Tomorrow we celebrate Thanksgiving Day with friends, family, and a table loaded with the traditional fare: roast turkey with all the trimmings—dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and all the favorite veggie side dishes—topped off with slabs of pumpkin or apple pie for dessert.
Charities, of course, are geared up to feed the hungry with meals just as complete and sumptuous.
Over the decades, Thanksgiving Day has been observed on different Thursdays in November. Our modern national holiday officially began in 1863, when President Lincoln declared the last Thursday of the month as a day of thanksgiving. With a few deviations (from President Andrew in 1865 and President Grant in 1869) Lincoln’s precedent was followed annually by every subsequent president through 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt changed it to the next to last Thursday—creating considerable controversy. Two years later FDR relented, and signed a bill into law officially making the fourth Thursday in November the national holiday, as it stands today.
In 1906, Thanksgiving was observed on November 29, the last Thursday in November (which also happened to be the fifth Thursday in November that year), in accordance with President Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation. It was a simpler time; people went to church on Thanksgiving, and charities, with fewer needy to feed, had simpler fund raisers … as in this interesting item from the past.
The Junior Leaguers of the Methodist Episcopal Church will give a Thanksgiving social and candy-pull at the parsonage on Friday evening November 23rd.
Admission: a potato, an apple, or an onion. The proceeds go to charity.
A special invitation is given to adults; the men bringing a dime and the ladies an untrimmed hat (or any old thing) and bits of old trimming and a few pins.
A short program will be followed by a candy-pull and plenty of fun. Come, and bring your friends.
--Red Bluff Daily News, November 22, 1906
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez