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Speaker 1: When my kid was five years old from Memphis, back

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Speaker 1: when one of them was five. If they wrote a

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Speaker 1: letter to Santa Claus and put a stamp on it,

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Speaker 1: does it just get to.

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Speaker 2: You, guys? Somehow does the Post office honor that tradition?

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Speaker 2: How does it work? That's how it works, no kidding.

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Speaker 3: It works if it says a guy in the big

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Speaker 3: red suit. If it says North Pole, you know it's

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Speaker 3: that Christmas season. If we could be that way all

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Speaker 3: year long, wouldn't it be wonderful? I mean, everybody along

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Speaker 3: the way will add an address, will add PO Box one,

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Speaker 3: Santa Claus, Indiana. This past season we called from Thanksgiving

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Speaker 3: to Christmas over twenty three thousand letters.

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Speaker 1: We'll see three thousand letters that have to be answered.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and some years it's thirty thousand.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Cortney.

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Speaker 1: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,

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Speaker 1: I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an

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Speaker 1: inner city Memphis. And the last part unintentionally led to

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Speaker 1: an oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. Guys,

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Speaker 1: I believe our country's problems will never be solved by

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Speaker 1: a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big

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Speaker 1: words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather

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Speaker 1: by an army of normal folks us just you and

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Speaker 1: me deciding hey, I can help. That's what Pat Cook,

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Speaker 1: the voice we just heard, has done. Pat is the

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Speaker 1: chief Elf, believe it or not, of Santa Claus, Indiana,

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Speaker 1: a town that somehow got that name and somehow gets

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of letters addressed to Santa Claus every

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Speaker 1: single year, and Pat and her army of elves have

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Speaker 1: carried on a legacy of responding to each of those

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Speaker 1: letters every Christmas. I cannot wait for you to meet Pat.

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Speaker 1: Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, today's

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Speaker 1: episode is really going to be fun. It is after

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Speaker 1: having conversations about some really deep subject matter with addiction

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Speaker 1: and unwed mothers and tattoo removal and a lot of heavy,

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Speaker 1: heavy stuff we've talked about over the last few weeks.

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Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to our chat today.

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Speaker 1: We're talking with miss Pat Cook from Santa Claus, Indiana

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Speaker 1: hat store. He goes way back and it's really interesting

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Speaker 1: and Pat, I just want to thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for joining me today.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 3: I'm glad to be here. Love to talk to people,

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Speaker 3: love to talk about the town. Really, I'm so in

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Speaker 3: love with the town and with the wonderful people who

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Speaker 3: bring joy to so many kids.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, my first exposure to Santa Claus, Indiana

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Speaker 1: is just a street sign.

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Speaker 2: Really.

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Speaker 1: I think there's an exit somewhere in Indiana, there's an

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Speaker 1: exit on the Interstate that there's a sign that says

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Speaker 1: Santa Claus, Indiana.

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Speaker 2: If I'm not right, isn't that right? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I was driving down the Interstate going to

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Speaker 1: sell lumber up in Elkhart, Indiana, on the way from

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Speaker 1: Memphis on my first trip up there twenty something years ago,

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Speaker 1: and I remember passing that sign, and of course I

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Speaker 1: giggled to myself, like anybody, my giggles, who would name

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Speaker 1: a town in Santa Claus, Indiana?

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Speaker 2: And you know, it just it was kind of a

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Speaker 2: warm chuckle. And to be speaking with you.

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Speaker 1: Now, So first of all, tell me about you, Tell

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Speaker 1: me about when you're born, and tell me about you know,

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Speaker 1: how you got to Santa Claus, and just give me

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Speaker 1: a little background on the pat world.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I was born Patricia Anna in a little German

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Speaker 3: town called Maria Hilf, which means Mary Help. Very Roman

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Speaker 3: Catholic part of the world, very German. Was born August fourteenth,

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Speaker 3: nineteen thirty one.

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Speaker 2: Nineteen thirty one, you're at least forty.

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Speaker 3: Now, I am, yes, a little bit over.

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Speaker 2: Nineteen thirty one.

