If you’ve had so much holiday cheer that you’re ready to be boiled in your own pudding, never fear: Chicago history is just full of gruesome Christmas tales. A century ago, the front page of the Tribune on December 25 featured a drawing of Jesus being crucified and saying “Father forgive them…” while World War I soldiers slaughtered each other at the foot of the cross. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Take, for instance, a Christmas Eve item in the Tribune in 1911 that opened with “There will be no Christmas celebration at 2421 North Clybourn tomorrow…” According to the article, an elderly Lakeview couple had been planning their 50th Christmas together, but when the husband went to get their Christmas tree, he picked one so large that it blocked his field of vision when he crossed the road, keeping him from seeing the oncoming vehicle that mowed him down. The paper noted in its closing paragraph that he died with a sprig of mistletoe and a neatly-wrapped thimble—a gift for his wife—in his pocket.
On the subject of tree-related tales of holiday woe, the most infamous is probably that of of the Rouse Simmons, a three masted ship that was known around town as “The Christmas Tree Ship.” For a generation of Chicagoans, gathering on the Clark Street bridge for “Captain Santa” to arrive with his ship full of trees was a holiday tradition. But in 1912, the ship didn’t arrive; it had sunk off the coast of Wisconsin with 35,000 trees and a full crew aboard. Though the wreck of the ship itself wouldn't be found for nearly sixty years, hundreds of the trees were washed to the shore and were sold on the bridge by the Captain’s wife and daughters; the sales helped them cover the debts from the loss, though I have to imagine it would have been a bit morbid to have a “shipwreck tree” in the parlor.
Perhaps the most tasteless Christmas article in the Tribune's long history concerned the death of poor Vern Olson, a 10-year-old boy (though the paper said he was 11) who died while delivering a present to his mother when a candle he was holding lit his costume Santa beard on fire. The headline read “Santa Claus, 11, Takes Last Trip; Burns to Death” and the article referred to poor Vern as “Santa” throughout: "With a lighted taper in one hand - his last penny had been spent for that - Santa marched into the store…a draft blew the flame from the taper against Santa’s whiskers (and) the merry laugh that was to have announced his arrival died in his throat. Santa was ablaze from head to foot when he ran into the store…. A few hours later Santa was dead." The tone is so mawkish that I had to check some records to make sure it was even true, not some reporter's attempt at a B-rate Dickens tale.
Vern's story, for the record, is just about exactly the sort of thing I like to imagine happening in Dee Snider’s Rock and Roll Christmas Tale, now showing at Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place.