Ever since she was a little girl, Gail Roberts has participated in an almost sacred local tradition at the Tinkhamtown Chapel in Mattapoisett. For decades, for as long as she can remember, Roberts’ family Christmas included the annual Christmas carol sing at the tiny chapel, welcoming all to gather their families together and pass an hour or so with their neighbors, sharing in the Christmas spirit with song inside the warmth of the humble little church.
When Roberts was a child, there was no electricity to light the darkness of the early winter nighttimes of Christmas. Only kerosene lamp flames would flicker and cast long shadows on the walls, spilling their warm light out through the windows and perhaps onto the snow or across the fields deep into the night.
“My mom and dad kind of started [the tradition] up when they moved back here from Western Mass shortly before I was born,” said Roberts. “Then, my grandmother played the organ at the time.”
The old potbelly stove kept the crowd warm during those colder-than-now nights, and Roberts and her family year after year came to stoke the fire, light the lamps, and pump the trusty old organ that led the voices through each Christmas carol, even though we all know them by heart.
“I remember singing ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ all by myself,” Roberts said. Back then, in addition to singing Christmas carols, the children would put on plays and performances, a tradition that has waned just a bit since then, she said.
That old organ accompanying them was a manual pump organ, with Roberts’ grandmother’s feet pumping the bellows through each song until Roberts got older and took on the job.
“In high school, I was taking piano lessons and my grandmother felt it was time to pass the organ to me,” said Roberts. So she would pump, “and we would sing every verse to every song.” Even despite the cramping in her leg she would experience from having to pump so hard. “You had to really pump,” Roberts said.
The pumping to make the old organ sound was too much for her brother, said Roberts, and one day Roberts’ uncle rigged the organ to a vacuum cleaner, running a line to a nearby building to power it with electricity. The vacuum would be switched to reverse to blow air instead of drawing it in, and this was how the old organ would be pumped – a breath of life of sorts, making the organ playing easier for Roberts.
“…And it worked fine … until this year,” said Roberts.
It is true. This year, the old organ took its first Christmas off in years – it stopped working early in the evening, leaving caroling voices without the steady lead of the pump organ.
“This year, we just had problems with the organ,” said Roberts. “It just wouldn’t play.”
Roberts said she was grateful that friend Louise Anthony was present that night with her violin, and another friend, Jake, with his banjo.
“And this woman appeared who plays in the New Bedford Symphony who was up the street and was able to come,” said Roberts. “I call her my Christmas angel because she appeared just when we needed her.”
Thus, the Tinkhamtown Chapel Christmas Carol Sing was saved for the 86 people who gathered that evening to carry on the Christmas tradition.
“It’s the same thing every year, and has been for the past many years,” said Roberts. “It’s had its ups and downs. When I was a kid, there were a lot more kids participating and we sang and kids would perform little pieces, so that’s sort of fallen off over the years.”
Roberts recalled when her daughter, now 30 years old, was small; the sing took on the traditional olde tyme Christmas caroling event, with more people singing together.
“And that’s sort of how it evolved into what it is today,” said Roberts.
One of the highlights for Roberts is listening to the children sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as they hold up cards for each of the days that Roberts provides year after year.
“Having the kids do the little things they do … is always very cute,” said Roberts. “And we will get the organ fixed.”
The old pump organ still uses a vacuum in the reverse mode to power the music – that is, when it is working.
“Fixing it is one of my New Year’s resolutions,” said Roberts. “I’ve been complaining about it for the last few years.”
But even a busted-up pump organ with a few missing keys couldn’t dampen the Christmas spirit and the people’s determination to sing and rejoice.
“The fact that you get together with the neighbors you might not see most of the year,” said Roberts, despite no organ, with everyone’s collective music memory kept the singing tradition alive. “And it’s just that time of year everyone is rushing around and you don’t have time to talk to people,” Roberts continued. “And this is an hour where you’re just sitting with your neighbors…. So I think that’s the highlight of the year, every year, getting together with everybody.”
By Jean Perry
