Thanksgiving

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I miss the Thanksgiving celebrations on Whirlwind Hill. But since I married and moved to the west coast, I’ve come to love the new traditions that have evolved. For the last twenty years my husband and I and our children have spent Thanksgiving with his family, first in California and now in Oregon. This year we’ll again be in Portland, where the celebrations are chaotic and joyful, but still all about bringing together the generations.

My grandson, Henry Thomas Kennedy, with his great-grandmother, Zoya Bryner, Thanksgiving, 2013

I often think of those special days on the farm and how much the tradition stayed the same year after year.

Tuesday, November 24, 2014 – “Nice day. Men busy about home. Very busy indoors getting ready for the coming Thanksgiving once more. Hope all may have a good time, for the time is short for us all to be here together.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thanksgiving on Whirlwind Hill was the holiday when all the family came “home” to the homestead to share the big noon feast, the afternoon walks and games of touch foot ball and hide the button, and the evening’s light supper highlighted by Aunt Betty’s chocolate éclairs.

For several days before the event my mother and aunts and cousins and I helped my grandmother clean the farmhouse. We took the china out of the cupboards and washed it, polished the silver, ironed the tablecloths, shined the glassware, and made elaborate centerpieces of fruit and leaves and ferns. On the Wednesday evening before the big day, I did my own two jobs. I cut the red and green grapes in half and took out their seeds to ready them for the meal’s first course – fruit cup – and I made the place cards. In this photo of the 1962 Thanksgiving, you can see my little Pilgrim Hat place cards – probably made that year with the help of cousin Nancy, seated on the right.

Thanksgiving at the farm, 1962

In 1951, the Wallingford Post interviewed my Aunt Ellen for an article titled “Mrs. Henry A. Norton Recalls The Thanksgiving Feast 50 Years Ago.” (And thank you to my cousin Ellen Norton Peters for sharing this article with me.) It seems astonishing how very much work went into this often quickly-eaten meal. My grandfather barely finished carving the turkey and passing the plates when someone wanted seconds. The important part of the meal was the community, because as Lydia said – “The time is short for us all to be here together.”

Thanksgiving, 1960, Charles Crump, Janet Crump, Ellsworth Hall

Here is what my Aunt Ellen said in 1951.

“Father [my great-grandfather William E. Hall] made a great deal of Thanksgiving. It was more of an event than Christmas. All the family came home to the Homestead for the family gathering. It was a happy time for young and old alike. I can remember Mama and I starting about a week ahead of time – polishing silver, waxing the furniture and getting ready for the big day. In those days everything we put on the table was right off the farm. We had mince-meat to make and nuts to gather from the hickory and butternut trees. The day before we started cooking in earnest. All the desserts had to be made, raised donuts, pumpkin pies, mince pies, raised loaf cake and Indian pudding. We made them in quantity for the twenty or more folks coming. There were hot breads to be baked and the turkey to stuff. The old wood stove was working overtime.

Of course we made all our own bread and for dinner we baked raised biscuits and rye bread besides the regular white bread. Mother and I used to do it all. Now, some fifty years later, family still get together, but we all do some of it.

The big day started bright and early. The turkey was popped into the oven, so as to be done to perfection for the noon feast. The men all went hunting that morning. They started off bright and early for rabbits and squirrels and came home with tremendous appetites, ready for their Thanksgiving dinners. The children were sent out to play or had a glorious time playing hide-and-seek around the big house.

The ladies retired to the kitchen to get the meal ready. The big table was pulled out to its full length and set. We caught up on all the gossip and family chatter as we peeled potatoes and turnips and dished up the pickles and jelly. My mother always made a chicken pie, too. One of my brothers liked to have a piece of chicken pie after he’d had the turkey. We all had a small piece, too, or Mother felt quite hurt. How we ate it all I’ll never know. We even made one freezer of ice cream, and tapioca for the little children.

By the time the turkey was ready, the table was loaded with goodies. It is funny, but I don’t remember having cranberry sauce then. That must have been added in later years

There were pickles that we’d put up, little cucumber pickles, mustard pickles, and the other kinds, apple jelly, grape jelly, preserves and celery that we raised in the garden, all the bread and biscuits and butter that we’d churned and those things that made up Thanksgiving dinner.

As the men and children were sitting down, in came great steaming dishes of onions, potatoes, turnips, and finally, with great ceremony the big bird was brought in and put down in front of Father. After grace was said, the turkey was carved and everybody was served.

