As
Ina was writing to son Vance on November 21 in 1934, Thanksgiving was still a
week away – November 29, the last Thursday of November in those days. In 1941,
the legislature set the date for Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of
November, apparently to ensure adequate shopping time between Thanksgiving and
Christmas. Yes, even in the ‘30s, merchants were concerned about holiday
shopping. (You can find lots of Thanksgiving history online.)
But
in her letter, Ina doesn’t say a thing about Thanksgiving. For a report on
that, I turn to her sister, Bertha (June’s wife), who lived on the adjacent
homestead. Bertha’s letters are more chatty than Ina’s and often give a better
picture of life at the rural community of Gilbert (on Russell Ridge south of
Orofino).
Bertha
wrote: “We are to have a community dinner at the Gilbert schoolhouse
Thanksgiving. I got two quarts of cranberries Saturday. If it is bad weather
I’ll have Julian’s here [that would be Jack and Ina and anyone at their house].
We have had 2 weeks or more of fine weather, just a shower now and then and
some frost and in October it got to 24 above and froze the pumpkins some.”
On
Friday, Dec. 8, 1933, the following item appeared in the Clearwater Tribune
(Orofino):
The weather
turned warm again Tuesday night with a southeast wind and snow which turned to
rain before morning. The ground is again bare except on the north slopes.
Thanksgiving
morning was foggy and chilly but the sun soon came out. Between forty and fifty
met at the old school house at Gilbert and had a fine dinner and social time.
In the evening we betook ourselves to the other school house and were
entertained by singing and a fine reading by Mrs. James Weeks, after which we
all returned to our homes feeling the day had been well spent even though we
had not been able to go to church and listen to a Thanksgiving sermon.
Some of the
neighbors stayed at home and entertained guests . . .
In
another letter, Bertha says that she had never had turkey at Thanksgiving. I
suppose they had chicken and beef, which were undoubtedly plentiful. These
days, wild turkeys roam the Gilbert region, but it’s cheaper and less effort to
just buy a domestic turkey.
So,
it seems to me that Ina probably attended the local Thanksgiving potluck dinner
at the schoolhouse, and that’s the easy way to do it – good food and pleasant
conversation in an impersonal setting. KW
4 comments:
We went to a community Thanksgiving dinner with Mom and Dad at the Catholic church in Orofino a few years ago. I wasn't enthusiastic, but it did end up being kind of fun.
Was it a potluck? The advantage of larger gatherings is the variety of food. I miss that now that the extended family no longer meets.
Well, some of it was potluck as parishioners furnished the side dishes, but we attended at "donation" eaters--in other words, Dad dropped money into a box to pay for our dinners.
Sounds like a win / win to me. No prep and no dishes to do. Of course, no leftovers either.
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