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Speaker 1: Pat, you put the year out there, that's I'm sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: seventy nine, how old?

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Speaker 2: That's ninety I need three or so.

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Speaker 3: I'm ninety two and a half.

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Speaker 2: Wow, that is amazing. And I'm gonna tell you something.

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Speaker 1: You know, an army of normal folks is audio only,

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Speaker 1: so people don't get to see you.

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Speaker 2: But Pat, you are handling ninety three like a champ.

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Speaker 2: You look great. You don't look ninety three. I don't

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Speaker 2: know what ninety three is supposed to look like, but

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Speaker 2: that's not it.

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Speaker 3: Oh that's right. I don't know either. I don't know

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Speaker 3: how I'm supposed to look or at so I just

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Speaker 3: knew me. No, I'm very fortunate. My mother was a beautiful,

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Speaker 3: lovely woman who lived to be ninety eight, had beautiful

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Speaker 3: white hair. Grew up there and to the Benedictine's sisters

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Speaker 3: from Ferdinand Indiana, who have a great beautiful monastery there

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Speaker 3: only about fifteen miles away where the teachers in the

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Speaker 3: grade school grades one to eight. So grades one to

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Speaker 3: four we're in one room. In grades five to eight

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Speaker 3: we're in another room. And we got an absolutely wonderful education.

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Speaker 3: We learned to read, write and spell, we learned to pray,

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Speaker 3: We learned and learned to spinging, singing German and Latin.

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Speaker 3: And I'm very grateful, grateful for that wonderful education. How

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Speaker 3: to write cursive, imagine that. And then I went to

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Speaker 3: Dale High School, which was also about ten miles away,

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Speaker 3: and it was actually just a it was not a

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Speaker 3: Catholic high school. I met some other people from other

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Speaker 3: religions and other walks of life, small Towndale, great basketball team.

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Speaker 3: Loved high school, loved every bit of it. Cheerleader on

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Speaker 3: the student council, all that stuff, got involved, had bunches

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Speaker 3: of meetings, had a lot of fun. Loved my high

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Speaker 3: school years. My mother and father they sort of let

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Speaker 3: I only had one brother and he was three years

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Speaker 3: older than me, so he graduated from high school and

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Speaker 3: joined the navy and left home. My dad had It's

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Speaker 3: hard for me to tell this whole story. But my dad,

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Speaker 3: dad had been in the navy for fourteen years and

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Speaker 3: had left the navy early because he had had that

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Speaker 3: he and my mother had had my brother, and he

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Speaker 3: went back to Mura Hill and saw the beauty of

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Speaker 3: a small town and decided to leave the navy and

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Speaker 3: come back to Mariah Hill. And that's what he did

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Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty So I was born. Then the year

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Speaker 3: later he had had a roadhouse in Chicago during Prohibition. Wonderful,

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Speaker 3: great stories they told about getting their beer cakes at night,

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Speaker 3: in the dark of night with men with guns, and well,

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Speaker 3: I had a childhood of being in My father built

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Speaker 3: the first tavern that they built, called the Diamond Tavern.

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Speaker 3: I have pictures of myself in front of that. I

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Speaker 3: don't know if that burned or I don't know if

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Speaker 3: he if they just demolished it or what. But then

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Speaker 3: he built the chateau because he had been in France

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Speaker 3: during World War One and he loved the chateaus. It

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Speaker 3: was a beautiful brick structure. It looked like a chateau.

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Speaker 3: So I grew up in a bar, pool room, and

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Speaker 3: dance hall, and that was a lot of fun.

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Speaker 2: I bet it was a lot of fun. It was

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Speaker 2: a lot of fun.

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Speaker 3: I learned to play pool at a very young age.