After the dinner was cleared and the dishes done (believe me there were lots of them, but all of us together made them disappear in a hurry), all the family gathered around the piano and had a grand time singing all the old favorites. How Father loved to sing! It was such a happy homey day. The family still gathers as we have done generation after generation. There will be about twenty this year. In the world today, and the rush of modern times, it is hard to have that happy, relaxed day, as we used to 50 years ago. Still we shouldn’t lose sight of what Thursday, Thanksgiving Day stands for.” ~ Mrs. Henry A. Norton, 1951 – (Ellen Hall Norton)

A Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Thanksgiving on the farm, 1904

People in photo: Front row from left – Melissa Hall, Gertrude Hall, Samuel Hall, William Cannon: Second row – Alice Hall, Ellen Hall Norton: Third row, seated: Lydia Reed Hart, Hattie Hall Cannon: Fourth Row – William Hall, holding hand of his mother Edith Hall, Carrie Hall: Back row from left – Wilbur Hall, John Cannon, Cynthia Hart, John Hart, Lydia Jane Hall, Edgar Hall, William E. Hall, Ellsworth Hall

On Monday: December Window

Giving Thanks

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This is my eighty-fifth “On Whirlwind Hill” blog post. It doesn’t seem possible that I’m two-thirds of the way through this one-year blog.

The arrival of this Thanksgiving week reminds me how very grateful I am for the support of my family, my readers, my friends, and my aging computer. Writing a blog involves ego, humility, tedium, excitement, curiosity, joy, and occasional panic – (“Did I really publish THAT?”) Reading blogs written by other people reminds me how very much a beginner I am. I’m amazed at how generous and interesting and accomplished are the bloggers I follow, and how long some of them have been at this. I learn oodles of wonderful things from them all.

Doing “On Whirlwind Hill” is one of the scariest and most fun projects I’ve ever done. I often think about church ministers and pastors who sit down each Saturday to write a sermon for the next day. One of my readers is a pastor, and she must be continually thinking about how to make her congregation listen and relate to her preaching. Like her, we bloggers are preachers in a way. We all feel that we have something important and unique to say, and spend hours figuring out not only how to say it, but how to keep at it week after week.

So thank you to all my fellow bloggers, to the loyal readers for their kind and welcome words, to my family for roots past and present and future, and to the friends who teach and encourage and egg me on.

On Wednesday I’ll talk about Thanksgiving with a capital “T.” It was the biggest holiday on the farm, steeped in years of tradition and history.

“A View from Whirlwind Hill,” Carol Crump Bryner, watercolor, 2014

On Wednesday: Thanksgiving

Outbuildings #3 – The Turkey Pen

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“The real work on the farm happened in the barn, in the fields, and in the house. Some of the outbuildings were so specific in purpose that they were often hastily erected or moved, and as quickly abandoned when seasons or activities changed. Others had longer lives and a more major presence. They were spread out around the property in an almost haphazard way. A few of them I remember from childhood, but others I know only from photos.” – Outbuildings #1, Outbuildings #2

The Turkey Pen

For this photo the turkeys came out of their pen and gathered around my grandmother, Agnes Biggs Hall, when she came to feed them and fatten them up for the winter. They seem exotic and prehistoric. The only turkeys we see now near the farm are the wild ones who appear once in awhile in the fields like groups of dark-suited men standing with their hands behind their backs waiting for a train.

Agnes Biggs Hall and the turkeys, around 1922

On Monday: Giving Thanks

Aunt Ellen

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My aunts and uncles and grandparents seemed ageless. I never thought of them as “old,” or as “getting old.” When my cousin Margy Norton sent me a photo of her grandmother – my Aunt Ellen – she said, “Gramie Norton looked like this for as long as I knew her.”

Ellen Hall Norton in front of the cottage, photo courtesy of Margy Norton Campion

Ellen and her younger brother, my grandfather Ellsworth Hall, shared a sense of humor – Ellsworth’s quiet and twinkly, Ellen’s brash and lively – that must have made life on the farm entertaining.

Ellen, Ellsworth, Lydia Jane, and William E. Hall, around 1900

In the black and white photo Margy sent, Aunt Ellen stands in front of her cottage on Long Island Sound wearing what look like clown shoes. The Hall women were tormented by bunions and corns and coped with them in practical ways. Ellen wore her special slippers. My mother’s cousins Melissa and Gertrude cut holes in their white Keds to accommodate sore feet. They laughed about their creative footwear.

“Keds,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and ink, 2014

Ellen dressed without vanity, wearing comfortable cotton dresses all summer. In an iconic photo, she sits on the lawn in front of the cottage with her favorite dog Count. This is how I always think of her – surrounded by blue and white and smiling an impish smile.

