Flashback: Detroiters rallied in 1950 after a Christmas story so sad that Santa teared up

The following story appeared in the Free Press on Dec. 7, 1950.

Santa Claus went Wednesday to see three little children who had never seen him.

They are three little children who may never see him again.

The Santa Claus who went was a man who plays at it out of season, since it is early for the real one.

He is Gene Reaves, a downtown Santa Claus for years and one who still likes to give substance to the spirit of Christmas.

And the story of how he came to visit the four little children of Mr. and Mrs. Chloe Eidson, of 2433 Twenty-third ― three of whom have few days left ― goes like this:

The children have a rare ailment called fibrocystic disease, which affects the lungs. The doctors say there is no cure. They can’t tell the children’s mother, Jeanne Eidson, when Charles, 3, or the twins, Mary and Margaret, 2, may go. They fear that Carol, 4, the other child, may have the fatal disease, too. She has started to cough.

To keep her children alive, Mrs. Eidson has an oxygen tent and a steam tent in her home. Often she is up all night. So she took to calling a disc jockey, Bill Silbert, at WXYZ, late at night.

She told him that her children had never met Santa Claus.

Santa’s car played ‘Jingle Bells’

Charles, seeing Santa’s picture in the paper, was wondering and asking questions. So Silbert told Reaves, a car salesman who has a big automobile rigged up and loves to play Santa Claus. And Reaves told Russ Dawson, an automobile dealer who is his boss, about the children too sick to have met Santa Claus.

Santa with the Eidson children: From left, Carol, Charles, Mary, Margaret.

And Dawson gave Mrs. Reaves a handful of money and she went shopping.

On Wednesday Santa Claus made his special visit. Before he came, Charles was lying listless on a couch. His mother said he had a fever of 102. The pale twins, all slicked up, were side by side in a chair. They coughed together.

Carol was running around saying Santa was coming. Even their dad, Chloe Eidson, a truck driver, was home for the special occasion.

Then Santa’s big car, playing “Jingle Bells,” came up the shabby street with a factory on one side of it. Charles sat up on the couch and began to take an interest.

When Santa came in with his hearty laugh, they were scared. The twins whimpered.

But then the old Santa Claus magic took hold. Timidity faded under that booming laugh. Eyes grew round and bright like Christmas tree decorations as he called each one by name. The twins stopped coughing.

ANOTHER VISIT FROM SANTA: Santa shocked kids when he wore white suit in 1933 Detroit Thanksgiving parade

No laughing; that starts the coughing

Their wonder grew as out of that famous big bag came a cowboy suit, guns, a big truck “like Daddy’s,” a Dick Tracy wind-up car, candy and books for Charles.

And twin teddy bears and twin dresses for the twins. And a dress and a big doll for Carol. And candy canes spilling all over the place.

The children didn’t laugh, for that starts them to coughing. But their faces shone and animation took the place of sick listlessness.

They began moving around, playing with their toys and beaming at the old boy with the hearty laugh and famous beard.

They didn’t say much, but when Santa had to go he explained there were other children he had to see they all went to the door, even the twins, and watched through the glass window until his car, playing “Jingle Bells” again, vanished from their street.

And before Santa Claus got into his car ― we must tell it as it happened ― he rubbed at his eyes and smudged the red paint.

“Some people don’t know how lucky they are,” was all he said.

After the story ran in the Free Press, Detroiters responded with money, supplies, groceries and quack cures. The Pfizer company provided free medicine. The Michigan Consolidated Gas Company gave them free oxygen tanks. The American Legion donated a gallon of milk a day. A veterans group paid off the family’s back rent. Three bars took up a collection to get them a telephone.

The disease took its toll, however. Another child, Eugene, was born in 1951, and he was diagnosed with the illness. By May 1953, two of the children, Mary and Charles, had died. In early 1954, the Eidsons appeared to be living in Chicago. The fate of the other children could not be determined.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Flashback: 1950 pre-Christmas visit in Detroit made Santa cry