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Speaker 3: My mother took me to tap dancing lessons. I learned

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Speaker 3: tap dance, so in the dance part of the room

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Speaker 3: of the chateau, I would dance, so people would throw

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Speaker 3: quarters and nickels at me. So I was an entrepreneur

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Speaker 3: from the very beginning. And of course I lived through

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Speaker 3: World War Two. I was born in thirty one, so

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Speaker 3: you're talking forty one, forty seven, and forty six. Saw

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Speaker 3: the soldiers coming home, sitting at the bar having a

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Speaker 3: beer and then seeing a flag in the window meaning

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Speaker 3: a gold star mother, and we lost a lot of

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Speaker 3: young men, a lot of young men. So I grew

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Speaker 3: up during that. But that was my high school days.

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Speaker 3: So except for being aware of rationing gas, rushing sugar,

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Speaker 3: rationing coffee, we had. My father then went to work

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Speaker 3: in Evansville as a shipyard supervisor because in Evansville, Indiana,

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Speaker 3: they made the LSTs on the Ohio River. You know

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Speaker 3: what the LSTs were?

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Speaker 2: First? They were?

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Speaker 3: What my first question.

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Speaker 2: To you LST. I don't tell me.

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Speaker 1: I really want to guess LST were I No, I

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Speaker 1: don't know it doesn't sound like an overly large boat,

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Speaker 1: so maybe recon boats.

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Speaker 3: LST stands for landing ships tanks really, and they were

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Speaker 3: very large. They were made so that they had a

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Speaker 3: huge There is one still in Evansville that's on display

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Speaker 3: in his history Oracle LST. And my father accompanied them

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Speaker 3: to New Orleans and handed them over to the navy.

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Speaker 1: Are they the boats with the with the big thing

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Speaker 1: that flops down so the troops get in them, they

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Speaker 1: go to an assaulted beach, the front flops down and

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Speaker 1: everybody runs off the front office.

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Speaker 3: They were at Normandy. They were at Normandy. They were

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Speaker 3: at Evil Regima.

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Speaker 1: Yes, everybody that's watched the World War two movie has

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Speaker 1: seen those. And your father overseed the manufacturing, oversaw the manufacture.

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Speaker 2: Of those, and my mother Christen, no kidding, that is wow?

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Speaker 3: What is Yes? So the war came and Dad was

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Speaker 3: in Evansville, and so my brother, my mother and I

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Speaker 3: were running the chateau and we had to close. I

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Speaker 3: think it was ten o'clock. It had to be dark,

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Speaker 3: I know that. But so I spent more time in

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Speaker 3: the after school, I'd be in the chateau and it

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Speaker 3: was an interesting, interesting way to start your life. Then

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Speaker 3: I went to Dale High School, and somehow or other,

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Speaker 3: the sisters had put into my being a love for education,

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Speaker 3: a love for learning. I love to read, I love

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Speaker 3: to spell, I love to do English. Didn't like math

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Speaker 3: very much, but so I really wanted an education after

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Speaker 3: high school. Now that I was a girl, you know,

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Speaker 3: in nineteen forty eight, I graduated from high school at

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Speaker 3: the age of sixteen. Because three of us either did

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Speaker 3: grades two and three at one year, or we skipped.

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Speaker 3: We don't know. The other girl has passed away. The

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Speaker 3: other boy is a priest in a nursing home and

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Speaker 3: he doesn't know either. But we were all three good readers,

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Speaker 3: good spellers. I don't think we learned much math. But anyway,

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Speaker 3: I graduated of sixteen, and I thought I want to

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Speaker 3: go to college. My mom and dad had both had

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Speaker 3: six grade educations, really weren't very interested in that. So

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Speaker 3: I worked for a year to be a little older

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Speaker 3: to be able to apply to a nursing school. And

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Speaker 3: I tell this story to young women and boys too.

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Speaker 3: But for some strange reason, first I went into the

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Speaker 3: principal's office and said I'd like to go to college

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Speaker 3: because four boys in our class had gone to college.

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Speaker 3: No girls, are you? They went to Nana University and

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Speaker 3: I said I'd like to go to college, and my

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Speaker 3: wonderful principal, who was a good man, said to me,

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Speaker 3: why would a girl want to go to college. That

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Speaker 3: was the end of my quest for college. And I

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Speaker 3: really didn't think I had a chance, but I wanted

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Speaker 3: an education. So I went to Dale, got on the

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Speaker 3: greyhound bus by myself, which I have no idea how

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Speaker 3: I did that, went to Evansville, Indiana where the Sister

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Speaker 3: Daughters of Charity. I don't know, Bill, if you know,

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Speaker 3: they're the ones with the big wings, with the find.