Ellen Norton and her dog Count

Despite her life’s tragedies – her only daughter Jane died at fourteen, her husband Henry in 1938 leaving her a widow for twenty-six years – she held onto a teasing and fun-loving disposition. Her two sons John and Austin provided her with spirited daughters-in-law and loving grandchildren. At her cottage and in her little house in Wallingford she cooked on coal-burning stoves. Summer life at the cottage was simple, but surprisingly elegant.

“Sleeping Porch Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on linen, 1990

She made her famous ginger cookies in the ovens of the massive old stoves and stored them in the same black tin my cousins still use. She greeted me in the kitchen by sticking out her false teeth and asking if I wanted some sour doughnuts. She chided me when I wore lipstick, but I could coax her into playing endless games of Parcheesi and checkers.

Even when I was young and sitting in the living room on the farm listening to the older women talk about their lives, I was learning something from them. Their lessons have become more relevant to me as I grow older. They embodied the adage, “Pain is inevitable – suffering is optional.” The women who paved my way certainly had their share of pain. But they cut holes in their shoes, they played Parcheesi, they gathered in a room together on a Sunday afternoon, they sat on the sea wall in front of a summer cottage, and they made ginger cookies to please the next generation. To all of us they bequeathed their love of family and their enduring sense of place.

“Corner of the Porch,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas

On Friday: Outbuildings #3 – The Turkey Pen

Aunt Hattie

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The old adage, “little pitchers have big ears” definitely applied to me. On Sunday afternoons, when Hall relatives gathered at the farm, and my brother and cousins played outside, I often preferred to sit in the big sunny living room with the “old folks.” These women – my aunts, great aunts, mother, grandmother, and older cousins – drank tea, ate cake and cookies, and talked and talked. Sunday was their day of rest and their day to catch up.

The roster of Hall family women included my mother’s much-older cousins Gertrude, Alice, and Melissa, the wives (Olga, Tilly, and Elsie) of her male cousins, my aunts Barbara, Glenna, Caroline, and Betty, and great aunts Hattie, Ellen, Ethel, Olive and Isabelle. Hattie and Ellen, born nine years apart, were doting older sisters to my grandfather Ellsworth. Both sisters married late. They were a great comfort and help to my great grandmother Lydia as she aged, and she referred to them as “my good girls.”

Hattie Hall Cannon (back), and Ellen Hall Norton (front), 1904

Hattie Cornelia Hall died when I was just ten years old. She was eighty-five. Hattie was her real name – not her nickname. On Thanksgiving she decorated the farmhouse with ferns and fall leaves and played hymns at the piano. On Sunday mornings she climbed the dizzying steps to the steeple of the First Congregational Church in Wallingford to ring the chimes. She held me on her lap when I was a baby and hugged me hard when we visited. Short and stout and white-haired and widowed, Hattie was always just there, and I never thought much about her.

But in her youth she was a delicate and social girl, and in this photo taken on an outing with a group of friends, she sits primly on a rock wearing a dark-colored many-buttoned dress, tight shiny boots, and a hat.

Hattie Hall at an outing, left front, about 1886

In her younger days she favored flamboyant hats and stylish dresses. The name “Hattie” seemed just right for her.

Hattie Hall (in middle) with friends, around 1890

Hattie in a new hat, around 1892

In the early 1890’s she met and married John Cannon. Their only child William was born in 1894.

Hattie and William Cannon, 1894

In this photo of three-year-old William he shows off his mother’s love of fashion.

William Cannon, around 1897

But in 1918, when he was just twenty-four years old, William died after a sudden illness – possibly diphtheria or the Spanish flu. For all of his too-few years, he was the light of Hattie’s life.

I remember Aunt Hattie as a cheerful and loving woman. I hope she found joy in her large family of nieces and nephews and their children, and that I was kind to her and hugged her hard enough.

Aunt Hattie and Carol, Christmas, 1946

On Wednesday: Aunt Ellen

Cigars

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My grandfather Ellsworth Hall was a good man with a small vice. He smoked cigars.

Ellsworth with a cigar, 1904

The smell of cigar smoke can bring the farm back to me in an instant. I can picture my Grandpa Hall walking toward the barn, hat on head and cigar in mouth.

Ellsworth Hall, walking to the barn, around 1958, photo courtesy of Tom Teter

The stumps of his cigars perched on the porch ledge, smoldered in the living room ashtray, and adorned his mouth as he went about his daily chores. I don’t think he smoked in the barn, but he kept the cigar between his lips and chewed on it a bit.

