ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 25, 1996 TAG: 9601260022
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HANCOCK STAFF WRITER
SOMETIMES, just a phone call can make a person's Christmas special.
WE ASKED OUR READERS to tell us about acts of kindness bestowed on them or things they did for others during the recent holiday season. The responses were heartwarming.
A phone call from an old friend from Christiansburg made Ed Trail's Christmas Eve different from any other day of the year.
When the friend visits her sister in Roanoke, she often calls Trail to see how he is doing. However, she forgot to call during her recent visit until she was on the way back to Christiansburg.
Despite the cold weather, Trail wrote, the friend stopped at a pay phone and called him.
Trail was delighted, he said, when she said something she had never told him before, "Honey, I love you."
"This constituted my entire Christmas," said Trail, "but it was sufficient to sustain me. Love is a short word with a long meaning."
Eight-year-old Scott Morris wrote about his aunt, Kathy Overstreet, who gave a stranger a ride home from the bank.
Overstreet heard the man telling the cashier that his bus had left him and offered him a ride. On the way to his house, she asked him if he was ready for Christmas. He said, "No, Christmas is just another day to me."
A few days later, Overstreet brought the man some fruit. "My aunt Kathy does nice things for people all the time, and this was one of those times," Scott wrote.
Virginia Lynch did nice things for her neighbor. Lynch lived directly behind the offices of Building Specialists Inc., and Robert Fetzer, president of the construction company, wrote that she often helped the company.
"In the six years since we relocated, I came to appreciate just what a wonderful neighbor Virginia Lynch truly was," wrote Fetzer.
"She always greeted us with a pleasant smile and performed many acts of kindness such as watering our flowers in the summertime and sweeping the alley to make sure that everything was clean and free from tossed debris. She also kept a watchful eye on our building at night."
There had never been any break-ins at the business since it had been in her neighborhood, and Fetzer attributes this to Lynch's watchful eye.
Lynch greeted Fetzer for the last time on Dec. 26 while she was cleaning the alley. She died Dec. 28.
"Her many acts of kindness will be remembered by those who knew her. I am very fortunate to be part of that group," wrote Fetzer.
Debra Wood wrote to set the record straight on landlords. Not all of them deserve the reputation of being miserly, she wrote. Her landlord, Frank Roupas, built a special shower for Wood's mother who had hip replacement surgery and uses an oxygen tank.
When Wood broke her leg, her family had to survive on a smaller paycheck. She knew that she would be unable to pay the December rent.
She wrote a letter to Roupas, requesting that he allow the rent to go unpaid that month. She dreaded his reaction. But he came over and said, "Sure you can."
"Being a single parent, I didn't want anything for Christmas. That was my Christmas," wrote Wood. "Thank God for nice landlords."
Joel Richert wrote about the package she found at her door a week before Christmas.
For years, she had admired her neighbor's 3-foot, wooden Santa Claus and every Christmas she combed the stores in search of one for herself.
The week before Christmas, Richert found a beautiful package from her neighbor, Joe Turner, at her doorstep. It contained the Santa.
When Richert went to thank Turner for the gift, she noticed that Turner's Santa was missing. "Joe, someone's stolen your Santa," screamed Richert.
"Oh, no," said Turner, "I gave him to you."
"And that's the kind of guy Joe is," wrote Richert.
Another writer, Andy Roberts waited 43 years before he finally got the toy that he had wanted as a child.
Roberts became disillusioned with Santa Claus in the early 1950s when he was only 5 or 6 years old. He had visited Santa at Miller and Rhodes in Richmond and, as he sat on Santa's lap, he asked for a toy submarine.
"After receiving the assurance that I would get my submarine if I were a good boy, I departed with the joy and expectation millions of children feel every Christmas season," wrote Roberts.
But Christmas came and went with no submarine. "It wasn't until New Year's Day, when we took down the tree, and I personally inspected the cotton around the base of the tree, that reality set in. Sure, I still believed in Santa Claus, but now I believed he was a jerk," Roberts wrote.
Roberts shared this story with his youngest daughter, Caroline.
This past Christmas morning, Roberts was surprised to find his long-awaited submarine under the tree.
The gift, said Roberts, renewed his faith in the jolly old man: "Instead of coming down the chimney in his red suit, I suspect that he came in the disguise of a young lady. He's not the jerk I once thought he was, but is the loving, thoughtful person I always heard he was."
A couple of readers wrote about being helped after having illnesses and death in their families during the holidays.
"Recently, my husband had heart surgery and spent most of the month of December in the hospital," wrote Jeanette Eanes. Her husband was released from the hospital Dec. 22.
Two days later, on Christmas Eve, their furnace broke down.
