“Dear Santa Claus,” the boy begins in cursive handwriting. “Will you please send me a box of paints, also a nine cent reader, and a school bag to put them in.”
He modestly continues, “And if you have any nuts, or candy, or toys to spare, would you kindly send me some.” If so, Homer concludes, “You will please a seven year old boy.”
The Mellen family kept and cherished this note for 98 years in a little box containing “private little things like locks of hair, or the first picture that was taken,” Mellen explained, in order to “put away for memories for grandchildren.”
And that’s exactly what Homer’s humble wish list had done, as his granddaughter, Laurie Bloomfield, 49, of Nova Scotia, shared it with us after reading a recent story about one little girl’s extravagant expectations from Santa this year.
“I’m a teacher, so as teacher I get to hear a lot of kids’ wishes,” Bloomfield said. “What I find with this generation is they want to talk a lot, they want to put out a lot of information. They have lots to say and want to tell it all.”
