’Twas the Night Before Christmas 1947

by Billy Ingram

Greensboro, NC’s beloved Santa Claus to generations of youngsters beginning in the early 1930s, Calvin “Moon” Wyrick, was one of the most respected firefighters in the nation, his beaming face seen in 1950s magazine ads endorsing Akron Brass and Scott Air-Paks, the latest in firefighting technology.

When the city hired their first professional smoke eaters in 1926 Moon Wyrick was with that freshman class. Elected president of the International Association of Fire ghters he was, by all accounts, a brilliant but strict by-the-book tactician who served as Greensboro Fire Department Chief from 1946-1969. Unless they were taming flames, his highly disciplined troops wore long sleeve white shirts and black ties while on duty.

Moon Wyrick donned a more colorful uniform between Thanksgiving and Boxing Day, appearing as Santa Claus in the yearly Holiday Jubilee Parades. Visiting children’s wards, retirement homes, orphanages, private parties for Jefferson Standard and Southern Life, Jaycees events; arriving atop one of his trucks, by helicopter, airplane, scooter, the hockey team pulling him around the ice on a sled... every possible way it seemed except via chimney.

A tireless ambassador of yuletide cheer for almost forty years, whenever Wyrick was asked to look back on those times he would inevitably flashback the startling events of Christmas Eve, 1947.

Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas

The city is adjusting to a new normal now that the war is over. Prosperity reigns, 1947 holiday sales are breaking all records, shoppers filling their arms with stockings, shoes, bicycles, metal toy cars (and the real thing for dad). Once precious rationed goods are now in plentiful supply for the first time in five years. With soldiers, sailors and Marines reuniting with their families, holiday parties are the grandest anyone can remember... and the sweetest. While shops traditionally called it quits at 5:30 on Christmas Eve a few department stores are experimenting with staying open until the unheard of hour of 9:00pm.

1947 marks Moon Wyrick’s twenty-first Christmas season at Fire Station Engine Company No. 1 on Greene Street, his second as Chief. Thirty-five years earlier, as a young lad in short pants, Calvin was adopted as No. 1’s mascot after jumping aboard the city’s only horseless truck then hanging on for dear life as folks along the route cheered and laughed. He assisted on his first fire at age six, around the time our all-volunteer GFD nicknamed him “Moon,” derived from “Half-Moon,” the shape of his mom’s skillet apple pies he loved so much.

Wyrick’s men are busy just before sunset on Christmas Eve 1947, making a joyful noise parcelling groceries bought with proceeds from the Empty Stocking Fund, cars speeding out with bundles to needy homes. Following Moon’s first full year as Chief there have been major improvements system-wide, a result of his aggressive, you might even say confrontational style. If something needs doing, by God, he can make it happen.

Both an immovable object and an unstoppable force, it’s what makes him such a damn fine firefighter... and what the Chief desires most this year is A-1 accreditation for the Greensboro Fire Department. A successful bond issue recently netted them two 1,000 and one 750 gallon per minute Pumpers along with a couple of Ladder Trucks, one an eighty-five foot, all-metal Arial. Construction has been completed on new quarters for Engines No. 3 and No. 6; two-way radios are being installed in all trucks, rescue and administration vehicles.

Earlier in the week, despite repeated pleas not to go, Moon paid a visit as Santa to the makeshift polio triage unit operating out of ORD. “If God wanted me to have Polio then I was goin’ to get it whether I went in there or not,” was his attitude. Those one hundred twenty sick youngsters housed in abandoned wooden Army barracks left him deeply affected, it was more than he could stomach. On Monday morning he’ll get the ball rolling on a permanent hospital, put together the right folks to get it done. He’ll enlist Rich Preyer to handle the money, Ed Loewenstein will agree to draw up the plans. If Wyrick has a weakness it’s children in despair, known to sob uncontrollably if a child suffered on his watch. Only at home, of course. Never so the men could see.

A six foot tall radio antennae mounted to the rear fender of his customized Pontiac Chieftain whips in the wind as Moon pulls out of the station to make the rounds, he'll be touching base with each and every re ghter on duty to thank them personally for their service on Christmas Eve. There are seven stations now, when there were just two companies competition could be fierce to be first on the scene. The boys coming in second would, on occasion, get pretty heated about it, turning their hoses on the guys trying to extinguish the fire. Good times. A lot to look back on and look forward to.

But Moon Wyrick can’t possibly envision the headline in tomorrow’s newspaper —“Maniacal Killer Shoots Self After Slaying Three And Injuring Three”— that someone very familiar to him would be that disturbed individual or that the unthinkable horror will culminate in gunfire on the very spot he was standing just moments ago.

7:00pm Wednesday, December 24, 1947

Alone in a house at the edge of town on Route 2, an avenue some are taking to calling ‘Battleground,’ recently red auto mechanic Joseph DeSantis is in the process of removing his belongings. Days ago Sheriff John Waters served the sixty-year old with eviction papers on behalf of his landlord David Martin, who happens to live next door. Cursing the Martin family for making his life miserable, DeSantis’ rage is manifesting itself in an acute paranoia. In his mind it’s the Martin’s fault he doesn’t have a home for Christmas... what more would they do to destroy him, are they plotting to kill him and his wife?

Spying David Martin’s twenty-seven year old son Charles sauntering across his front lawn DeSantis confronts the young man, ordering him inside at gunpoint. As if no longer in control of his actions, perhaps hoping to cir- cumvent the inevitable, he bargains with Charles, “I’ll spare your life but you have to tie up my feet and hands.” Martin refuses this bizarre request, instead lunging for the weapon. DeSantis, a bull of a man, short but stocky, pistol whips David Martin mercilessly about the head and upper body.

Breaking away, Martin hides in a back room as his assailant calls out, “I’m going to kill every member of your family!” Waiting for Joe DeSantis to leave the premises Charles Martin retreats to a gas station on the corner in search of a rearm, then to the Brookbank residence a few doors down. Meanwhile, shotgun in one hand and a .38 caliber automatic gripped in the other, Joe Desantis marches methodically to the Martin home next door.

Peering into the kitchen, the shadowy figure first notices Mrs. Ollie Martin, for whom this Christmastime is so very merry. With sugar and flour shortages a thing of the past, three multi-layer cakes sit cooling on the piano. After some last minute shopping for her two baby grandchildren Mrs. Martin is overall quite happy with the carefully wrapped packages she’s placed under the tree. She’s ironing her husband’s Santa Claus suit for a big to-do in the morning when, from outside the window, DeSantis unloads his shotgun twice into David Martin who’s relaxing nearby in his rocking chair. Two more rounds tear through Martin’s daughter-in-law Madella as she tries to stand. Attempting to make it out of the home, Ollie Martin cries out when the gunman appears in her path, pumping two buckshot charges through the glass front door. She falls backward into the gaily decorated entrance hall, spattered now in blood and shards.

Upon hearing gun reports and a scream Charles Martin bolts into the back of his family home to find his father and wife dead, his mother very nearly so. In a state of panic on the phone to police he doesn’t spot the killer fleeing to the other side of a wooded parkway across Route 2 where, fifteen minutes later, Desantis rings the doorbell of a newly built two-story brick dwelling at 2412 Lawndale Drive.

(You can trace the killer’s path by turning east from Battleground onto Markland Drive towards Lawndale, past the Lawndale Crossing Shopping Center with the former Golden Corral on the right, Panera on the left. Before being developed, this was all wooded area.)