Photography courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society
For many students, holidays at home and school are dramatically different. Were you the kid who showed up before break with a lunchbox of star-shaped sugar cookies? Or were you the youngster whose lunch was an orange, with a skin reminiscent of a beat-up leather purse, that fit just fine in your coat pocket? This is about a month after the 1929 stock market crash. Looking at these kindergarteners’ faces, you get the feeling that some of them are the latter, kids who appreciate even those uneven paper stars hanging from the ceiling, and you sense that as he passes out tins of candy, Santa Claus understands that. Though the beard might suggest otherwise, this Santa is actually soda water magnate and school board member Henry P. Schroeder. A few weeks after this photo was taken, Schroeder smelled gas in his home. He opened the windows and tromped to the basement, saw that the furnace’s pilot light was out, and proceeded to light a match. With a whoosh, a jet of flame and soot roared out. His eyebrows were gone, and for a moment Schroeder feared that his sight was, too. It just goes to show: Even Santa isn’t safe from Old Man Winter.