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Speaker 2: The big hats, big hats.

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Speaker 3: They were in charge of that hospital. And I wrote

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Speaker 3: myself to nursing school. That was my beginning to I

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Speaker 3: guess my life.

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Speaker 1: And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,

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Speaker 1: if an army of normal folks has impacted you or

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Speaker 1: inspired you to take action, I really want to hear

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Speaker 1: about it. Write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot

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Speaker 1: us and I'll respond.

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Speaker 2: I want to hear about it. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 3: The first year of nurses training made a lot of friends,

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Speaker 3: had a lot of fun, Big town of Evansville, INDWNA,

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Speaker 3: which is on the Ohio River, boating out to Duck Island,

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Speaker 3: doing a lot of fun stuff, but love nursing. The

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Speaker 3: beginning of the second year of nurses training, a very

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Speaker 3: charismatic priest named Father I knew his name, I forgot it.

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Speaker 3: In a big, long black cassock with a belt of

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Speaker 3: leather and sandals came in to give a retreat and

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Speaker 3: talk to us about our religion and about you know,

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Speaker 3: being Catholic and that sort of thing. And he was

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Speaker 3: so wonderful. He talked about serving and giving and not

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Speaker 3: thinking of south but thinking of others. And I was hooked.

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Speaker 3: And so I went home and told my mom and

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Speaker 3: dad that I wanted to be a sister, and I

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Speaker 3: wanted to be the kind of sister that ran that

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Speaker 3: hospital because they were fun. They weren't boring, they were fun,

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Speaker 3: They laughed, they joked, they were very professional, they were

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Speaker 3: very smart, they were very educated. And that's what I

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Speaker 3: wanted to be. And so I had to wait a

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Speaker 3: year till I was almost eighteen, got into the Daughters

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Speaker 3: of Charity and was sent to Saint Louis to what

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Speaker 3: they called the postulancy, and that was three months and

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Speaker 3: then a year in seminary at the mother House, beautiful,

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Speaker 3: beautiful building. A year of almost complete silence. We talked

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Speaker 3: only at recreation, which was twice a day. Big change

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Speaker 3: from this girl that was having a lot of fun

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Speaker 3: is training, dating and doing all the things young women do.

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Speaker 3: But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was peaceful. I felt

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Speaker 3: like I was becoming someone I wasn't before. So at

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Speaker 3: the end of that year and three months, almost a

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Speaker 3: year and a half, I received the habit, which was

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Speaker 3: the big hat and the beautiful blue outfit, and was

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Speaker 3: sent to a hotel, New House of God in New

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Speaker 3: Orleans to complete my RN and then was spential Loyola

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Speaker 3: University part time to get a bachelor's degree. So I

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Speaker 3: spent about five years in New Orleans.

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Speaker 2: Loved it.

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Speaker 3: Wonderful town, you know, the people loved the sisters. They

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Speaker 3: had been in that hospital. They had Charity Hospital, which

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Speaker 3: was a very poor hospital that took in very poor people,

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Speaker 3: and I did my pediatric experience there. Psychiatric hospital also

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Speaker 3: belonged to them, so it was just a wonderful experience.

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Speaker 3: But then I had a wonderful the Daughter's to Charity,

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Speaker 3: the head of the hospital was called the Sister Servant.

