EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
By Ruth Luse
For those of us who celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, this time of year can be as painful as it is joyous, because of the memories the season evokes.
Not even a month ago, someone e-mailed me the photo that appears on this page. It was to be used to help publicize a recent holiday event held at the Hopewell Railroad Station. I used another, and saved this particular one, because it brings back so many memories of the past.
For 21 years I looked at this station almost every day of the week. It was in plain view every time I glanced out of my office window. I saw it during every season of the year and watched it slowly deteriorate during the period before Hopewell Borough decided to refurbish it. Today, it is a lovely reminder of the Victorian era and again fits in well with the older homes that make Hopewell Borough what it is. When it snows, it looks just like a Christmas card image should.
In particular, the station brings back memories of our old Railroad Place office, which was the birthplace of the Hopewell Valley News nearly 50 years ago. It brings back memories of the man, Harry Richard, who started the paper and was its publisher until 1987.
Mr. Richard loved the railroad station, Hopewell and Christmas. He spent weeks getting ready for Christmas. He would place a tree (one of the original good fake ones) in one of the two large front windows and it would sit there, sometimes until Easter. The late Ruth Carver, who served for years as tax collector, I think, once threatened to hang plastic Easter eggs on it if he didn’t take the tree down.
He usually placed a large live wreath that he purchased from a family business near Flemington outside above the front door. That, too, usually would stay up until all the needles were brown.
Mr. Richard bought candy and poinsettias for the people he regularly did business with. The girls at the post office were among his favorites. He took them gifts every year. He spent Thursdays in November and December after the paper was done and delivered to the three local post offices on Wednesday nights doing his Christmas shopping.
Mr. Richard also wore Christmas ties and Christmas socks and nearly every year visited DiIorio’s a men’s store located first in Hopewell and later in Hopewell Township. There he’d get his plaid slacks for the holiday season. These he would wear to our annual Christmas parties at the Hopewell Valley Golf Club a fun event attended by most of Hopewell Valley’s officials and friends.
In those days, Christmas really was something to look forward to. But that was a time when people didn’t think about whether Christmas was politically correct or not. If it was their holiday, they loved it and were proud to celebrate it. If Mr. Richard were alive today, he would have been appalled by those who are offended by Christmas and want to make it just another day off.
I still believe in Christmas and what it symbolizes. I remember what it was like to sing every Christmas Eve as part of the church choir. I find myself thinking more about my late parents and relatives at Christmas than at any other time of the year. I can picture my father spending hours deciding where each light should be placed on the live tree. He was an engineer and everything had to be symmetrical. I can see my aunt and mother making fruitcakes, of all things. Some members of their large family must have liked it.
I can picture my cousin and I eating all the olives that had been placed on the table before Christmas dinner had even started. I remember another cousin who couldn’t come into the house, unless someone removed everything made of pine. She was that allergic! These and so many other memories both religious and secular come from Christmas days spent at two different homes near Philadelphia. Today other families live in those residences and my parents, aunts and uncles have passed away. Christmas will never be the same for me.
On Sunday, many Christians will celebrate Christmas. Sundown that day will mark the beginning of the eight-day-and-night Jewish Festival of Lights, known as Hanukkah. Monday will mark the beginning of Kwanzaa.
I hope future generations will not allow naysayers to diminish further the meaning of these holidays for the children and grandchildren of the millions who observe at least one of them today. I cannot imagine a world in which such beauty and feeling did not exist!

