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Kiowa County, Ks —
Taken from the Greensburg Progressive 1919
Our Rural Ancestors, with little blest, Patient of Labor when the end was rest, Indulg’d the day that hous’d their annual grain, with feasts and effertage and thankful strain. – The Pope.
The favorite way of celebrating Thanksgiving in New England was, of course, first with prayer and sermon, in which the minister told his congregation the many things they had to be grateful for. The church was generally decorated with fruits and grains and when the custom became national, this was continued. The idea of the Thanksgiving dinner in New England was to have all of the fruits of the harvest, and turkey as the principal meat course because this bird was so plentiful and was caught in the wild state and prepared most appetizingly by the housewives.
Then there was pumpkin pie, and as cranberries grew in great quantities in New England states, the sauce of that berry was a fitting addition to the turkey course. Plum cake, or, as it has come to be known, fruit cake, was a favorite of the Christmas holiday in England and was brought over with other specialties by the first settlers and the recipes for making treasures by the housewives.
Meat pies, or as we call them, mince pies, came later in the list of good things for Thanksgiving.
With the very earliest settlers the day was, indeed, a day of prayer and little else besides, but later it became a feats day as well, and it was a poor family indeed in New England that could not afford a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.
Many Causes for Gratitude
We have reason to be grateful for our abundant harvest, which suffice to feed us at home and empower us to give substantial aid to the starving war-wasted peoples abroad; to be humbly thankful for the wealth that enables us to help those who have lost all that is so precious in our own eyes. In gratitude for our manifold national and personal blessings we have occasion to “bless the Lord, and forget not all His benefits.”
The Thanksgiving Witch
There’s a witch in the kitchen who’s baking and brewing.
And mixing and molding and sifting and stewing.
She is up to her elbows in raisins and spices,
As she chops and she peels and she minces and slices,
Around her the fragrance of pumpkin pie hovers,
Each minute a new kind of dainty discovered,
As stirring and steeping, and beating and slaving,
My capable sweetheart prepares for Thanksgiving.
O, this witch in the kitchen has woven around me,
A spell that in happy enchantment has bound me,
Compounded of fruit cakes and cranberry jelly,
And dressing with onions deliciously smelly,
And turkey all crinkly and wrinkly and tender,
And celery, plume-topped and snowy and slender,
And her magic has made me determined to win her,
To preside as my bride and my Thanksgiving Dinner.
Taken from the Greensburg Progressive 1919
Our Rural Ancestors, with little blest, Patient of Labor when the end was rest, Indulg’d the day that hous’d their annual grain, with feasts and effertage and thankful strain. – The Pope.
The favorite way of celebrating Thanksgiving in New England was, of course, first with prayer and sermon, in which the minister told his congregation the many things they had to be grateful for. The church was generally decorated with fruits and grains and when the custom became national, this was continued. The idea of the Thanksgiving dinner in New England was to have all of the fruits of the harvest, and turkey as the principal meat course because this bird was so plentiful and was caught in the wild state and prepared most appetizingly by the housewives.
Then there was pumpkin pie, and as cranberries grew in great quantities in New England states, the sauce of that berry was a fitting addition to the turkey course. Plum cake, or, as it has come to be known, fruit cake, was a favorite of the Christmas holiday in England and was brought over with other specialties by the first settlers and the recipes for making treasures by the housewives.
Meat pies, or as we call them, mince pies, came later in the list of good things for Thanksgiving.
With the very earliest settlers the day was, indeed, a day of prayer and little else besides, but later it became a feats day as well, and it was a poor family indeed in New England that could not afford a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.
Many Causes for Gratitude
We have reason to be grateful for our abundant harvest, which suffice to feed us at home and empower us to give substantial aid to the starving war-wasted peoples abroad; to be humbly thankful for the wealth that enables us to help those who have lost all that is so precious in our own eyes. In gratitude for our manifold national and personal blessings we have occasion to “bless the Lord, and forget not all His benefits.”
The Thanksgiving Witch
There’s a witch in the kitchen who’s baking and brewing.
And mixing and molding and sifting and stewing.
She is up to her elbows in raisins and spices,
As she chops and she peels and she minces and slices,
Around her the fragrance of pumpkin pie hovers,
Each minute a new kind of dainty discovered,
As stirring and steeping, and beating and slaving,
My capable sweetheart prepares for Thanksgiving.
O, this witch in the kitchen has woven around me,
A spell that in happy enchantment has bound me,
Compounded of fruit cakes and cranberry jelly,
And dressing with onions deliciously smelly,
And turkey all crinkly and wrinkly and tender,
And celery, plume-topped and snowy and slender,
And her magic has made me determined to win her,
To preside as my bride and my Thanksgiving Dinner.