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Speaker 3: I think that's an amazing title. Servant. You know, she

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Speaker 3: was the servant of the hospital, the servant of the sisters,

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Speaker 3: the servant of the patients. And she was such a

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Speaker 3: role model to me. I just admired her. She was

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Speaker 3: once again, smart, fair, tough, absolutely knew her business, knew

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Speaker 3: how to. She said to me one time something I

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Speaker 3: never forgot. I'm not running a person at popularity contest,

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Speaker 3: I'm running a hospital. And she did that. And so

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Speaker 3: at some point after the five years there, I got

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Speaker 3: word that I was to go to Saint Louis University

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Speaker 3: to get a bachelor's degree in nursing full time. Did

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Speaker 3: that full time. Love that, loved it, loved going to school,

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Speaker 3: loved stayed at the mother House where there was prayer

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Speaker 3: and beautiful chapel. After that mission, which was mean, I

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Speaker 3: was sent to Chicago, Saint Joseph's Hospital in Chicago, whole

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Speaker 3: different world, whole different world. I was still, you know, eighteen,

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Speaker 3: know I was older that I was twenty by that time.

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Speaker 3: And that hospital, the Sister Servant was not like the

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Speaker 3: one had been in New Orleans. We worked so very hard,

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Speaker 3: moving beds empty and garbage, doing laundry. There wasn't as

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Speaker 3: much time for fun, if that's the right word. In

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Speaker 3: New Orleans, Sister Carlo said, let us go out into

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Speaker 3: Carter and buy somebody to look at Christmas lights. We

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Speaker 3: went out to lake concentrating and jumped in the water.

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Speaker 3: Things that gave us courage again to keep on going.

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Speaker 3: But that wasn't the case in Chicago. And one night

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Speaker 3: I got a call from somebody, and I know not who.

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Speaker 3: I can't remember that like it happened that my father

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Speaker 3: had had a heart attack at the American Legion, which

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Speaker 3: he founded because he was a veteran in Santa Claus.

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Speaker 3: Santa Claus American Legion, and they said my father had

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Speaker 3: had a heart attack and they had brought him home.

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Speaker 3: My mother was ill, my brother was in the navy,

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Speaker 3: and I was never The Daughters of Charity were never

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Speaker 3: allowed to come back home after they entered the Order.

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Speaker 3: It was a rule that Saint Vincent Paul made because

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Speaker 3: he went home to his father and mother one time

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Speaker 3: and then he hesitated to go back to his parish,

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Speaker 3: so he said, you will not return home ever. So

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Speaker 3: I was not ever supposed to go home but I said,

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Speaker 3: I've been taking care of all these people in New

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Speaker 3: Orleans and in Chicago, and I should be able to

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Speaker 3: take care of my mother and father. They were alone.

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Speaker 3: My mother wasn't well, and so I did that. I

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Speaker 3: left probably one of the hardest things I ever did

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Speaker 3: in my life. Really, it was just very difficult. I

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Speaker 3: loved the daughters, I loved nursing. It was a great life.

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Speaker 1: It is amazing to me that from sixteen to twenty

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Speaker 1: you have more life than some people too, back in

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Speaker 1: their thirties.

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Speaker 3: Came home on the train from Saint Louis to Washington, Indiana.

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Speaker 3: It was February and it was sewing like crazy. I

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Speaker 3: was wearing a It was I think Squad Valley. You

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Speaker 3: remember Squad Valley Olympics, right skiing yep. And I had

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Speaker 3: on a cap because we had practically no hair under

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Speaker 3: all of that.

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Speaker 2: Had to go.

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Speaker 3: Find some clothes, didn't have clothes, didn't know what size

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Speaker 3: of war, didn't know anything, didn't know about a hamburger,

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Speaker 3: didn't know much. But got on that train and my

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Speaker 3: mother said, I can't come get you, and Dad come

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Speaker 3: catch you. So we're going to send Bill. Bill was

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Speaker 3: built Cook Koch his family had a business in Evansville,

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Speaker 3: and his father had come to Santa Claus, Indiana after

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Speaker 3: he retired with a heart attack, to find out that

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Speaker 3: there's nothing in Santa Claus, Indiana for children. And he

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Speaker 3: had nine children, and he was a very good grandpa, dad,

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Speaker 3: wonderful man, very smart. Cook family is very smart. And

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Speaker 3: so he went to Santa Claus, Indiana and said, I

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Speaker 3: have to do something. There's to be something here for children.

