Party Like It’s Christmas 1924 At The Kendrick Mansion In Sheridan

SHERIDAN — It’s Christmas Eve 1924, and the children are in the Kendrick’s carriage house, practicing their version of “The Night Before Christmas” to entertain the adults later on, while Mrs. Eula Kendrick is in the drawing room.

She’s entertaining Mattie Wulfjen Williams and Madge Eggleston, two close friends, as she sorts through a new set of newspaper clippings that are going into scrapbooks.

“Come right in,” one of the friends urges the latest guests who have appeared at the John B. Kendrick Mansion, suggesting that Eula Kendrick has been expecting the dozen or so people who have suddenly appeared in the Kendricks’ foyer and “can’t wait” to catch up. 

But first, housekeeper Lucinda Sallers advises everyone in the group that while they may take any photos they like, they should refrain from using the “new technology” of flashes, as that could be quite damaging to the eyes — or so the newspapers of the time say.

Welcome to Christmas with the Kendricks, an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at one of Wyoming’s most famous families.

This festive day in-the-life of the famous Wyoming family unfolds one room at a time, with a script that’s been carefully researched and written by Trail End staff, based on both the real people and the real events of the Kendricks’ lives in Wyoming. 

It’s like taking a real step back into time, with everyone wearing period-correct clothing and the house decorated just as it would have been in that time period. Everyone maintains their character throughout the show, even as they interact with their strangely dressed guests from the future, completing an immersive effect that feels a lot like time travel.

More Popular Than ever

This is the sixth year for Christmas with the Kendricks, said Superintendent of Trail End Historic Site Sharie Mooney Shada, and the event just keeps getting more and more popular.

“We just wanted something different for people to come and do,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “We have our holiday open house, and we get over 1,000 people for that. And it’s fun, but it’s really chaotic. This is totally different. You can come see it in a small group, immerse yourself back in time and learn something new.”

A different year is chosen each time, so the script and the cast aren’t necessarily the same one year to the next.

“It all comes from their letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles,” Shada said. “And those were real newspaper articles we brought along to the table that (Mrs. Kendrick and friends) were flipping through.”

The process of creating each year’s script starts well before the Christmas holiday in early Fall, with volunteers combing through the selected year’s letters, diaries, and other records.

“One (volunteer) reads the diaries, one reads the letters, pulling out the highlights, the interesting things that we think people will be interested in,” Shada said.  

Shada then takes it all and puts together a script that will be both entertaining and educational.

WYO Theater, meanwhile, helps make all the period-specific costumes for the actors.

“Some people do have their own pieces, which they can wear, and somehow it all comes together every year,” Shada said.

The cast practices for a couple of weeks before “Christmas withthe Kendricks,” which lasts for three days prior to Christmas, starting Dec. 20.

Watergate Of The 1920s

After visiting with Eula Kendrick in the drawing room, guests are then ushered along to a small room that adjoins the study, where Mr. John Kendrick is playing cards and talking politics with Tom Kendrick and Clarence Wulfjen. 

The topic everyone is most interested in is the Teapot Dome scandal, during President Warren G. Harding’s administration. 

It was the scandal to end all scandals. Oil tycoons and a womanizing president. Poker-playing politicians and illegal liquor sales. Murder-suicide and a bagful of bribery cash, too.

It was the Watergate of the 1920s, and it was Kendrick who first blew the whistle on illegal actions surrounding Wyoming’s Naval oil reserves.

Just as things are getting good, a message comes from the upstairs bedroom of Rosa-Maye Kendrick, who is demanding to see the latest guests.

Rosa-Maye has a lot to talk about, it turns out. She’s recently returned from meeting royalty in Europe, not to mention anecdotes about her beau, Major Hubert Reilly “Tiny” Harmon. 

Tiny, she advises the group, is her nickname for Harmon, while his nickname for her is “Baby.”

After Rosa-Maye, guests go upstairs to the third floor ballroom, where there will be dancing and music later that night after dinner. There they meet Manville Kendrick, who is arguing with friend, Harry Kay, about which car is better, Chrysler or Ford.

Ultimately the two put it to a vote of those in the room.

Manville is aghast when his favorite, the Chrysler, loses out to Ford. 

Once he has his hands on the car of his dreams, he promises that Kay will change his mind about which car is better.

A Place That Always Feels Like Home

The last stops on the tour are the kitchen and the dining room, back on the first floor of the mansion. 

The cooks talk about what is on the menu — duck and baked Alaska, while noting how strange it is that duck is served so often at the home of such a famous cattleman.

Meanwhile, the maids who are setting up the dinner service, are definitely not gossiping about the Kendrick family.

But they talk quite a bit about the Kendricks, even if they don’t consider it gossip.

Like how Major Harmon has been known to do flybys when Rosa-Maye is in Washington D.C., to get her attention. 

They wonder if Rosa-Maye and Harmon will ever be wed, and they urge their guests not to tell on them for talking too much, before escorting them back to the foyer to say farewell to the mansion. 

There, everyone exits the mansion under the watchful eye of Sallers, played by Aubree Helton. 

Helton told Cowboy State Daily she loves the mansion during all of its seasons, but she loves Christmas best of all because of how “gloriously decorated the whole thing is.”

“There’s a Christmas tree in almost every single room,” she said. “So, I am actually legally blind, and this is one of my favorite things, because I love lights during Christmas.”

Although legally blind, Helton is able to see a little from one eye, particularly bright lights at night. So, Christmas lights, in particular, look and feel especially lovely to her. They light up the mansion in a way that makes her feel happy all holiday long.

“They just make this place feel so cozy,” she said. “And it feels like home. You walk into some museums, and they feel like a museum. But this place always feels like home.”

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.