Local man's transformation into Santa began in Navy

Richard Sayer

112406 November 22, 2007 10:36 am

— Click image for slideshow


Last year The Meadville Tribune published a story and a slideshow on a local man who has been portraying Santa on the Streets of Meadville for more than a generation. We revisit this story this weekend as this man again begins to don his red suit officially Friday evening with the Light - Up Meadville celebration at Diamond Park.

As his fingers glide across the smooth skin on his chin searching for spots he missed with his razor, Meadville’s Ray Eldridge looks into the mirror above his bathroom sink. It’s the end of April and this shave will be his last for eight months. He washes off the remaining suds and looks deep into his face. “That’s it,” he says as his eyes begin to glimmer and a smile forms.
He begins to let his facial hair grow every May and doesn’t shave again until the end of December.
“I do not like a beard,” he admits, but there is no way he would ever not grow one.
The 83-year-old man is Santa Claus. He believes God has groomed him his entire life to play Santa, and Eldridge knows he can’t be Santa without a beard. Even though he finds having a beard a pain — eating is messy, especially soups or foods with sauces — he doesn’t feel he can let God or the people of Meadville down — they expect him to be there. “Santa has so many interesting encounters,” he said. “And he (God) has been working on me my whole life to play Santa. I can’t quit on him now!”
Eldridge’s first beard came when he was a young man in the Navy. He got upset with his captain aboard the USS Loy, a destroyer escort patrolling the Atlantic and then the Pacific oceans in World War II. Eldridge was a sonar specialist working on the bridge.
“I can’t remember what the captain did, but I remember being mad at him for something,” Eldridge admits 60 years later. “I knew beards were illegal in the Navy, so I grew one, not a big one — just a goatee.” The captain took notice, mentioning the beard several times. The captain got more and more aggravated about it, but always stopped short of ordering Eldridge to shave.
“One day, after a while of this, I went up on the bridge and the captain says (Eldridge raises his voice with an authoritative tone), ‘Eldridge, go down and shave off that beard and THAT’S AN ORDER!’ ”
So he shaved — end of story.
Well, not entirely the end. Before he shaved he had a picture taken.
That picture is responsible for Eldridge becoming Santa Claus.
Years later he was going through some of his belongings and found the picture. His wife, Mary, who had never seen the picture or her husband with a beard, was curious and quite taken by the picture. She asked him to grow a beard for her. He refused. He worked for Prudential Insurance and thought a clean-shaven image was better suited for his job.
Eldridge said she kept asking him over and over. After retiring from Prudential he took a job driving the cafeteria van for Crawford Central School District. He told Mary, “School gets out in May. I’ll grow one for the summer, but I’ll shave it off in September.” So Mary got her wish, he grew a beard.
When September came around he told Mary he was shaving it off. “She said, ‘Oh dear, please keep it at least until New Year’s.’ Well, it takes two to make a marriage,” Eldridge said, so he didn’t shave. “The longer I let it grow the whiter it became.”
Then it began. He started getting requests to play Santa.
“I don’t know how to play Santa,” he’d tell them at first, but he finally agreed to try.
The first time he did it was for preschoolers and he rented a suit that Mary had to wash beforehand because it was so dirty and smelly. Mary then made him his own suit. A few years went by and he would only play Santa for friends.
Then Martha Miller, who was the head of the Chamber of Commerce, asked if Eldridge would play Santa and go around town to area businesses to cheer up people during the holidays. He refused.
“Santa is for children,” he told her.
When Miller asked him to reconsider in front of Mary, Mary had no part of his argument. She and Miller convinced him to do it. Eldridge said he would but only if he could play Santa for the children in between his stops, if he could become a “roving Santa” walking all over town and playing Santa for everyone he encountered.
After warming up to the idea of being Santa, Eldridge had an idea. He told Miller, “Let’s get a picture of Santa in the Tribune, on the front page, inviting everyone to town for a hometown Christmas.” It was in the day of black and white and they pitched the idea to the paper in color. The publisher at the time, Bob Smith, hesitated. He told them that printing the picture in color would be expensive and getting it ready would take time, but he agreed to back the plan.
Light-up night was born.
Tonight, Eldridge will don his red and white suit to continue the tradition when he’ll walk into the gazebo in Diamond Park to officially turn on the holiday lights in the city. He’ll then lead a parade down Chestnut Street followed by hundreds of children and adults. Many of the adults will bring their kids because their parents brought them to see Eldridge years ago.
He will then spend the next month being Santa whenever he can.
“It’s a beautiful life!” says Eldridge as recalls his years of being Santa.
It is hard to say who gets more enjoyment from Eldridge’s portrayal of Santa — Eldridge or the people he encounters through the holiday season. But one thing is for sure, his growing a beard that he doesn’t enjoy having for eight months out of every year is truly a sacrifice and his gift to God and the people of Meadville.
To say he isn’t the real Santa ... well, that would be just a lie.

Richard Sayer, award-winning Meadville Tribune photojournalist, also writes occasional feature stories to accompany major photo assignments. He can be reached at photography@meadvilletribune.com

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