he was tired and sleepy, and he must have had a fever because he asked her to run a fan for him."
Helen told her sister-in-law what particular malady the two men had suffered from, and her sister-in-law said, "Well, then, I shouldn't have felt so sorry for him, should I?"
Helen remembers her husband having had a wide variety of interests. She vividly remembers a photograph one of her daughters brought to display at her father's funeral. "In the picture, my husband was standing there stirring something in a pot. And I guess I was the only one there who knew what he was doing -- he was making whiskey!"
She met her husband after he had served in World War II. "His folks and my folks were neighbors, and that's how I met him," she said.
Whether it is Christmas collectables or memories from her past, Helen will always be surrounding and comforted by those things she loves.
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