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The Schaforths knew their daughter Dathryn wouldn’t be able to be home for Christmas again. 

Instead, their 6-year-old would be spending at least six months at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen for additional treatment for Pott’s Disease — tuberculosis of the spine. 

So while people across the Rio Grande Valley were celebrating Thanksgiving 73 years ago today, the Schafroth family as well as neighbors and friends came together to give Dathryn two holidays in one party that saw 40 in attendance and the first Christmas tree in the region.

Dathryn had been home for 20 months after last being hospitalized when she was 4-years-old, spending the Christmas of 1950 “strapped down with weights hung to her feet,” according to The Monitor story published on Dec. 24 of that year.

During that stay, Dathryn wasn’t able to go home for Christmas and see her family together, especially her new baby brother “she had wished for” but only saw once or twice before being hospitalized. 

Things were different in 1952, though. 

With the knowledge of her upcoming hospital stay, Dathryn’s parents decided to give their daughter an early celebration before she left — except the Schafrothes couldn’t find a Christmas tree in the Valley that soon.

Through an appeal over the radio, it was revealed a tree was available in Conroe, north of Houston; San Juan pharmacist Ed Martin “immediately ordered one” and sent it to Dathryn. 

Dathryn alongside her siblings Cleva Lou, Lewis, Marvin Jr. and Joyce decorated the first Christmas tree in McAllen during Thanksgiving, adding ornaments and putting underneath the presents that would eventually be opened later that day. 

“Dathryn had a lovely Christmas,” said Mrs. Schafroth of the Thanksgiving party that saw more than 40 neighbors and friends joining the celebration. “It made her very happy.”

Whereas 1950 resulted in missing the holiday altogether, in a serendipitous turn, Dathryn would get two Christmases in 1952. 

After Thanksgiving, Valley Baptist doctors decided sometime in December that Dathryn was well enough to go home for a regular Christmas with her family, but of course had to return for observation and treatment as her case wasn’t settled yet.

“Her current treatment is with a hyper-extension frame which bows her body in a quarter-circle to improve the spinal condition,” read a follow-up story from Dec. 23, 1952. “This is not the best way to spend Christmas, but it’s better than being in the hospital and anyway, two Christmases are better than one.” 

I suppose Santa Claus came early this year too as we share this story from The Monitor’s Nov. 28, 1952 edition about Dathryn Schaforth celebrating Christmas 78 years ago today during Thanksgiving.

Two Holidays In One: San Juan Girl Enjoys Christmas Month Early

The Monitor (Nov. 28, 1952)

SAN JUAN — Santa Claus made a special, advance trip to San Juan yesterday. (Nov. 27, 1952)

While most other people were sitting down to a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, six-year-old Dathryn Schaforth was gazing starry-eyed at her gaily decorated Christmas tree—the first to arrive in McAllen. 

Dathryn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Schafroth, 231 East 10th Street, won’t be at home for Christmas on Dec. 25. Monday (Dec. 1, 1952) she goes to Valley Baptist Hospital where she will spend the next six months or more in a frame in an attempt to correct spinal infection. 

Dathryn spent more than a year in the hospital in 1950 and 1951 and returned home in February of 1951. She has been home for 20 months now and when doctors told the Schafroths Dathryn would have to go back to the hospital they decided to give her Christmas at home before she left. 

But they couldn’t find a Christmas tree in the Valley. An appeal over the radio brought information that a tree was available in Conroe, Texas, north of Houston, and Ed Martin, San Juan druggist, immediately ordered one and hand it sent to Dathryn. 

Yesterday Dathryn, her folks and her brothers and sisters, Cleva Lou, Lewis, Marvin Jr., and Joyce put the ornaments on the tree and the presents under it and in the afternoon the family gathered around to watch Dathryn open her presents. 

Neighbors and friends came in, too — more than 40 of them — to make it a real holiday for Dathryn. 

“She had a lovely Christmas,” Mrs. Schafroth said, “It made her very happy.”

The post From the archives: Their daughter couldn’t be home for Christmas. So this San Juan family brought it to her on Thanksgiving.  appeared first on MyRGV.com.