The Hoclough Family
Note: Papa Paul was a gendarme (French Police)
Earl is the soldier on the upper left.
Submitted by Earl Jacklin, December 2020
Our best-loved Christmases are, of course, those spent within our own loving family circle. There are times, however, when circumstances bring about unique, but memorable, experiences that remain in our memory to give most fond recollections. Such an experience happened to me on Christmas Eve of 1944. It occurred in the heart of France during World War 2. I was a Technical Sergeant in a heavy anti-aircraft battalion. As we went into France we were welcomed warmly as liberators by the French population who had been dominated by the Nazi army for severai years. As we worked our way Northward, we were stalled for some time in a small town of Eloyes and I became quite friendly with a French family named Hoclough. The family consisted of papa, mama, and three children, Claude (12), Noel (11) and Michelle (7). It was October and I wrote my mother and asked her to send me an appropriate Christmas gift for each member of the family, which my sweet mother did. Of course, by Christmas time we had moved on but not so far but that I was able, on Christmas Eve to get a jeep and travel back to take my Christmas gifts to the family. I had a nice leather wallet for papa and a package of bars of perfumed bath soap for mama. The way she received them you would have thought I had given her gold and diamonds. Such things were not to be found in war-torn France at that time. The boys each received a glass figure filled with hard-tack candy. As I remember, one of the figures was a replica of a steam locomotive. Little Michelle received a nice book of paper dolls. The family had never seen paper dolls before and the whole family spent some time cutting out paper dolls. It was a delightful Christmas Eve that I spent with the Hoclough family before I had to return to the grim business of war. I have never forgotten that brief but tender interlude.