Not an influencer? Or pop star? Sorry, year’s first baby just not a big deal anymore

Miriam Bergman may have been born at just four pounds on New Year’s Day in 1925, but her arrival carried much more weight at the time.

When she showed up at Grace Hospital just one minute past midnight of the new year, Bergman (nee Hooey) and her parents Joseph Clifford and Ernestine were showered with gifts of laundry service and milk delivery, coal, an ice box, a pair of booties and a down comforter, a taxi ride, a $2 credit from the provincial savings bank and $5 from the Winnipeg Tribune.

A Tribune article from Jan. 2, 1925 details Bergman’s debut as the paper’s first celebrated New Year’s baby with all of her statistics: height, weight and “bouncing” temperament.

A century later, the practice of showering the year’s first baby with gifts, cash and notoriety are mostly just a memory.

A Shared Health spokesperson said communications teams from Shared Health and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority will gather details about the city’s first baby of 2025 and make an announcement publicly on social media channels.

And that’s pretty much it.

Bergman’s daughter Karen Paul recalled seeing a scrapbook filled with gifts and newspaper clippings about her mother’s notable birthdate, including an article from 1941 marking the “original” New Year’s baby’s 16th birthday.

Bergman gave New Year’s babies who followed in her tiny footsteps items once gifted to her, including the booties and, later, 50 silver dollars she received from the Tribune on her 50th birthday.

Bergman died in 1996 of breast cancer.

In 1988, Melissa Hillman’s arrival just two minutes after midnight earned her newspaper and TV coverage and a brand-new car seat to take her home from Victoria General Hospital.

“I watched (the news clip) about five years ago; they interviewed my family while we were still in the hospital. It was a big deal then, before social media,” Hillman said.

Nicole Henry’s mother received three months of complementary diaper service and a notice in the Free Press after giving birth to her daughter at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1991.

“It definitely died down from what it seems (to have been),” Henry said.

Henry said the best part of her birthdate is the built-in parties.

“One minute it was ‘Happy New Year,’ and then, like, a minute later, it’s ‘Happy Birthday.’ It was always exciting,” she said.

Hillman can relate.

“On New Year’s, there’s always a party. Growing up, I always just felt like it’s a party for me,” she said. “These days you can always party before your birthday, and then Jan. 1 you never have to work.”

Paul remembers her grandmother’s special dinner to mark both her mother’s birthday and the holidays: roast beef and a white birthday cake with a nickel wrapped in wax paper hidden in the icing between the layers.

“There was great anticipation as to who would get the piece with the nickel — and not break a tooth on it,” she recalled.

Even though Winnipeg’s first born of 2025 won’t hit the jackpot or make the local news, Paul offered some sage words about the soon-t0-be new member of the Jan. 1 club.

“Birth, especially a new birth in a new year, it just represents hope. We’re always hopeful for a better life for the babies in the generations that come beyond us,” she said.

“And I think (Miriam) would would say that as well.”

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

Source