The grandparents still tell the story. It was they who actually saw
him, a kindly man with a Danish accent. His hair was white; his
mustache, bushy; and his belly, round. He sat on a special chair as the miners’ children, eyes big with awe, sang Christmas carols to honor him in their Canadian hamlet 500 miles northwest of Toronto.
"Oh, he was a jolly old man," recalled George Stefanic, 67. "I can still see him now."
The Christmas train, laden with a thousand toys, would be on its way, whistling across the pine-clad wilderness and past frozen silver lakes.
Young George Stefanic, who would grow up to be a school superintendent, yearned for a chemistry set.
"I was in sixth grade and my parents couldn’t afford a thing," he said. "My dad worked underground in the mines. He was injured in a rock fall; his whole hip and leg were pretty well mangled. My Christmas was a piece of walnut bread that my mother had made and wrapped up."
But there was more.
In the pile of gifts unloaded from the train and stacked at his school was a chemistry set. He took it home and stared at it for days before he could bring himself to open it.
When Stefanic was in eighth grade, Santa sent a shiny sled; when he headed to college, a tie tack.
Mr. Schumacher came to visit every year and, after he left, his gifts arrived for the children — hockey sticks, toy sewing machines, books, mittens and skates.
By then, Schumacher was back home. The children all knew he lived in a stone castle in a faraway city: Columbus, Ohio.
A Midas touchFew in Columbus know the story of Frederick W. Schumacher: that he was among the city’s richest men, that he helped establish the Columbus Museum of Art and that he died in 1957 at age 93.
But ask the people in Schumacher, Ontario. His story is read to the children there each Christmas — how he immigrated to America from Denmark, married Maribel Hartman of Columbus and built her father’s Peruna patent-medicine business into a fortune.
The couple’s magnificent home at 750 E. Broad St. was called "Greenstone Mansion." According to legend, Schumacher had so much money that the stones in his house turned green to match. It was torn down decades ago for a squat, brick office building.
Mr. Schumacher had gone north speculating for silver. He found gold.
Men came to work in the mines, and they brought their families. Schumacher plotted out a little town, named for him.
One Christmas in 1916, Mr. Schumacher was so enthralled by the miners’ children that he promised presents for each one and instructed that "not a single child should be overlooked."
At one time, 1,000 children got gifts. Nearly a century later, they still do and always will. A trust at Huntington National Bank, overseen by Schumacher’s great-granddaughter continues the tradition.
Giving back"Mr. Schumacher was Santa," explains June Stewart Walker, who got a doll and saw him at her school in the 1940s.
Only when the children were grown did they learn that the letters their teachers had them write to Santa each year went to Mr. Schumacher.
He’d take the train to Toronto and, accompanied by the manager of Eatons Department Store, personally choose gifts for each child — all to be loaded on a train bound for Schumacher.
"There were some who wouldn’t have gotten any gifts at all if it wasn’t for Mr. Schumacher," Walker said. "But, oh, how we all loved that little town. We’d pile snow by the houses to keep warm. And we’d all play hockey in the streets."
Walker wrote to The Dispatch to let Columbus know how grateful the small Canadian town is for the gifts.
Louise Nightingale Smith, a Schumacher historian and author, said Christmas was the high point of the year. In the early days, miners would harvest 15-foot pines, put lights on them and line the hallways of Schumacher School.
She loves the story of how Schumacher once was traveling north by train:
"A pretty little girl was amusing herself in the aisle of the coach and, after a time, she approached him to inquire, ‘What’s your name?’
"Mr. Schumacher," he replied.
"No, it isn’t," she answered positively. "Mr. Schumacher is Santa Claus."
Not
forgettingEventually, the town of Schumacher was consolidated with the bigger city of Timmins. Santa, however, has kept his promise, now with help from the boy who once got a chemistry set from him.
In the 1970s, Schumacher’s volunteer fire brigade, of which Stefanic is an officer, took over buying the presents.
"In our little town, everybody looks forward to this. The smiles are pretty deep," Stefanic said. "We have children who come from disadvantaged homes, and it’s heartwarming to watch."
On Tuesday, the tradition marked its 90 th year, in the F.W. Schumacher Ballroom of the local community center.
George Delich, one of the volunteer firefighters and Santa’s helper, was there. He got gifts as a child, as did his three sons and, now, his two grandchildren.
"I got a watch. It’s purple," Michaela Delich, 10, said excitedly. Her 7-year-old brother, Connor, got building blocks.
All day before the party, the children speculated at school about what gifts awaited them.
"I’m really impressed that this tradition keeps going," their father, Mark Delich, said. "The family hasn’t forgotten us."
Schumacher’s great-granddaughter, Lesley Finnell Blanchard of Dover, Mass., takes care of the Christmas trust with relatives. Each year, she writes Stefanic to ask if more money is needed.
This year, the trust spent more than $5,000 to provide a Christmas gift for all 285 Schumacher children.
"My great-grandfather felt very responsible for these people," Blanchard said. "It is the most wonderful group of people . . . caring, hard-working."
The family’s ties are strong in Schumacher, Canada, and in Columbus. It owns Downtown parking lots by the Hartman Building and a farm on Rt. 23. Blanchard is a national trustee of the Columbus Museum of Art, where the family helped sponsor the current Renoir exhibit.
"I’ve had the opportunity to learn that giving is so much more important than anything else," she said.
"It’s the real spirit of Christmas."
