To the editor:

Having lived in Columbus from 1950 until 1986, my family and I always look forward to our annual Christmas pilgrimage from South Carolina up to Tryon, Columbus, Rutherfordton, Spindale, Ruth, and Forest City to see the small town Christmas lights.

We didn’t make the trip last year because my mother passed away at 95 years old just before Christmas. She loved the little town of Columbus and the Presbyterian Church where she remained a member long after she had to leave Columbus.

My husband and I made the trip alone this year.  We didn’t take grandchildren, and after we got into Columbus I was so glad that we had not taken them to see the festive lights of my childhood home. I know that things change over time and memories from childhood are somewhat magnified as we move to adulthood, but what doesn’t change for me is watching the annual disintegration of the once beautiful little town of Columbus.

As we drove through the small towns for what my husband lovingly calls “Jan’s Christmas Fix,” there stood Tryon in its sweet small town beauty, and even the tiny little town of Ruth, between Rutherfordton and Spindale, still celebrates with the beautiful Christian symbols and luminaries placed down the railroad tracks.

And then . . . there sat Columbus. I barely knew her. My once lovely little hometown of so many happy times in the past for me, my parents, and my children. What has happened to her? I wondered as we passed through town if perhaps all of those who had taken such great pride in “Tryon’s little sister” in years gone by had passed away and no one was left to carry on her legacy or maybe more realistically it’s because those who currently hold the purse strings there now “just don’t care.” I do hope that is not the case.

But what a waste. Such a lovely little town fell by the wayside, and don’t try to convince anyone that it’s “just change,” because it’s not. All you have to do is look at Landrum just down the road and you will see that is not how change in small towns develops.

All of you wonderful people in Columbus, some who were my childhood friends, how could you have let this happen to our lovely little town where we had great Christmas parades, beautiful lights up and down the streets, store fronts decorated out, we would skate around the courthouse, and family dwellings held a contest each year for best decorations, and some of us had Christmas Eve gatherings for our neighbors. What happened to Columbus? People still do those things in other small towns. They might skate on small ice rinks created for just a few weeks instead of at the courthouse, but the joy of celebration and lighting for children and families for a few weeks is the same.

I would like to think that next year, when we drive through the small towns of my childhood for my annual “Christmas Fix,” I will see Columbus all decked out in her finery just like all of the other small towns around her.

I know money for decorations is hard to justify in a small town budget, but I also know people who still live there who would be happy to contribute to a donation fund to bring Columbus back alive for Christmas.

Thanks for listening to a “small town girl.”

Jan McCarter
Spartanburg, S.C.