A Taylor couple is celebrating 62 years of marriage and much of their time together has involved bringing happiness to children through foster care and taking on roles as another couple: Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.
For the past 15 years Charles and Janet Frayer have donned the traditional garments of Kris Kringle and his bride to bring holiday cheer to countless kids and adults.
It all began in 2002 when a local business asked Charles if he would be Santa for a Christmas event because the small beard he had grown caused him to look a great deal like Santa Claus. “They gave me a fake beard, but when I turned my head it stayed put so I decided to grown out my own,” recalled Charles.
He enjoyed it so much that he purchased his own outfit and recruited his wife for her role, and the couple has been Mr. and Mrs. Claus every year since. They take part in all of the large community Christmas events in Snowflake and Taylor, and travel further south to Cibecue, McNary and Whiteriver to take part in events there. They also go to Apache County to visit with the kids in St. Johns. “We go to several families every year for their get-togethers and although we didn’t go to Head Start this year, we went to Fort Apache,” explained Janet. They do all these events, about 30 of them, for no cost, although they occasionally receive a donation.
In the true spirit of Christmas, Charles will often spread holiday cheer to those who least expect it. “If I’m driving home and I see a bunch of cars around a house, I just stop and knock on their door,” said Charles with a smile, obviously enjoying the reaction he gets as the door is opened and Santa pays a special visit to unsuspecting kids.
Through their experiences the Frayers see the need of children in the area more than most people. “Because there’s so many of them and they’re so poor when they come to sit with me, a lot of them just leave a list. One little girl left a list and on it said that she hoped she and her sister could have Christmas for that year, because they hadn’t had Christmas for a couple years,” Charles recalled. The plea touched the Frayers’ hearts so much that they did some detective work and located the little girl. They provided her and her sister with Christmas, as well as their mother and two brothers.
“I had a little kid sit on my lap once and he told me, ‘I want my daddy home,’ and I thought, oh he’s in the military. So I asked him where his daddy was and he said, ‘He’s in jail,’” Charles recalled, shaking his head. Another girl that same evening said that all she wanted for Christmas was to have everyone in her house to stop cussing. “It’s amazing what you hear,” he noted.
Charles and Janet Frayer were just kids themselves when they first met. Charles was in the Navy and his ship was in port for yard work at Portland, Ore., when Janet and her sister came onboard. “The Rose Parade was gong on so we had an open house and I showed her around,” he explained.
The couple dated the entire six weeks the ship was in port and at the end of that time, Charles proposed. He had been 18 for only a month and Janet was 17 when they settled in Imperial Beach near Charles’ base town of San Diego.
While Charles served in the Navy, the couple traveled first to Hawaii then on to New York as he was singled out to train sailors at a new nuclear welding school. The couple had five children when they decided to take in newborn babies in need of foster care. One was a little boy they had for about 2½ years when it came time to leave New York and head back to the West Coast.
“The week before we were going to leave they told us, if you want him take him with you and when we get all the paperwork, you can adopt him in California, if not, you can bring him back,” Charles said.
“He was 4 by the time we finished the adoption,” Janet said.
When asked what made them decide to take on newborns when they already had a full house, Janet said, “I really like babies. We ended up taking care of about 50 foster babies over 25 years,” she recalled. Although the babies may have only been in their care for a short time, the couple made sure each one of them knew they were loved.
“One thing we always did was as soon as we got them, we’d start taking pictures and make a little album. We’d take them to places like the Sears portrait studio, then whoever adopted them got all that stuff,” said Charles.
Although the couple found joy in helping the most vulnerable, there were also difficulties to overcome in dealing with adoption agencies. “When we first started doing this in California, they didn’t tell you anything. They’d just come and say, ‘We’re taking the baby’ and be gone. Me and a bunch of other foster parents complained, so they started at least having the people who were going to adopt come and meet the baby, maybe take it to lunch and then you knew he really went to someplace,” said Charles.
During their time caring for babies, the couple had some unique circumstances. “We had a dwarf baby that went to a little dwarf family,” said Janet with a smile, “and there were people waiting in line for two Down syndrome babies that we had.” When asked why they thought that was, Janet said, “Because a Down syndrome baby has such a calming influence in a home. Most of the time they don’t have the stress that other children do and that just kind of calmed the house down.”
“We had the first Vietnamese baby that was placed in adoption in San Diego. It was unusual because someone in the family usually takes them, but this family didn’t want the baby,” said Janet. “That one worried us the most because she never cried. From the very first night she never cried. It worried me so much it kept me up nights.”
Of the nearly 50 babies taken in by the Frayers, only one was colicky.
As their children grew into adulthood and they stopped fostering babies, the Frayers began another adventure.
“I decided I’d had enough doing the job I’d been at and called Janet on the phone and said, ‘Guess what? You’re going to truck driving school,’’ said Charles.
Janet laughed at the thought. “I’d never even driven a stick shift,” she said.
What began as trips from Southern California to Edmonton, Canada, and back every week became a cross-country lifestyle that lasted 13 years and covered three million miles.
It was during one of those trips that they came to the Taylor area to visit their kids in 1991 that they found their current home.
When asked if they are recognized as Mr. and Mrs. Claus the rest of year, Charles nodded. “Oh, yes, I’ll be at Bashas’ or somewhere else and kids will run up and hug me. It makes you feel pretty good. We’ll be doing this for a long time to come.”
