Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 4

A-4 Mattoon, (D.) Journal Gazette 24,1988 r)DDDDQD8 i Odds and Ends Dlinois settlers said thanks Guest Report the "immemorial usage" of Thanksgiving Day: A large supply of the good things of life are required, such as turkles, chickens, geese, partridges, and such like. Families give out their invitations to the dinner a week ahead, so that all can go like clock-work. All the eatables, including a large lot of pumpkin pies, are prepared for the oven the night beforehand. At 11 o'clock on Thanksgiving Day, all the supernumeraries of the family (leaving only those at home necessary to perform the duties of cooking) proceed to church where the service is of great length, rendered so by the singing of one or two extra hymns. This Is done to impress the inner man with due solemnity of the importance of the Day ana afso has the effect of sharpening the appetite of the outer man for the things that are about to be Editor's note; The following is taken from the book "Thanksgiving" by Diana Karter Appelbaum.

The early settlers in Illinois came down the Ohio River from Virginia by flatboat or up the wagon road from Kentucky, like young Abe Lincoln and his parents, when New Englanders began to move into the state in, the 1830s, political friction sprang up between the predominantly Whig Yankees and the mostly Democratic, southerners." Like transplanted New Englanders in other states, they missed their New England holiday. Thus they were pleased in the fall of 1838, when the Chicago Democrat announced that it was publishing Governor Joseph Duncan's proclamation of Thanksgiving Day for. Thursday, November 26. Simeon Francis, editor of the Sangamo Journal in Springfield and a Connecticut Yankee by Birth, praised the governor's proclamation In an editorial and asked if any of his readers had raised pumpkins and would someone kindly send the editor one for pie. Yankee set about celebrating the old holiday in their new homes and were probably still eating leftover turkey when the December issue of the Sangamo Journal reported that the proclamation had been a hoax.

The perpetrator, the Journal declared, had been "that vehicle of loco focoism, the Chicago Democrat." (Loco-focus were members of a radical faction of the Democratic party.) This elaborate practical joke reflected political tensions between northern and southern settlers who were increasingly at odds over slavery. In 1841, the Presbyterian State Synod of Illinois recommended that Thursday, November 25, be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day. Mayor Francis Sherman of Chicago concurred, pro-t claiming Thanksgiving for that day in Here in Wyeth's vision are some, of the. ninety warriors who accompanied Massasoit to the feast with! the Pilgrims Felt his blood run cold with dread, Lest the wild and savage red man Burn the roof over his head. Want and sickness, death and sorrow Met their eyes on every hand And before the spring had reached them They had buried half their band.

But their noble, brave endurance Was not exercised in vain; Summer brought them brighter prospects, Ripening seed and waving grain. And the patient Pilgrim mothers, As the harvest time drew near, Looked with happy thankful faces, At the full corn in the ear. So the governor, William Bradford, In the gladness of his heart, To praise God for all his mercies, Set a special day apart. That was in the autumn, children, Sixteen hundred twenty-one; Scarce a year from when they landed, And the colony begun. And now, when in late November, Our Thanksgiving feast is spread, 'Tis the same time-honored custom Of those Pilgrims long since dead.

We shall never know the terrors, That they braved years, years ago; But for all their struggles gave us, We our gratitude can show. And the children of New England, If they feast or praise or pray, Should bless God for those brave Pilgrims, And their first Thanksgiving Day. -BMHamel I hope this is your best Thanksgiving EVER! If family and loved ones are home and about you can't miss. Son John will fly in from Tampa and daughter Katherine will hop over from Oak Park to the airport to pick him up and drive in Thanksgiving morning. I hope John is traveling light.

A Toyota MR-2 doesn't leave much room for luggage. Space is basically left to the imagination in that auto. But she still waxes it every week and this is the third year around for the car. Like told me the other day, "Hey, I just made the last payment I'm out of here to Don't blame her. Count your blessings when you have time.

How often we don't take the time. I suppose we are all guilty. Have just heard in the recent days of friends who are suffering physically. Be especially thankful during the season for your good health. Is there anything more important? Have a GOOD ONE! The First Thanksgiving (From Youth's Companion) Children do you know the story Of the first Thanksgiving day.

