The Origins of a Christmas Carol: The Real ‘Winter Wonderland’

_Elsa_

Later on

we'll conspire

as we dream by the fire

To face unafraid

the plans that we've made

walking in a winter wonderland

‘Most everyone knows the song “Winter Wonderland” but few people outside of Honesdale, Pa. know the story or man behind it.

A local man, Richard Smith, wrote the lyrics in 1934 while he was at the West Mountain Sanitarium being treated for tuberculosis. While there, he entered contests, writing jingles and ads for companies. “Winter Wonderland,” some say, was inspired by seeing children play outside his window in the snow and remembering doing the same as a boy at Honesdale’s Central Park across the street from his childhood home.

Born in 1901, Mr. Smith developed a love of music and words and aspired to be a songwriter. He learned to play piano on the upright in the family living room, and was known as a writer. In high school, he was tasked with writing poems about each of his fellow graduating seniors, according to the local newspaper. After college, he moved to New York, helped manage some theaters and married Jean Connor, a nurse from Scranton. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with TB and returned to Pennsylvania for treatment.

At the sanitarium, he entered jingle contests and won several, including one for Maybelline Eye Shadow—“The Eyes Have it”—and wrote the poem which became the “Winter Wonderland” lyrics, according to local newspapers. With assurances from the doctors that the TB had been checked, he and his wife moved to New York where he wrote several other songs and in 1934 collaborated with pianist Felix Bernard who composed the music for “Winter Wonderland.”

Mr. Smith lived long enough to hear Guy Lombardo and his orchestra, the Royal Canadians, perform his song that Christmas, fulfilling a childhood dream of becoming a songwriter, says Ace Collins, author of “Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas.” (Source)

Let’s continue – The end!

Start at the beginning – Walking in a Winter Wonderland