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Speaker 3: So he built a very small theme park called Santa

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Speaker 3: claus Land, and it was built for small children. At

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Speaker 3: that time, his son, Bill had been in the Navy,

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Speaker 3: graduated from the Naval Academy, come back home, started to

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Speaker 3: get into the family business in Evansville, decided it wasn't

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Speaker 3: for him and asked his father if he could come

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Speaker 3: to Santa Claus and take over that little park. And

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Speaker 3: his father told me that he didn't think it would

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Speaker 3: make anything. It was just going to be a little

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Speaker 3: kiddy park. And so he came there in forty seven.

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Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure because grandpa started the park in forty six.

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Speaker 3: And so the man that my mother sent to pick

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Speaker 3: me up at the train station was that Bill.

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Speaker 1: Cook, who's who ends up being my husband. So you

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Speaker 1: grow up. Your father's a World War two, a World

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Speaker 1: War one vat. Then he's building the boats that we

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Speaker 1: used to go to Normandy and he would GiMA, you

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Speaker 1: want to learn and go to college.

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Speaker 2: You end up coming a nun.

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Speaker 1: Then you leave being a nun to take care of

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Speaker 1: your ailing parents, and you end up in lo and

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Speaker 1: behold Santa Claus and end up marrying the guy that

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Speaker 1: picks you up to take you to your parents' house.

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Speaker 2: What a crazy story.

359
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 3: So let's we were married forty years. He was sixteen

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Speaker 3: years older than me, and well, Natalie sitting here, they're

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Speaker 3: very smart. So my kids are really smart because I'm

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Speaker 3: married a smart man.

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Speaker 1: But I think they have a pretty smart mob too.

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Speaker 3: It was a great marriage because if you can't tell,

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Speaker 3: I'm the people person. He was the engineer, graduate, Naval Academy,

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Speaker 3: numbers guy, planner, dreamer. I was the down to earth

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Speaker 3: let's get this work done. We were a great team.

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Speaker 2: That's an awesome story. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: So you're in Santa Claus, and Santa Claus the city

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Speaker 1: who names the town Santa Claus.

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Speaker 2: How did that happen?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I started in a museum, so in

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Speaker 3: the museum you have to come see us. There is

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Speaker 3: the document eighteen fifty six. There was a postmaster in Fulda,

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Speaker 3: and he decided that this little town that my grandmother

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Speaker 3: called Santa Fe, Grandma Apollonia always called the town center Fee.

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Speaker 3: Now I thought it was she was wrong that in

378
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 3: my day we didn't correct our grandparents. So she was right.

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00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:51,160
Speaker 3: It was Santa Fe. And we have a plat map

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Speaker 3: of the town of Santa Fe. Very rural, but it

381
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:59,640
Speaker 3: was laid out in streets. It had creamery, a school,

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Speaker 3: a doctor and in residence, and it was a very

383
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Speaker 3: small town. So the guy from full to the postmaster

384
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Speaker 3: thought they need a post office, and he applied to

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Speaker 3: Washington City, it says up at the top of the

386
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 3: document for a post office, and gave the description, and

387
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Speaker 3: whoever looked at that said, choose another name than Santa Fe.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if they weren't very smart, or if

389
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 3: they didn't see the two ease, or what happened. But

390
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:37,160
Speaker 3: there was already a post office called Santa Fe in Indiana,

391
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 3: so someone who I can't find out wrote Santa Claus

392
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 3: at the bottom of black ink. Were no computers, so

393
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 3: it's just it said Santa Claus, and that somebody marked

394
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 3: through that, and somebody wrote seed lick or sad lick

395
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 3: over here that was crossed through, and then somebody wrote

396
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 3: Santa Close with an eat, which is not correct. But

397
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 3: the magic of that whole thing is that the postmaster

398
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 3: who asks for that town to get a post office

399
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 3: called Santa Claus was named Nicolaus Fisher.

400
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Speaker 2: You've got to be kidnaped like Saint Nick. Yep, it's

401
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 2: all that is.

402
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 1: That is iriny of iriny. And so all this happened

403
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: in the mid eighteen hundreds.

