Kansan, 104, recalls best gift she ever got. And it wasn’t wrapped in paper

At 104, Edna Hall will celebrate her 100th Christmas in this small town on Sunday.

She was 5 when her family moved to the Dighton area in 1917. That first Christmas in western Kansas, she said, was far different from those of today with their mountains of wrapped presents and days of celebrating.

“We never got much for Christmas, and what we did get was something we needed, like clothes or socks,” said Hall. “Whatever we got was either something our father or mother made for us.”

And the celebration of gifts was only a sliver of the day on their farm. Things like hungry chickens and hogs, cows loaded with milk, eggs to be gathered and cow chips to fuel the stove still needed attention from Hall and her six siblings. Chores on Christmas 1917 began before sunup and continued until after sundown.

Hall is more thankful than resentful that the presents were modest while the chore load was heavy. A strong work ethic, she said, remains the best gift her parents ever gave her. She credits it for why she’s largely self-sufficient one month shy of turning 105.

“I don’t think kids today can understand just how hard we worked back then,” Hall said at her home in the town 215 miles northwest of Wichita. “Work was all we had, and we all worked. I feel sorry for kids who don’t grow up working. What will they be like when they get older?”

Hall remembers the spring day her family made the 150-mile trip on a coal-powered train from McPherson to Dighton in 1917. It was a make-it-or-break-it move.

“We had everything we owned in one train car, including all of our livestock. I remember we had to really clean some of the furniture,” Hall said with a chuckle.

Being 5 years old didn’t preclude her from working on the 320-acre farm. Some of her earliest memories are of helping in a garden that was several hundred yards long, where her family grew enough fruit and vegetables to last them through the year.

As she aged, her responsibilities around the farm increased. By the time she was in eighth grade, she was riding a cultivator pulled by four large draft horses.

“I don’t think there was anything on the farm I didn’t do,” said Hall. “If it needed done, you just did it.”

School was a half-hour horse and buggy ride away. Farm chores were done before and after the trip.

Christmas remained special, and the celebration was simple.

“My mom played the organ, and I remember when I was little, we’d gather around and sing Christmas songs,” Hall said.

Some years they’d go cut and decorate a cedar tree from their farm on Christmas Eve. Some years they’d settle for a limb from a larger tree. Decorations were as simple as strings of popcorn. They hung whatever stockings they weren’t wearing at the time. One of the biggest events was the buggy ride into Dighton to get a crate of oranges shipped from a grandfather in California.

“It was such a big deal when we got our own orange,” Hall said.

On Christmas Day, family came. Big meals of home-cured hams and many canned vegetables were served, followed by pies and cakes baked in the crude ovens of the day. When there was free time, the family played cards or board games or did jigsaw puzzles. Evening chores awaited.

The work ethic she learned as a child never left Hall. After she graduated from high school in 1931, she became a nighttime telephone operator. That’s where she was working when the first major dust storm rolled through, forcing motorists to leave their cars and blindly follow a barbed-wire fence into Dighton and to the building where Hall worked.

Through the decades, Hall worked countless hours on several farms with her husband, Freeman, and their three sons. She held a variety of jobs after they moved to town about 60 years ago. She was in her 90s when she quit her last job as a florist. But she’s never quit being active.

Hall stopped bowling two games a week when she was 100. This year, she downsized her gardening to some flowers and a few tomato plants. It’s hard, she said, to give up working with the soil, as she did as a child.

Though she’s slowed some lately, Hall still does her own laundry, ironing, cleaning and cooking. This will be the first year she hasn’t sent out Christmas cards, though her house is decorated with holiday finery. She doesn’t use a cane or a walker and springs up from a chair when the doorbell rings.

Tuesday afternoon, she needed no help climbing into a full-sized four-wheel-drive pickup to tour where her father’s farm had once been. After the tour, she climbed oversized steps to get to her porch and front door.

“I just keep doing them every day,” said Hall, referencing the importance of staying active. She tests her mind daily, working jigsaws and word puzzles.

She passed her driver’s license exam when she was 103 but drives only a few times a week, always in town. Anita Smith, a family friend, said Hall is a fine, cautious driver.

The woman born three months before the Titanic sank said she’s looking forward to Christmas on Sunday, just as she did as a girl. There will be gifts, but she appreciates time with her family more. Her two surviving sons, Neal of Wichita and Elden of Curtis, Neb., will be at her home. Many people will chip in to help with the meal and celebration. Hall won’t sit back and watch.

“If you aren’t working, what good are you?” she said. “I’m always so glad I learned how to work at such a young age.”

This story was originally published December 24, 2016 at 8:01 PM with the headline "Kansan, 104, recalls best gift she ever got. And it wasn’t wrapped in paper."