Reaching Into the Past

Something about that bungalow in Boyle Heights must have captured Christmas in the mid-1930s, Georja Skinner figures. Maybe it was the charm of a tiny house, with its white picket fence and inviting front porch, prettied up for the holidays. Or maybe it was the heart of the young man behind it, her late father, who then was recuperating from polio. Or, what was it, wonders Skinner, 48, that drew tens of thousands of people to what became known as the Christmas House each December from 1936 to 1938?

With both parents dead, the question nags at her. And now she has only a scrapbook to go by as she begins a quest to preserve her father’s story for a possible book or documentary film.

“I hope to find what the Christmas House did for a generation of people I don’t know,” Skinner says. “And what was special about George Skinner that made people want to give.”

The story began in the summer of 1936 with George Skinner and his father, Albert, a tool-and-die maker, who was separated from his wife and lived in a five-room house at 919 S. Mathews St. George, then 24, began planning his first holiday event as a thank you to community members who helped him through a two-year hospital stay, most of which he spent in an iron lung.

He and his father had no money for decorations at a time in which most neighbors could not even afford to string outside lights. So George Skinner, relied on simple joys, like spinning Nat King Cole’s scratchy Christmas records on a 78-rpm player in the living room while visitors filed through, and on clever ideas like the one to freeze steam to make icicles for the rooftop. (The record is fuzzy on exactly how that was done.)

He persuaded neighbors, movie studio executives and business owners to give time or donations--even the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power agreed to pick up the tab for the house’s Christmas lights. Back then, the local newspapers featured the Christmas House, a place that rang with carolers and bustled with volunteers serving Dolly Madison cookies and whole milk. Decorations included real snow and 30 Douglas firs trucked in from Lake Tahoe, and a giant Santa for the roof.

The Christmas House tradition ended in 1939, after George Skinner and his father moved. Their former Boyle Heights house was razed long ago. But Skinner plans to knock on doors in the old neighborhood to try to find someone who might remember her father, who died of lung cancer in 1978. She will devote the next several months to research in the area, commuting between her homes in Maui and Los Angeles. In Maui, she is executive director of the Hawaii Filmmakers Initiative, a nonprofit group that supports independent filmmakers.

For years, Skinner, who is divorced and has no children, has wanted to pass on the story of her father. And she had in the back of her mind that Hollywood might be interested. From 1975 to 1979, Skinner worked as a sound mixer for Norman Lear on “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” which left her with a hankering to write or produce on her own someday.

In the mid-’90s, she worked as a county film commissioner in Hawaii, and she kept thinking about how she really should come up with her own project. Recently, she and her younger sister, Teresa Skinner, who also lives in Maui, finally decided to set aside time to nail down the history of the Christmas House and convey its timeless message.

“The story,” Skinner says, “is about never giving up.”

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Georja Skinner can be reached at skincom@aol.com.