Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: For some children in the Midwestern United States, Christmas morning
Speaker 1: begins with a scavenger hunt. They jump out of bed,
Speaker 1: rush to the tree, and start digging through its branches.
Speaker 1: Hidden amongst the pine needles, one lucky kid finds a treasure,
Speaker 1: a green glass ornament shape like a gurkin. It's the
Speaker 1: coveted Christmas pickle. The first child to grab it either
Speaker 1: receives a special gift or gets to open their presence first,
Speaker 1: but more importantly, they enjoy bragging rights for the rest
Speaker 1: of the year. It's one of many weird and wonderful
Speaker 1: holiday traditions in America. But what makes the Christmas pickle
Speaker 1: especially strange is that nobody really knows where it came from. Now,
Speaker 1: if you ask an average Midwesterner, they'll probably say that
Speaker 1: it's a German thing passed down through the generations, which
Speaker 1: does seem to make sense. The Midwest was once a
Speaker 1: popular destination for German immigrants, including my ancestors, and pickles
Speaker 1: are common in that nation's cuisine. But if you ask
Speaker 1: actual German people, they probably won't have any idea what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. According to The New York Times, a
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen poll found that ninety one percent of Germans
Speaker 1: had never heard of the Christmas pickle, even though it
Speaker 1: was being widely attributed to their culture. So how did
Speaker 1: this curious practice really begin. Well, there are a few
Speaker 1: different legends about that. According to one story, there was
Speaker 1: a German American soldier who fought in the Civil War.
Speaker 1: At one point, he was taken captive and the prison
Speaker 1: guard refused to feed him. He starved for weeks. Finally,
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve, the soldier felt his body beginning to
Speaker 1: shut down. Certain that he would die, he begged his
Speaker 1: capture to let him have one final meal, a single pickle. Miraculously,
Speaker 1: this measley snack gave the soldier the strength he needed
Speaker 1: to survive. When he made it home after the war,
Speaker 1: he spread the tale of the relish that saved his life. Thus,
Speaker 1: the Christmas pickle was born at least that's one version
Speaker 1: of the story. Another one goes like this. Two Spanish
Speaker 1: boys were heading home from boarding school for the holidays.
Speaker 1: They were making the long trek on foot, and they
Speaker 1: moved slowly. They realized that they wouldn't be home by
Speaker 1: December twenty fifth, so on Christmas Eve, they decided to
Speaker 1: stop and rest overnight at an inn. For whatever reason,
Speaker 1: the innkeeper did not like these boys. They grabbed the
Speaker 1: children and locked them inside a barrel of pickles. The
Speaker 1: boys banged on the sides of the container, but no
Speaker 1: one heard their screams. That is not until Saint Nicholas
Speaker 1: made a stop at the end. He heard the children
Speaker 1: yelling for help and freed them from their pickoly prison.
Speaker 1: The boys eventually made it home, where they shared this
Speaker 1: story of their incredible escape. This inspired people to hang
Speaker 1: pickles on their Christmas trees in remembrance of the kids'
Speaker 1: survival and Chris Kringle's good deed. Now, if these tails
Speaker 1: sound a bit far fetched to you, I'm inclined to agree.
Speaker 1: They're fun for sure, but they're probably not factual. In
Speaker 1: all likelihood, the origin of the Christmas pickle is less
Speaker 1: about magic and more about capitalism. You see. Beginning around
Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, German glass blowers were producing all kinds
Speaker 1: of unique food shaped holiday ornaments, fruits, nuts, vegetables. You
Speaker 1: could put an entire glass garden in your tree if
Speaker 1: you really wanted to. They were fairly popular in Europe,
Speaker 1: for sure, but the FW. Woolworth Company wanted to capture
Speaker 1: the American market too. Fast forward to the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: when that same business began importing German made glass to
Speaker 1: the United States. To convince people to buy their weird products,
Speaker 1: the FW. Woolworth Company spun a tail about the pickle ornament.