Foundedby our Pilgrim fathers In that time so far away? They had given for religion Wealth and comfort yes, and more Left their homes and friends and kindred For a bleak and barren shore. On New England's rugged headlands, Now where peaceful Plymouth lies; There they built their rough log cabin, 'Neath the cold forbidding skies. And too often e'en the bravest his city. A document in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society shows the sincere desire for Thanksgiving proclamations of the citizens of early Chicago. The handwritten petition with 27 signatures reads: To the Honorable The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Chicago The undersigned inhabitants of the City of Chicago would respectfully represent that ever, since the incorporation of our city It has been the laudable custom to appoint by proclamation of the Mayor a day or Public Thanksgiving and Prayer to Almighty God for the mercies and blessings of a past year.

In observance of so praiseworthy a custom' the petitioners respectfully ask that His Honor the Mayor may be directed to issue his proclamation appointing some fit day within a short time to be observed as such a day of Thanksgiving and your petitioners will ever pray so. Chicago, November 16, 1842. If the custom had, in fact, been observed "since the incorporation of our city," Chicago had its first Thanksgiving in 1837: Of a certaintly, the first official statewide Thanksgiving Day in Illinois fell on Thursday, December 29, 1842. The Synod of the Presbyterian Church formally urged Governor Thomas Carlin to issue such a proclamation, and he complied, recommending that the people of Illinois "meet in their respective houses of worship" on the appointed day. All the churches scheduled services, but Simeon Francis, worried lest some Illinoisan might lack the knowledge and experience to celebrate the holiday properly.

In an editorial he undertook to instruct his fellow citizens in Ellen Goodman Goodman Is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group. Reagans, adoption and blending, and more than one estrangement. There is a mother, this holiday season, who hasn't talked to her daughter for over a year. The man who wiil take his place as head of this family ideology has wrap- himself in a grandfatnerly image, et Bush's family is also extended in ways that are common but not always comforting to other Americans. As young people, George and Barbara Bush left home again and again, setting up temporary in '17 cities.

Now they have five children scattered in an equal number of states: Texas and Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Connecticut. Theirs, like many of ours, do not live at home, but come home, for the holidays. We hold onto a particular primal image of families human beings created from the same genetic code, living in the same area code. We hold onto an image of THE family as something rooted and stable. But that has oci uciui mm.

The tables are soon filled and the important business of eating is performed with all due deliberation. The remaining part of the week, (Thanksgiving should always be set on Thursday, as Governor Carlin has very properly done in ihis case), should be spent in visiting, social par-, ties and such, and when Saturday night comes, in reckoning up matters it is usually found that, In neighborhoods, old grudges are healed, new courtships are under progress, and the people are generally better satisfied with their rnnriitinn and hannicr hv far than before the Thanksgiving holiday, Westerners who came to the new territories from Virginia, Kentucky and other regions outside New England took such advice to heart. Although intermittent grumbling continued to come from a few citizens, like the Indianians who ridiculed Governor David Wallace's 1839 Thanksgiving proclamation as the "Governor's Scelebrating the old holiday in their new homes. holiday i always been rare in a country where freedom is another word for mobility, both emotional and physical. In America, families are spliced and recombined in as many ways as DNA.

Every year our Thanksgiving tables expand and contract, place settings are removed and added. A guest last year is a member this year. A member last year may be an awkward outsider this year. How many of our children travel between alienated halves of their heritage, between two sets of people who snare custody of their holidays. Even among those families we call stable or intact, the ride to the airport has become a holiday ritual as common as pumpkin pie.

Many parents come from retirement homes, many children from college, many cousins from jobs in other zip codes. We retrieve these people, as if from a memory hole, for reunions. What then makes a family, in the face of all this It is said that people don't choose their parents. Or their aunts and uncles. But in a sense Americans do choose to MAKE a family out of these people.

We make room for them in our lives, choose to be with them and preserve that choice through a ritual as simple as passing seconds at a table. All real families are made over time and through tradition. The Oral Tradition. We create a shared treasure trove of history, memories, conversation. Equal parts of food and conversation.

And a generous serving of pleasure in each other's company. Let's give thanks for our future happiness Family is heart off reminded voters before this month's election, we are also more dissatisfied. Which may account for the fact that, on Thanksgiving Day this year when the gross national product is rising and the nuclear threat declining, we are not feeling as thankful as the signs would indicate we should. But if the good yesterday is gone and today is far-spent and beyond memory, there is tomorrow. No matter how unsatisfying our situation is today, we can give thanks for the satisfaction tomorrow may bring.