Steve Firebaugh, a family friend, sacrificed church that day to repair the furnace. Firebaugh is a deacon and choir member of Bethel Baptist Church.
"Incidentally, Christmas Day was our 55th wedding anniversary," said Eanes. Her husband, Vincent, "is doing fine now," she said.
Margaret Summers said friends and co-workers "came out in all forces. They just made it a wonderful Christmas."
In November, Summers' father died, and her husband, Wayne, suffered a stroke. Wayne was released from the hospital Dec. 15 and began physical therapy to learn to walk.
"With so much happening in our lives, we had not the time or the heart to shop for Christmas. With medical bills coming, we had to be careful with money," wrote Summers. But their friends, family, neighbors, members of Rockingham Court Methodist Church and employees at Tanglewood Mall, where Wayne works, brought them food and gifts. The couple also received several anonymous letters that contained words of encouragement and money.
A friend of Donna Willert, who wishes to remain anonymous, helped a Sunday school class raise money for youth group trips.
Willert wrote that her friend cried when she heard about the theft of $40 from Willert's Sunday school classroom at Virginia Heights Baptist Church.
Willert's class earned the money selling popcorn during a parade on Grandin Road, and then left the money in the church classroom. Two weeks later, the money was gone.
Willert speculated that the money was stolen by homeless people because, "We did find that some people were living in the church nursery."
Willert's friend gave $40 to the Sunday school class.
"My friend truly exhibited the spirit of giving. Thank you, friend, for giving to the Lord," Willert wrote.
Other readers wrote about people they had met during the year or something they especially liked.
Linda McGuire said many of the stories in The Roanoke Times' Christmas Memories contest "brought tears to my eyes."
"They were all so excellent that they gave me a warm feeling inside. I do hope you will consider making this a Christmas tradition at The Roanoke Times," wrote McGuire.
Lynne Thrasher, who gets up every day at 4:40 a.m. to deliver 227 newspapers, wrote about her customers.
"The folks on my route are more than faceless names on a mailbox. I have gotten to know them, and their friendships are a true blessing to me," she wrote.
During Christmas, Thrasher found cards, notes, candy, cookies, breads, tea, gift certificates and lots of tips in the paper boxes. Thrasher's customers have also helped in other ways, she wrote.
One woman greets Thrasher every morning and then delivers the paper to a neighbor's door. A man who walks his dog every morning showed Thrasher a better way to throw the paper, and another woman delivered several papers to homes on an icy hill.
"Yes, delivering this paper is a unique experience, full of hidden surprises and lots of kind people along the way," wrote Thrasher.
Many area organizations gathered gifts and food for those less fortunate. Here is a sampling:
The Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church community has collected gifts for the children of inmates at the Roanoke County Jail for the past nine years. This year, it distributed more than 200 gifts to the inmates so that when the children visited, the incarcerated parents would have gifts for them.
The Mental Health Association of Roanoke Valley provided gifts for 690 adults with mental illnesses in 17 adult-care residences throughout the Roanoke Valley.
AMVETS Auxiliary No. 2 members sent 250 Christmas and Hanukkah cards to military personnel, and sent a box filled with cookies, candy, nuts and popcorn to a group of Marines stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
They also distributed holiday bags of personal hygiene items and fruit and candy to 240 residents of the Virginia Veterans Care Center and helped residents with their Christmas shopping and gift wrapping. They served refreshments at the Christmas party.
Auxiliary members visited patients and decorated the rooms at the Richfield Nursing Home and helped deliver presents on Christmas Eve. They also gave a Christmas party for the children of Indian Village Head Start Center, collected and delivered food to four needy families, and stuffed children's stockings for the Salvation Army.
The Marvin Huddleston family gave a Christmas party for the residents of Southern Manor Home with the help of friends, relatives and Roanoke Emergency Medical Services.
The Huddlestons, who have been Santa's helpers at the home for five years, distributed gift bags and served food and drinks to the 87 residents.
The Fraternal Order of Police Auxiliary gave its adopted patient at the Coyner Springs Nursing Home a tape player, tapes and personal items.
Members collected food for families at Mountain View School and Addison School. The group also contributed to an auxiliary policeman's 10-year-old daughter who is waiting to receive a heart transplant.
Ten United Methodist churches - Southview, Woodland, Windows Hills, First, Central, Thrasher Memorial, Locust Grove, Crockett Springs, Cave Spring and Bonsack - joined Trinity in its Community Outreach Program. The churches supplied food, presents, clothing and financial aid to needy residents in Southwest and Southeast Roanoke.
LENGTH: Long : 190 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Children of COP eagerly open their boxes full ofby CNBpresents at the COP Christmas party. Graphic. color.