Christmas Gift Bags
The following story is shown
with the courtesy of Clarence E. Crocker. At
the time described (about 1953), Mr. Crocker was the
Manager of the Mill Store.
It was the custom of Glendale
Mills to celebrate with their employees and
their families, along with the community at
large, two special holidays of the year, Christmas and
the Fourth of July.
On the Friday before Christmas, it was custom of
the mill company, to give along with the employee’s
pay check, a Christmas card which entitled them to a
large bag of Christmas goodies. Weighing some 30
pounds, the bags contained bags of apples,
grapefruits, oranges, nuts and candies along with
boxes of cookies, a package of cereal, a can of pop
corn, a jar of apple butter, a fruit cake along
with 6 or 7 other items of the season.
To prepare for these bags, some 14 hundred for both
plants in Glendale and Georgia, the company bought
oranges and grapefruit straight from Florida and
apples from Washington state. Candies and cookies were
bought straight from the manufacturers for freshness.
On Monday, before the Friday when the bags
were to be given out, we had a group of school boys
and girls to come to the gymnasium where the items had
been stored. We set up a conveyor which ran in
front of the station of each item. A girl would
stand between two stations, except for the fruits
which were single stations each because of their
weight and tendency to bruise. As the bag passed in
front of her she would place the one or two items she
was responsible for into the bag. The boys kept the
stations stocked with the items and stacked the full
bags in their place for distribution. It was a
fun time for everyone packing the bags and when the
day of distribution came, the workers would be back to
help hand them out to the employees. receiving their
thanks and appreciation.
Along with the distribution of Christmas bags, on
most years we had a Christmas party at night in the
gymnasium at which time we had contests, played games
and gave prizes. One year, Willene Hughes was voted
and crowned Miss. Christmas. We set up a large
Christmas tree to add to the Spirit of Season.
We also had a Manger Scene float in the Spartanburg
Christmas parade with the school children from the
Glendale Grammar School marching behind. The employees
and their families always seemed most appreciative of
the company’s effort to make their Christmas, a
blessed and joyous event.
This web site has been started as a
public service to share the story of Glendale. See more
information about Mary and her Glendale connection at Mary McKinney Teaster.
