Before the Christmas season fades into the new year let's remember a night long ago when an 18-year-old Santa Claus died a hero. The gift he left in the early-evening darkness of Dec. 19, 1898, was the greatest anyone can offer -- his own life to save others.

Claude Herbert was known around Terre Haute has a large young man with a gentle nature who worked odd jobs to support his widowed mother. Newspaper accounts after his death described him as "always eager to help anyone."

When the Spanish-American War broke out in April 1898, Herbert was among the first from Terre Haute to enlist. But the war was over in a few months and he soon was home, once again looking for work.

Opportunity came when the huge Havens & Geddes dry goods store in downtown Terre Haute advertised for a Santa Claus to entertain children in the basement while their parents shopped on the four floors above. The store, which stretched an entire city block along Wabash Avenue (U.S. 40), was the largest wholesale-retail department store in Indiana.

So it was on the evening of Dec. 19 that Claude Herbert, in the eyes of nearly three dozen children, really was Santa Claus. Attired in a red cap, white beard and a long, flowing red robe, he looked and sounded every bit the part. His robust laugh echoed from the basement where giggling youngsters flocked around him.

Tragedy came in an instant.

Shortly before 6 p.m. an incandescent lamp burst in a main-floor display window, showering sparks onto piles of cotton use to simulate snow. Flames raced up draperies to the wooden ceiling.

Store employees reacted quickly, but without success.

In an extra edition that was on the streets later that night the Terre Haute Evening Gazette reported the account of store manager Fred Brown,

"I went to the rear of the store where we always keep a large number of buckets of water and called to the other men to help me," Brown said. "All of this time I was thinking that a few buckets of water would hold the fire in the window until the fire department could put it out.

"When we reached the front of the store I saw at once that the buckets were useless. My hands were singed in the awful heat. With incredible rapidity the fire spread clear through the store. I called to the men with me to run for their lives."

In the basement, where Herbert bounced excited children on his knee, the first indication of trouble was the sound of rushing feet overhead. Then came screams of "Fire!" and the acrid smell of smoke.

Many of the children began to cry and huddle near Herbert. Witnesses said later that Herbert continued in character as Santa Claus, calming the youngsters while he instructed them to link hands. Picking up the two smallest children, Herbert directed the first child in line to grab hold of his robe and the others followed, clutching tightly to each other as they climbed the stairs.

Herbert picked his way through the flames and smoke on the main floor, the line of children behind him snaking their way to the safety of Wabash Avenue and the arms of frantic parents.

For Herbert, the story could have ended there. He could have walked away as a living hero. Instead, he threw off his hat and robe and ran back into what the Gazette described as " fiery holocaust of hell."

The fire had engulfed all five floors of the store and threatened the entire downtown. As the hoofbeats of Terre Haute's horse-drawn fire wagons echoed thorugh the streets, desperate pleas for help were telegraphed to cities and towns in all directions. At Indianapolis, 75 miles to the east, the mayor helped load two fire wagons onto a special train. All other traffic was ordered off the tracks as the volunteers sped west through the darkness.

By the time local fire units began forming Herbert already had made two trips into the burning store, each time returning with coughing, choking employees and customers.

Clerk Nellie Welch, one of those Herbert rescued, told the Gazette, "He had plenty of time to save himself but he went back inside."

Minutes passed. Herbert did not come out again.

"The brave lad had thrown off his fur overcoat and wore only a sweater and a pair of trousers when last seen," the newspaper reported.

Herbert's body was found amid the smoldering rubble the next day. Three others also died.

The store was destroyed but the all-night efforts of hundreds of firefighters saved the downtown,

Herbert's Spanish-American War buddies, joined by a grateful community, erected a seven-foot stone monument to his bravery. The simple engraving says: "In memory of Claude Herbert, who gave his life to save others in the Havens & Geddes fire."

For decades the monument stood on the corner where the store had been, bearing silent testimony to a story of courage and sacrifice. In the early 1970s, as urban renewal extended through the downtown, it was moved to the lawn between City Hall and the Vigo County Courthouse,

More than a century later, a passerby who pauses to read the inscription is left to wonder who Claude Herbert was.

Today, we award the term "hero" much too often. Certainly, there are true heroes -- law enforcement officers, firefighters, military personnel, others -- but sometimes we lose sight of what it takes to truly earn the title of hero.

Claude Herbert was a genuine hero, an ordinary young man whose extraordinary courage is not diminished by the passage of time. On that long-ago night, in that store, in that city, he really was Santa Claus. His ultimate gift lives on in the countless descendents of those he led to safety from "a fiery holocaust of hell."