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Widows gift exchange helps others
By Steve Moyer
Nevada Daily Mail
Each December the Widows Group of the First Christian Church gathers toys to donate to the Vernon County Ambulance District's toy drive. Wanda Arthur, the moving force behind the group, said that one year the group just decided to stop exchanging gifts and instead donate gifts to the toy drive. "We're were all getting older and it just seemed better to give a gift to a child who needed one rather than to each other."
Arthur told how the idea of a widow's group came to her. "J.K. (Arthur's late husband) died suddenly, he had always been in good health," Arthur said. "He retired from the Pentagon in 1986 and his heart just exploded in January of 1987. I don't know what I would have done but my husband's friend Wayne had a surviving spouses group in Joplin and suggested I go to it. He sent a car -- I don't think I could have driven myself down there -- and that six months probably saved my life."
Arthur said the group didn't dwell on the loss but encouraged members to think positively.
"We don't talk about sad things, or anything like that," Arthur said. "We talked about the good things and the happy times."
That experience prompted Arthur to get together with other widows and see if they would be interested in forming a group, which they subsequently did.
During Tuesday's meeting the widows had a visit from "Sandy" Claus, Sandy Rae Brown, who gave out gifts to the members before the meal.
Brown later joined the widows for the meal sans her red suit and beard.
Two members of the Vernon County Ambulance District, Joe Brant and Richard Smith, were on hand to take the table full of toys back to the district. The two expressed their gratitude to the widows. "It's because of people like you that we are so successful," said Smith.
After the dinner the group told stories of Christmases from their youth.
Arthur told of one Christmas when she was approximately 5 years old and her father was a minister. "I was sitting there and suddenly I noticed my dad wasn't there," Arthur said. "Then we heard a noise outside, bells jingling and someone said, 'Whoa there, I've got business inside.' All of a sudden Santa was in the church."
Arthur said that she didn't realize it was her father, she learned that later. "He walked up to us and asked my sister Darlene, who was three, if she had been good," Arthur said. "She just up and said, 'I don't know,' real loud, then her nose started bleeding. My mom took her off to take care of her and I was all by myself so I went up and sat by Santa."