404
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 3: Yes, eighteen fifty six, right, Natalik again unbelievable.

405
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: So now because of the United States Postal Service, this

406
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:38,479
Speaker 1: little town in Indiana, Santa Fee becomes Santa Claus so

407
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 1: they can get a post office.

408
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 2: But later when your dad's their letters start arriving.

409
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Speaker 3: We are told that letters were arriving in nineteen fourteen,

410
00:26:54,080 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 3: but we can't find any document about that. But we

411
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 3: do have a history of the line of postmasters, and

412
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 3: we do have the original post office building, which was

413
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Speaker 3: a log building, and I have that moved on the

414
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 3: grounds of the museum. It is there, very small log

415
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 3: covered over now the logs covered over. But it was

416
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 3: a very small building with a fireplace and no bathroom,

417
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 3: so I'm sure there was an outhouse, probably a spring,

418
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 3: I don't know, but that's how they lived. So yes,

419
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 3: then Dad when he came home in thirty and built

420
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 3: the Diamond Tavern and then the chateau. You know, he

421
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 3: was very interested in the town and he would go

422
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 3: visit the postmaster at that time Martin James Martin. A

423
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 3: lot of people from that area were from Alsis, Lorraine,

424
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 3: which was sometimes under the fringe, sometimes under the German,

425
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 3: so they were actually Marten, but it got changed to

426
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,880
Speaker 3: Martin in the United States. And my dad saw how

427
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 3: many letters they were getting that were from children to

428
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 3: the town of Santa Claus, and with his love for

429
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 3: now didn't put in the peace of why my dad

430
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 3: really got interested in helping kids and being Santa Claus.

431
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 3: When he was in the Navy and he was nineteen

432
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 3: years old, he was on a ship called the USS

433
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 3: New York in Brooklyn Navy Yard and they decided to

434
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 3: have a Christmas party for children, they called them disadvantaged children,

435
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 3: and they were preparing for the party and somebody in

436
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 3: command said, we need a Santa Claus. What will we do?

437
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 3: Somebody else said, there's a guy down in the engine

438
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 3: room that says he's from Santa Claus, Indiana. Why don't

439
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 3: we ask him? That was my dad.

440
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 2: That's hilarious, isn't it.

441
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 3: And I have the picture of him on board ship

442
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 3: in the worst outfit you ever in the life, the

443
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 3: worst beard you've ever seen, this artificial beer. But the

444
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: kids all around him just so excited and so happy.

445
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 3: And he told me, and it's in literature that he

446
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 3: made a vow to God that if he lived through

447
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 3: the war, he would be Santa Claus.

448
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 2: And ends up living in Santa Claus.

449
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 3: In Maria Hill, but spent most of his time in

450
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 3: Santa Claus. And that's when he saw the postmaster being

451
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 3: inundated with letters and said, I have to do something

452
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 3: to help these. This postmaster is so busy, he can't

453
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 3: do all of this. So he started picking up letters

454
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 3: and putting him in his car, taking around to schools,

455
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 3: to the sisters of Ferdinand. There's an abbey at Saint

456
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 3: Minrid Typing class Adale High School. Whoever could answer letters?

457
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 3: God letters, you know, it just became his passion. And

458
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 3: then he just started being Santa Claus more and more

459
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 3: and more and being more involved in that with going

460
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 3: to lead. He was a big legionaire. So he would

461
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 3: go to legions for Christmas parties and wait. He was

462
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 3: in parades in New York, Miami. He just flew in

463
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 3: a helicopter to in Annapolis, Hotoy, and I'll be sho.

464
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 3: He became famous. Really, he was on so many programs.

465
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 3: But he was such a veteran. He was such a

466
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 3: caring person, He was such a a he loved kids,

467
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 3: and he was Santa Claus then from nineteen thirty one

468
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 3: until nineteen eighty four when he passed away fifty three years.