When the sun appears to be setting on our dreams, we are likely to forget Hemingway's reminder the "the sun also rises." When the inevitable hardships come, we lose sight of Albert Camus' assurance that "good too is inevitable." We can give thanks in advance for these certainties." Giving thanks beforehand was also one of Jesus' secrets for making miracles happen. Jesus didn't give thanks after the 500 had been fed but before. In the case of Lazarus' return from the dead, when Jesus said, "I thank thee, Father, that thou hast heard me," it was before Lazarus came forth from the tomb not after. Let's try it this Thanksgiving. Let's give thanks in advance for miracle in our lives.

Not a miracle of things but a miracle of happiness. For that is the miracle we need. Things have let us down. This does not mean we must give up things. But we must give up our thought of things.

When we give thanks for the happiness God has in mind for us, we firld that the good things necessary for our happiness are provided. So let this be our prayer of thanksgiving this year: "Thank you, Father, for a great tomorrow George Piagenz is a correspondent of Newspaper Enterprise Association. By GEORGE R.PLAGENZ A current writer says the 1930s were a good time to be alive. We may not have had as long a list of things to be thankful for as people today, but we were happier. We didn't have much (it was the Depression) but neither did anybody else (it was the Depression for them too), so we weren't aware we were living in "bad times." We did without without knowing we were doing without.

rr It was easier in those days to satisfy us. We went to the "picture show" on Saturday night and took a drive on Sunday and looked forward to our children's birthdays. Bowling was 28 cents per game; draft beer, a nickel. We enjoyed ourselves and never bothered to look back to see who might be gainging on us. Beyond that, families were together more in those days.

The Wall Street Journal cites a survey which found that only 11 percent of men today have wives who are at full time. Fifty percent of young working mothers say they are experiencing stress because they don't have enough time for their families. Wages may be higher than ever but, strangely, this isn't lifting our spirits. Career offices at Barnard College and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania report that iob-seekers today are beginning to look at job satisfaction and not just job compensation and other external status symbols. Investment banking, where salaries can begin at $97,000 and go as high as 5250,000 after five years, has fallen off sharply in popularity in the last five years with Wharton School students.

We may be realizing that, although we are "better off as a Republican campaign commercial MATTOON, ILLINOIS JOURNAL GAZETTE ublished daily except Sundays and general legal holiday by Mld-4Ulnols Newspapers, Inc. at 100 Broadway Avenue, Mattoon, Illinois 61938 Second class postage Is paid at Mattoon. Publication USPS 143-600. Home delivery rates (Mattoon and Area Towns): 52 weeks, $78 00; 26 weeks, 139 00, 13 BOSTON They will celebrate Thanksgiving the way they always do, in the Oral Tradition. Equal parts of food and conversation.

A cornucopia of family. These are not restrained people who choose their words and pick at their stuffing. These are people who have most of their" meals in small, chicken-sized households. But when they come together, they feast on the sounds as well as tastes of a turkey-sized family. Indeed, their Thanksgiving celebrations are as crowded with stories as their tables are with chairs.

Arms reach indelicately across each other for second helpings, voices interrupt to add relish to a And there are always leftovers too enormous to complete, that have to be wrapped up and preserved. i But what is it that makes this collection of people a family? How do we make a family these days? With blood? With marriage? With affection? I wonder about this when I hear the word "family" added to some politician's speech like gravy poured over the entire plate. The meaning is supposed to be obvious, self-evident. It is assumed that when we talk about family we are all talking about the same thing. That families are the same.

But it's not that simple. For the past eight years, the chief defender of the American family has lived in the White House. But Reagan's own family has always look ed more like our contemporary reality than his traditional image. There has boon piprrionp (ijvnrCP atnnnff thg Say it in weeks, $19 50; 1 week, $1.50. Mail subscription rates (no mall subscription accepted where news- paper carrier or motor route service Is maintained) are available on request.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Journal Gazette, 100 Broadway Avenue, Mattoon, Illinois 61938. WILLIAM 8. HAMEL. Publisher Li a lot tor to tho editor.