Dear Ed,
Lou died on June 2, 1941. He was unmercifully young — only thirty-eight.
Our last Christmas together was in 1940, and to keep Lou occupied I held open house at our home in Riverdale, as I frequently did that last year of his life. He was not bedridden at the time, and he never knew that his illness was fatal. He used to come downstairs and sit and talk gaily to our friends, assuring them that he was well on the road to recovery. Every time he said it, my heart skipped a beat.
Lou’s greatest joy that Christmas was the arrival of a group of youngsters of whom he was in charge as a New York City Parole Commissioner. He had been appointed to that position by the late Mayor La Guardia. Mr. La Guardia realized that keeping Lou busy with youngsters would occupy many empty moments he might spend brooding about his illness. To me it has always seemed a measure of Mayor La Guardia’s stature and understanding that he appointed Lou for a ten year term. I don’t know of anything that did more for Lou’s morale.
Many of the boys in Lou’s charge were once tough characters. When they first came to see him, I thought we were being invaded by the Dead End Kids. But by the time Lou finished talking to them, he had begun to jolt some of the toughness and bitterness out of them. He understood their problems because he had been raised in the same type of neighborhood as most of them.
Sitting around the Christmas tree that holiday eve, Lou talked about the meaning of Christmas. I thought it was a miracle that he was able to interest these boys with a religious theme, but then Lou could charm a bird out of a tree. As each boy left that night, he handed Lou a small present. There were tears in Lou’s eyes as he accepted their gifts, because he knew the sacrifices the boys had made to remember him.
After they had left, Lou talked proudly about the boys, and I could sense his feeHng of achievement.
Then he started to talk about baseball, as he often did when we were alone. He recalled the time the New York Yankees went to the Orient for a post-season tour. I had gone along with him. It was a triumphal tour, and in Tokyo Lou won the last game with a home run in the tenth inning.
“Remember Christmas in Singapore, Eleanor?” he asked suddenly. “The time you learned that your fearless baseball hero husband was a complete coward?”
We laughed as he recalled it, and we sat there talking about our trip. Actually, Lou was anything but a coward. But he was referring to a Christmas day in Singapore when we were standing in front of tlhe hotel. Lou’s face had suddenly become ashen, as if he had seen a ghost over my shoulder. I turned around and saw a snake charmer pick up a flute. As he played, the most awful-looking cobra came up out of a basket and did a hideous shivering dance—twisting and writhing in the air.
Lou took one horrified look and bolted into the hotel. “If I had been that fast on the base paths,” he said to me as we sat talking about it years later, “I’d have broken Ty Cobb’s record for stolen bases.”
Lou became very tired. As I watched his pain-wracked body climb the stairs, I knew I would soon lose him. I did, of course, but I have the memories.
Eleanor Gehrig
Christmas with Ed Sullivan is a collection of Christmas short stories by authors such as Ring Lardner, Christopher Morley, Pearl Buck, and Alexander Wollcott, interspersed with letters from celebrities of the time sharing Christmas memories with the columnist and variety show host. Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein II, Gene Tunney, Ted Williams, Edith Piaf, Dinah Shore, and others recall happy times from childhood. James Cagney and James Garner tell stories of visiting soldiers and sick children. Clark Gable, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, and Moira Shearer remember Christmases spent on the road far from home. In Perry Como’s case, it was a lonely Christmas night spent in a diner in Cleveland:
The first thing I noticed there was that the people sitting at the tables were alone. No couples. Just single, lonely people like myself. By that time, I was feeling so sorry for myself and each one of them, I didn’t feel like eating. After a few moments I felt someone tap me on my shoulder. It was the waiter standing, pad in hand, waiting patiently for my order. He didn’t look much happier than I did and I thought of his having to work right through Christmas Day. Just to make him feel better, I ordered a bowl of soup.
The soup was cold when it arrived, and I began to push it aside, but when I glanced up and saw the waiter’s sad expression, I ate all of the soup, feeling that Cleveland was farther from home by the minute.
That night in the restaurant was the lowest point in my life. I sat there staring at the empty soup bowl and made a resolution I’ve never broken. No matter how much we would ever need money again, I promised myself, I wouldn’t spend another Christmas away from my wife and children. It is the one holiday when no person should be alone. You either share Christmas with people you love, or it turns into the longest, most meaningless day of the year.
Here’s hoping you’re sharing this Christmas with people you love: it’s always better than cold soup in Cleveland.
Thanks! Never knew this about Lou.