469
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: Things are so much different today and handedly I've raised

470
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: for kids, and it seems like with more and more TV,

471
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: more and more social media, and more and more exposure

472
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: kids expectations and wishes and dreams are vastly different today

473
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: when I was only a kid, and I'm sure I

474
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: was vastly different than two generations before me.

475
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 2: Do you have a sense of what a kid's.

476
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: Letter back in the nineteen thirties and forties to Santa Claus,

477
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: what they asked for?

478
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 3: Yes, my father saved them. I have them at the museum.

479
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: Amazing, What did they say? Give me a couple of

480
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: examples of your favorite.

481
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 3: Almost tell you. This letter comes from Catherine, and Catherine

482
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 3: says that she's writing for her brothers and sisters. She

483
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 3: asks for gloves for John Mitten's first I can't name

484
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 3: the children, but it was gloves, underwear. Mitten sucks shoes.

485
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 3: And then she says, mama's fat, but she doesn't want anything.

486
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 3: And then she names all the children and they were

487
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 3: like twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, and she says, and

488
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 3: the others are dead.

489
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 2: Wow.

490
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 3: And she says, I'm writing this for them, and so

491
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 3: if you could bring them something, I would be so happy.

492
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 3: And that letter is in a book that I have

493
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 3: co authored that's Letters to Santa from nineteen thirty on.

494
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 3: They're written on all kinds of paper. They're all like that,

495
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 3: asking just for the things they need, food, clothing. And

496
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 3: then it actually when you see the letters, it's almost

497
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 3: history because you can see how it changed eventually. Now

498
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 3: it's computers.

499
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: Well, And I wonder when you think about that context

500
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: and people today that say they're broke or they're or

501
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: they really have they really are losing sight of what

502
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: people only a couple of generations back really suffered.

503
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 2: In our country.

504
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 3: Yes, but I think some people today are suffering like

505
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 3: that because they don't have the means that they would

506
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,479
Speaker 3: like to have. My grandmother who stayed with when we

507
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 3: my moment Dad would be at the chateau, she spoke

508
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 3: German and she would walk out in the garden with

509
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 3: third night in the nineteen forties and she would say,

510
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 3: as he's new molchendo. That translates not well to it

511
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 3: is no longer nice here. So Grandma, who at that

512
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,720
Speaker 3: time probably was in her sixties, thought it wasn't nice

513
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 3: in the forties. And I think that's that's culture, or

514
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 3: that's just the way it is. Things changed, and I

515
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 3: don't like that much change. I know that, he said. Yesterday, No,

516
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 3: last night, I was at a book club and this

517
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 3: woman said children have no respect these days. And I

518
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 3: stopped and I said, there are some children who don't

519
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 3: have respect. But two weeks ago, I was at the

520
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 3: local high school, lucky to be there when the sophomore

521
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 3: girls from the two high schools in our county, South

522
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 3: Spencer and North Spencer came together in a wonderful program

523
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 3: called Aspire, and it was done by the Chamber of

524
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 3: Commerce and some other organizations that they would bring in

525
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 3: professional women to talk to these young women in sophomore

526
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,840
Speaker 3: classes in our high schools to give them an idea

527
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 3: of what they could do, that they can do things,

528
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 3: that they can get an education. And those young peop

529
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 3: this was a whole high school gym full of young women.

530
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 3: We're so respectful. So they listened, they took part, and

531
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 3: they moved around from table to table to talk to

532
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 3: a doctor, to a chiropractor, to a hairdresser, to a mother,

533
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 3: to a chef, all these different people so they'd get

534
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 3: an idea of what they might want to be. While

535
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 3: I talked to some children, there was one who wants

536
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 3: to join the FBI, there was one who wants to

537
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 3: be an engineer. There's one who wanted to be a mother.

538
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 3: And those young people, there are still those young people

539
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 3: in the world, and we just hear about the bad ones.

540
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 2: I love that perspective.

541
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: And that concludes part one of my conversation with Pat Cook,

542
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: and you don't want to miss part two that's now

543
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: available to listen to as the Chief Elf will warm

544
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 1: your heart even more. Together, guys, we can change the country,

545
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 1: but it starts with you. I'll see in part two