Speaker 1: In particular, they claimed that hiding a glass girkin in
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree was a long standing German tradition, even
Speaker 1: though it actually wasn't. Nevertheless, if this story is true,
Speaker 1: it seems like their marketing ploy paid off. The ornaments
Speaker 1: became an integral part of some family's holiday traditions, especially
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, and even now, nearly one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years later, the Christmas pickle is still a pretty
Speaker 1: big dill. On the night of March second of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, two men tiptoed into a small cemetery the
Speaker 1: graveyard was located in the hills above Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful and quiet, save for the sound of
Speaker 1: the men creeping through the grass. Eventually they reached the
Speaker 1: tombstone they were looking for. It was marked with a
Speaker 1: birth date April eighteenth of eighteen eighty nine, and below
Speaker 1: that was a date of death, Christmas Day of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, belong to Charlie Chaplin, one of the most
Speaker 1: famous actors who ever lived. Beginning his show business career
Speaker 1: at just eight years old, Chaplin rose to fame as
Speaker 1: a physical comedian during the silent film era. He went
Speaker 1: on to work as an actor, writer, producer, and director,
Speaker 1: gaining numerous awards and international acclaim. He's widely considered one
Speaker 1: of the most important figures in the history of cinema. Now,
Speaker 1: when Chaplin died, he was married to a woman named
Speaker 1: Una O'Neill. She was the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill.
Speaker 1: On their wedding day, she was eighteen years old and
Speaker 1: Chaplin was fifty three. And now all of this had
Speaker 1: been in the news, so the men in the cemetery
Speaker 1: knew about Chaplain's career and his personal life. But and
Speaker 1: here's the reason I'm telling you all of this. The
Speaker 1: men were not there to pay respects, nor did they
Speaker 1: want to spit on Chaplin's grave. No, they wanted to
Speaker 1: rob it. The men pulled out their shovels and started digging.
Speaker 1: They cracked open the actor's caskets and came face to
Speaker 1: face with his corpse, which had been sitting in the
Speaker 1: ground for over two months. It couldn't have been a
Speaker 1: pretty sight, but the men weren't deterred. They lifted Charlie
Speaker 1: Chaplin from his grave, closed the casket, and shoved the
Speaker 1: dirt back in to cover their tracks, and then they
Speaker 1: carried the actress body to a nearby cornfield, where they
Speaker 1: reburied it. The following morning, Chaplain's widow, Una received a
Speaker 1: call at her home in Switzerland. Two men told her
Speaker 1: that they had stolen her late husband's body and that
Speaker 1: the only way to get it back was to pay
Speaker 1: them six hundred thousand dollars. If she didn't comply, they
Speaker 1: threatened the lives of her and Chaplain's eight children. Unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to the thieving duo, though Una was not a woman
Speaker 1: who could be easily shaken, she basically laughed at them.
Speaker 1: She later gave an interview about the situation, saying, and
Speaker 1: I quote Charlie would have thought it rather ridiculous. Una
Speaker 1: had no intention of paying the ransom. She didn't really
Speaker 1: believe the men's threats either, but she did believe that
Speaker 1: they would try to call her again, so she contacted
Speaker 1: the local police, who tapped her phone line and began
Speaker 1: monitoring every phone booth in the area. Five weeks later,
Speaker 1: they caught the grave robbers. Their names were Roman Wardis
Speaker 1: and Gansho Ganev. Although we don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: information about them, we know they both worked as auto
Speaker 1: mechanics and they'd come to Switzerland as political refugees from
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe. They told police they were down on their
Speaker 1: luck financially and that they had only committed the crime
Speaker 1: for money. Now that they were caught, though, Roman and
Speaker 1: Gancho led authorities to the cornfield where they had hidden
Speaker 1: Chaplain's body, he was once again unearthed and returned to
Speaker 1: the cemetery from whence he came, and then his family
Speaker 1: opted to have his grave covered in a slab of
Speaker 1: cement to deter future thieves. Roman, who was apparently the
Speaker 1: mastermind behind the operation, was sentenced to four years of
Speaker 1: hard labor. Gnho received a lesser punishment of eighteen months,
Speaker 1: but that was not the end of the story. One
Speaker 1: of the men's wives was so embarrassed by their behavior
Speaker 1: that she sent a letter to Una apologizing for the
Speaker 1: whole debacle. As unshakable as ever and shockingly generous given
Speaker 1: the circumstances, Una responded, all is forgiven. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.