Our special Thanksgivings

One holiday that was always special in

our family and particularly with Gram Hodgson was Thanksgiving. As

long as she lived in the big house, she had all of her family and

often several friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. Gram’s

specialty was chess pies topped with meringue. How we longed for an

early sample, but never got one until all were served. After Gram

moved to a small house in town, her daughters had Thanksgiving

dinner.

In the ‘20s only people who raised

their own, baked a turkey for the holiday. Most people roasted one

or two chickens for their special meal.

With rows of canned green beans, peas

and carrots in the pantry and bins of cabbage, beets and turnips in

the cellar, housewives didn’t consider buying vegetables like

cauliflower, sweet potatoes, asparagus or broccoli at the store

even if it had been available.

During the Dirty Thirties, when it was

our turn to have Thanksgiving dinner, Mom pulled out all the stops.

Homemade chicken and noodles were her specialty. After stewing the

hen and removing the meat from the bones, there was plenty of rich

broth to cook the noodles in. With the wood kitchen range, she

simmered the pot on the back of the stove all day which resulted in

a meal for kings.

It was my job to set the table,

dinnerware placed just one inch from the edge of the table, water

goblet at the tip of the knife, place cards in front of the plate

and a centerpiece made of bright red kinnikinnick berries on their

glossy green foliage. Mom had told me to go out in the woods and

find the evergreen plant under a tree where the snow wasn’t deep

and sure enough, there it was.

So with chipped plates that didn’t

match, on a white linen tablecloth, our table held eight place

settings, complete with cut glass goblets. The kids ate at the

kitchen table, hurriedly so we could go out and play but not so

fast that we could skip our father leading a prayer of thanks for

our abundance, meager though it was.

Gram’s boy, who had come to stay with

her when he was 11, had brought his German shepherd, Bleucher. The

dog harness enabled him to pull us on the sled which was great fun.

All afternoon we raced through the drifts in the pasture, stopping

only to put a snowman together or to take a hurried trip to the

house for a piece of pumpkin pie.

Finally we kids were called in when the

company began to put on boots and coats and caps and start for home

as dusk settled on the snow and made shadows of the evening, steal

across the sky.