Modern grandparents would probably never approve of a soggy piece of cigar resting on the living room mantelpiece. But my grandfather was quietly in charge of his domain. He loved his cigars, and my grandmother loved him, so she let him be.

But she worried about him falling asleep in the big armchair with a burning stogie in his mouth. So my brother and cousins were given a job. On Friday nights, when professional wrestling was on and Grandpa Hall sat in his green chair to watch, Grandma Hall told my brother or whatever cousin was handy, “Sit next to Grandpa, and if he falls asleep, take the cigar out of his mouth and put it in the ashtray.” There was not always a helper around to do this, and there must have been accidents, because I remember that big green leather chair being full of little burn holes.

Grandpa Hall watching wrestling, photo courtesy of Nancy Teter Smith

On Monday: Aunt Hattie

Siberia

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I don’t know who named the coldest bedroom on the farm after a country so very far away from Wallingford, Connecticut, but I like their dry sense of humor. The room earned its reputation. We all slept there at one time or another, reluctantly repeating the bone-chilling experience of our ancestors. Modern conveniences in other parts of the house never reached this Siberia.

Siberia, 1922 – Francis, Janet, and Lydia in the front yard

When they were growing up, my mother and her older sister Lydia slept in Siberia – the upstairs bedroom on a southwest corner of the farmhouse. Lydia and brother Francis were the leaders in the family – my mother the good-natured follower. The two girls called each other “Sis,” and in photos from that time were often dressed in identical outfits. I picture them climbing the dark stairs together toward their bed in Siberia – two small dark-haired girls in white nightdresses carrying candles to light their way.

Janet, Lydia, and Francis Hall, 1922

But I have another image of my mother. It’s about seventy-five years after the sisters go up the stairs together, and I’m on one of my twice-yearly visits to Whirlwind Hill. My mother, by this time, has developed a bedtime routine to rout the ghosts of Siberia. She cannot stand to be cold.

We sit in the den and watch a television show. We’ve spent a long and often trying day together, and I’m ready to be alone. My mother stalls and puts off her bedtime. When the show is over she disappears into her room and comes back smelling of Pond’s Cold Cream and carrying her pink brushed-cotton lined pajamas and a flashlight. I wish she had put on the pajamas in the bedroom, but she says she wants to do it here – in front of the television where it’s warm and light. She gets her hot water bottle from the hook in the kitchen closet and fills it with water. She doesn’t exactly fill it. She’s particular about things, and the bottle needs to be just the right temperature and just the right weight.

She stays with me a while longer, then gets up to go, clutching the warmth of the red water bottle to her chest and shining the flashlight into the darkness. I long to be by myself, but suddenly I don’t want her to leave. I feel how frail she is when I hug and kiss her good night, and as I watch her walk away I can see how she’s aged. It’s the first time I realize how final the going will someday be, and my heart fills with loneliness and love.

“Winter Light,” Carol Crump Bryner, linocut, 2001

On Wednesday: Cigars

November Window

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Every November, on Thanksgiving day, my great-grandmother, Lydia Jane Hall, gathered her family around the big dining room table to give thanks. It was hard for her when her children married and sometimes didn’t come back for this celebration. But her well-loved tradition lasted for over forty years after she died. The centerpiece of the meal was the turkey, which was often raised right there on the farm.

“November Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

Thursday, November 26, 1914 – “Nice Day. All the family home excepting Alice and husband and baby. We had a very nice time. Two nice turkeys well baked by Agnes, rolls and doughnuts made by Ellen, fine Indian meal pudding, pumpkin and mince pies, cranberry sauce, oysters, pickles, cheese, and coffee.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, November 24, 1921 – “Stormy. Quite heavy ice storm – unpleasant for Thanksgiving day. We had a very nice turkey well roasted with cranberry sauce, all the vegetables, nice biscuit, pumpkin pie, a nice box of chocolate candies from Ed & Carrie. They took dinner with Alice. We missed our family gathering today which we have had so many years together. We certainly have been blessed for which we are thankful.” – Lydia Jane Hall

See also: April, May, June, July, August, September, and October Windows

On Monday: Siberia

TV Dinners

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In a New York Times Magazine article, food writer Mark Bittman claimed he never let his daughters eat in front of the TV.

Really? Never?? I agree that television is much more intrusive now than it was in 1955, but I can’t see that it’s so very bad to eat an occasional meal while being entertained by cowboys, or doctors, or little puppets.

