During the Great Depression of the 1930s people everywhere were having a hard time keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads. There was little extra money to buy Christmas presents or special foods for holiday feasts. This was especially true for the Kelly family of Shelbyville, Illinois. Grandpa Kelly had been a coal miner and suffered from the dreaded Black Lung disease. Grandma Kelly worked hard cleaning houses for little money and six-year-old Vera gathered coal along the railroad tracks to burn in their stove. Every Christmas the family would feast on oyster stew and oranges. But this year times had been harder than ever and there wasnat even enough money for their traditional Christmas dinner. When all seemed lost, help came from an unlikely Santa Claus.