OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2016
Being thankful: An American tradition
Gratitude travels across
the centuries and miles
By MATT WINTERS
EO Media Group
A
mericans used to know how fortunate
we are. If we entered winter with well-
stocked larders, that was ample reason
to be relieved and grateful. Abundance is far
from guaranteed. There is ever so much that
can go wrong on a farm and on a planet.
The Thanksgiving feast celebrated in
Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621 is a pol-
ished centerpiece of American folklore, mark-
ing the pilgrims’ first New World harvest.
Only a year before, the Mayflower’s passen-
gers and crew arrived on “a faire sunshining
day” and “gave God thanks for his mercies, in
their manifould deliverances,” Gov. William
Bradford reported.
Thinking of images from old bank cal-
endars, we imagine laughter and sharing
between pilgrims and Indians seated at a long
table. Maybe, in some ways, it was a jolly
time. It also was deadly serious spiritual busi-
ness — a fervent prayer for a kinder fate as
another bitter New England winter began to
scheme renewed attacks. After all, nearly half
of the 102 colonists died in the settlement’s
first awful months. The mourning survivors
would have absolutely dreaded that approach-
ing second winter — thankful to be alive and
savoring the successes of the growing sea-
son, but anxious to be on the right side of an
Almighty they might all too soon be meeting
in person.
“Boy Life on the Prairie” from 1899 is a
stirring remembrance of simpler times
when we lived closer to the land and bet-
ter understood the fragility of prosperity.
National well-being
With the advantage of almost 400 years of
hindsight, we know things eventually worked
out pretty well. The path to national well-be-
ing was never, however, without peril.
After skipping a year, in some ways the
second Thanksgiving observance in 1623 may
have been an even more fervent and sincere
expression of relief. Our ancestors — it’s been
estimated at least 35 million living Ameri-
cans are direct descendants of Mayflower pas-
sengers — offered grateful prayers after yet
another close call. They credited religious
fasting for breaking an early summer drought
that threatened starvation. Bradford recalled:
“They sett a parte a solemne day of humil-
iation, to seek the Lord by humble and fer-
vente prayer, in this great distresse. And
he was pleased to give them a gracious and
speedy answer … toward evening it begane
to overcast, and shortly after to raine, with
such sweete and gentle showers, as gave them
cause of rejoyceing, and blesing God. … the
earth was thorowly wete and soked therwith.
Which did so apparently revive and quicken
the decayed corne and other fruits, as was
wonderfull to see… For shich mercie (in time
conveniente) they also sett aparte a day of
thanksgiving.”
Imagine a parent’s vast relief: My child
will not die of hunger this winter. Thank you
— thanks everlasting.
Winters Family Photo
Raising turkeys is a family tradition. Above, Greg Winters with one of his grandpar-
ents’ gobblers in about 1956. He went on to raise turkeys of his own, including one
named George Bush that he could never bring himself to slaughter, despite politics.
Depression and gratitude
Thanks in the USA
President George Washington first pro-
claimed a national day of thanks in 1789 in
his first year in office. (It didn’t become an
officially sanctioned annual observance until
the Civil War era, when Abraham Lincoln
gave it his blessing. Until the 1850s, it was
regarded as a regional event limited to the
New England states, derided by some South-
erners as Pilgrim Christmas. Of course, they
eventually embraced the idea — who doesn’t
love a feast?
Washington’s most eloquent Thanksgiving
proclamation — declaring a holiday for Feb.
19, 1795 — came near the end of his time in
office:
“When we review the calamities, which
afflict so many other nations, the present
condition of the United States affords much
matter of consolation and satisfaction. Our
exemption hitherto from foreign war; an
increasing prospect of the continuance of that
exemption; the great degree of internal tran-
quility we have enjoyed; the recent confirma-
tion of that tranquility by the suppression of
an insurrection which so wantonly threatened
it; the happy course of public affairs in gen-
eral; the unexampled prosperity of all classes
of our citizens; are circumstances which pecu-
liarly mark our situation with indications of
the Divine beneficence towards us. In such
a state of things it is, in an especial manner,
our duty as people, with devout reverence and
affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our
many and great obligations to Almighty God
and to implore Him to continue and confirm
the blessings we experience.”
Washington expressed his immediate
hopes for the young nation, along with wise
words for the distant future:
We should “humbly and fervently to
beseech the kind Author of these blessings,
graciously to prolong them to us; to imprint
on our hearts a deep and solemn sense of our
obligations to Him for them; to teach us rightly
to estimate their immense value; to preserve
us from the arrogance of prosperity and from
hazarding the advantages we enjoy by delu-
sive pursuits; to dispose us to merit the con-
in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
So many farmers eventually raised them that
prices tanked and turkey became a common-
place meal for copper miners in the nearby
Rockies.
