Looking Back
Sullivan’s Santa
By JOYCE M. TICE

A year ago, in the December issue of Mountain Home, I wrote about Clark Orvis. He is buried at the foot of Armenia Mountain in Sullivan Township, and in his lifetime he was known as Santa Claus because of his white beard and habit of handing out candy to the children. If you missed this article, you can find it on my web site at http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/joyce/clarkorvis.htm.

If the follow-up from that article is any indication, I think Clark may have been the real Santa Claus after all. The stream of gifts that have come my way since would make it believable. First, a neighbor whom I had met but once before called to talk about the article, and we have developed a friendship as walking buddies and gardening buddies. 

That is the first gift.

Then on a dark and rainy night George R. who lives “up on the mountain” called to invite me to dinner that night to talk about Clark along with a group of his friends at a local restaurant. It takes a lot to extricate me from the comfort and warmth of my house on a sleety winter evening, so I turned that down. But George and his wife have since visited my museum and brought some interesting little artifacts for it. Another friendship was formed and the museum has received gifts.

In the spring, Ruth and Julia, both of whom are descendants of Clark’s brother, Daniel, phoned from West Virginia. Ruth, who is well into her eighties and who lives in Steuben County New York, drives two or three times a year to visit her ninety-two year old cousin in West Virginia.

This year she took her copy of the Clark Orvis article with her and the two pulled out all the family photos they could find to share with me. They are both full of interest and wit and enthusiasm and don’t fit anything like the stereotype of older people that we might harbor. They are full of both mental and physical energy. Ruth dropped the case of photos and documents off at my house on her way home for me to scan and add to my own projects. The photo of Clark’s brothers that illustrates this article shows us that Clark came from a whole family of Santa Claus look-alikes.

I have since visited Ruth at her home and viewed her very extensive collection of buttons. She is an expert on the history and variety of buttons. She often speaks to groups about her button collection and has beautiful displays to demonstrate the diversity. Just a week or so ago she visited my museum, twice, and brought wonderful gifts for its displays: buttons, goat bells, farm tools, and all manner of treasure. While the gifts are clearly from Ruth, they all resulted from the article about Clark Orvis, the Santa Claus of Sullivan Township.

After I had added the photos and family records that Ruth and Julia shared to my Web site, another Orvis relative came from Rochester to scan the photos and bring more of her own for me to use in my projects. Then she also visited Ruth and shared family history, so they too received gifts that were generated from the same source.

The Orvis material that I added to the Web site is a gift to anyone doing research on that family so it goes on and on from that one article.

Doesn’t that sound like the real Santa Claus?

Joyce M. Tice is the creator of the Tri-Counties Genealogy and History. You can contact her at lookingback@mountainhomemag.com.