One of my favorite childhood meals was our family’s weekly Sunday night supper. We ate grilled-cheese sandwiches and potato chips as we sat around a card table watching “Roy Rogers” or “Hop-Along Cassidy.” My parents were relaxed, the meal was easy for my mom to cook, and we got to have potato chips for dinner. How great was that! After a week of regimented and “good-for-us” meals like chipped beef on toast, liver and onions, dry meatloaf and canned peas, or Friday night fish sticks, this Sunday supper eaten in front of our tiny television set was a cheerful and welcome change.

On the farm the main meal was served at noon. Supper was casual. By 6:00 in the evening my grandmother must have been beat. She was up before 5:00 a.m. to put on the coffee and start breakfast for my grandfather and the hired men. In addition to her regular housework she helped with the cows, worked in the garden, drove the car to do errands, made coffee and pastry for mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks for the farmers, and cooked a large meal in the middle of the day for whoever was there. And on top of this she was often the babysitter for her seven grandchildren. It’s no wonder she didn’t fix my brother and me gourmet dinners when our parents dropped us off at the farm for occasional weekend stays.

“TV Tray Table,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2014

As far as I remember, Grandma Hall always made us the same dinner on those weekend nights. My brother and I ate it as we sat in the two big armchairs in front of the living room television set. I can’t remember what we watched. It didn’t matter. We had the room to ourselves while our grandparents ate their own meal in the kitchen. No one told us how to eat our food or made us finish what was on our plate before we could have dessert.

This is what Grandma Hall set in front of us on the metal TV trays – a bowl of iceberg lettuce and a bottle of Kraft French dressing to pour over it and a green Melmac plate holding a pile of Franco-American spaghetti and a fried hamburger patty with ketchup.

“Weekend Supper on the Farm,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 2014

For dessert we had strawberry ripple ice cream that our grandmother bought by the commercial-sized tub-full at a local dairy and kept in the back pantry’s horizontal freezer. So frozen was this confection, that my grandmother had to use her sharpest kitchen knife to cut pyramid-shaped pieces from the icy depths. I loved that ice cream. For a slow eater like me, those hard, triangular wedges kept their cold creaminess until the last bite.

When we were finished eating, we cleared our dishes, folded the TV trays, and vacated the big chairs so our grandparents could fall asleep and snore while watching their favorite shows – “Professional Wrestling,” (my grandfather’s first choice), “Lawrence Welk,” “What’s My Line?” or “Beat the Clock.”

“Strawberry Ripple Ice Cream,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 2014

On Friday: November Window

Birthday Cards for Agnes

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It’s November. I need to start planning my Christmas card. I’ve been making my own Christmas cards since I was in college, and I enjoy the process of planning and creating the yearly card. I feel like I’m carrying on a family tradition. Both my mother and my aunt Melissa made cards for special occasions. This one, painted by my mother in 1946, may have been meant for my grandmother, Agnes.

Birthday Card, Janet Hall Crump, 1946

Agnes was born on November 1, 1887 in England, and today I want to celebrate her birthday, just a few days late. When she was six months old her parents brought her across the ocean to Connecticut, where she grew up in a happy household with her parents and brother and three sisters. The Biggs family went to the Episcopal Church in Glastonbury, Connecticut. And even after she joined the Congregational Church in Wallingford when she married my grandfather and came to live on the farm, she remained religious in a practical sort of way – going to church when she was able, and making sure her own children got a Sunday School education.

The Biggs family in 1895. Ethel Rosabell Biggs in front on the left, Agnes Maud Biggs on right. Behind them are their parents, Joseph and Maud Sophia Biggs

Agnes Maud Biggs, eighteen years old

My grandmother was bright and a good student. Her quick mind and cheerful work ethic endeared her to her childhood Sunday school teacher, J. O. Hulbert, who made and sent exquisite birthday, Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter cards to her for over thirty years. When Agnes married my grandfather Ellsworth Hall in 1913, Mr. Hulbert gave her a Book of Common Prayer with this inscription on the front page.

Inscription in Book of Common Prayer

I’m happy that my grandmother, and then my mother, saved these unique cards. I’m sure they influenced my mother’s love of making things. They’ve certainly been an inspiration to me. I admire the care and thought and skill that went into creating such treasures. And I try to picture my grandmother, who I only knew as a mature woman, standing in her parlor wearing her best dress and delighting in the birthday greetings so beautifully made just for her. Happy Birthday Agnes!

Birthday Card for Agnes, J. O. Hulbert, 1898

Birthday Card for Agnes, J. O. Hulbert, 1900

Birthday Card for Agnes, J. O. Hulbert, 1901

Birthday Card for Agnes, J. O. Hulbert

On Wednesday: TV Dinners