To help preserve a thought of her parents’
farming hardships and triumphs, 50 years ago
my elegant Grandaunt Lillian sent me a copy
of Hamlin Garland’s semi-autobiographical
novel “Boy Life on the Prairie”:
“There were days when the ragged gray
masses of cloud swept down on the powerful
northern wind, when a sorrowful, lonesome
moan was heard among the corn rows, when
the cranes, no longer soaring at ease, drove
straight into the south, sprawling low-hung in
the blast, their necks out-thrust, desperately
eager to catch a glimpse of the shining Mexi-
can seas toward which they fled.
“On Thanksgiving Day, Mr. Stewart, being
apprehensive of snow, hired some extra hands
and got out into the field as soon as it was light
enough to see the rows. …
“Oh, how they longed for noon! Though
he could not afford a holiday, Mr. Stewart had
provided turkey and cranberry sauce, and the
men talked about it with increasing wistful-
ness as the day broadened. …
“The hour of release came at last, and
the boys were free to ‘scud for the house.’
Once within, they yanked off their ragged
caps, threw their wet mittens under the stove,
washed their chafed hands and chapped fin-
gers in warm water, and curled up beside the
stove, their mouths watering for the turkey —
‘all eyes and stummick.’ …
“Once at the table they ate until their father
said, ‘Boys, you must ‘a been holler clear to
your heels.’”
Wikimedia Commons
Proclamation by George Washington that urges Americans to publicly observe
Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, Feb. 19, 1795.
tinuance of His favors by not abusing them,
by our gratitude for them, and by a correspon-
dent conduct as citizens and as men; to ren-
der this country, more and more, a propitious
asylum for the unfortunate of other countries;
to extend among us true and useful knowl-
edge; to diffuse and establish habits of sobri-
ety, order, morality, and piety; and, finally, to
impart all blessings we possess or ask for our-
selves, to the whole family of mankind.”
Preservation from “the arrogance of pros-
perity,” serving as “a propitious asylum for
the unfortunate of other countries,” and hon-
oring “habits of sobriety, order, morality,
and piety” — these all are aspirations that
all deserve to be ingrained in our lives today.
Strongly grounded in morality and having
staked his life and honor on the attainment of
national freedom, Washington knew we are
never more than a bad harvest or two away
from utter calamity. His America was one that
didn’t take good times for granted. It would
be fascinating — perhaps shocking — to hear
what Washington would say about his nation
today.
Turkey day in Montana
Like many other farmers in and around
Roundup, Montana, my great-grandparents,
Tom and Elizabeth Bell, turned to turkeys as
a cash crop in 1919 as drought ravaged their
wheat fields and commodity prices crashed
During the Great Depression, my grand-
parents revived turkey husbandry as one of
their own survival strategies.
Until butchering week, it mostly was all
Grandma’s job. She’d feed, protect and defend
six or eight hens and a gobbler through west-
ern Wyoming’s Siberian winter while every
predator in a 10-mile radius circled the ranch
waiting for the sentry to let down her guard.
“Your grandma would fret over her tur-
key hens,” my uncle, their eldest son, recalled.
And she was a crack riflewoman.
Come spring, or what passes for it in the
mountains, these hens with wild strains still
dancing in their genes would try slipping
away to make renegade nests in the willows or
roughs, Easter treats for every passing coyote
and bull snake. My mom remembered seeing
one giant old snake in the pasture with four or
five turkey eggs bloating his ribcage, looking
like a bizarre multi-knobbed barbell.
Called jakes and jennys, those young tur-
keys that didn’t naively wander off into wait-
ing jaws or irrigation ditches were pampered
along until November. After brief, but con-
tented, lives of chasing grasshoppers, squab-
bling over victuals and vying for grandma’s
attention, in the end 30 to 50 mature 10-15
pound birds were ready for butchering. All
the small-time ranchers in the vicinity would
trade visits to help each other out with this
daunting and gory project.
Grandpa loaded up his wagon shortly
before the holiday. He and my uncle set off for
the scales in our little town, as the train waiting
to take them east gathered steam at the depot.
There were wagonloads of turkeys all up and
down the street. Anxious men waited to get a
check for real silver money. An excited, hard-
working boy might get a dime to buy candy
at the drugstore. And “Mom squirreled away
what she could for what few presents we got,”
my uncle said.
And there was still one turkey destined for
our family’s own Thanksgiving — the best
bird in the world — according to two skinny
old kids who always honored their parents’
sacrifices and love across the gulf of all the
long years.
We honor them still, and give thanks.
Matt Winters is editor and publisher of the
Chinook Observer and Coast River Business
Journal. He lives in Ilwaco, Washington.
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