Gail Rock credits an unusual collaborator that inspired a 1970s holiday season staple and launched her career as an author: a mouse. The mouse, which scurried atop the stove in a friend’s home, triggered a series of events that birthed “The House Without a Christmas Tree,” a television movie that aired each Christmas season on CBS from 1972 to 1977. It eventually became a novel, written by Rock, and led to several TV movie spinoffs.
The story centers on a young girl who longs for a Christmas tree, a request her widowed father rejects for years following the death of the girl’s mother. It was broadcast into homes across the country, but few likely realized at the time that the story was based on the upbringing of a young girl from Valley. Gail Rock herself.
That fact became more known, especially locally, in the ensuing years, as Rock’s career progressed and she maintained a relationship with her hometown. Rock, now 81, returned to Valley in 2014 as the city celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding. The noted author seemed proud of her Valley roots, said Georgene Gottsch, a lifelong resident and member of a local library-based volunteer group.
“She is a home girl, good old girl,” Gottsch said. “She’s the most famous person to come out of Valley.” At the time Rock’s Christmas tale emerged, she was living in New York and in a period of transition.
She was staying with her friend, Emmy-winning writer Eleanor Perry, in the Hamptons when that mouse app.
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