The Spirit of Thanksgivings Past

There are three Thanksgivings which stand out in my memory. One was in the 80’s and involved my nieces Shannon and Charlotte, Kate’s friend Li King, buses from Milwaukee arriving at 1:00 a.m. and much laughter over Wesley and Buttercup. But the memories are - not surprisingly - blurred. It was fun, I know that, but what we actually did, besides eat turkey, is shrouded in the mists of time.


I have much clearer memories of two earlier Thanksgivings. The first was in 1967. That’s John Theobalds standing with Albert and me on the balcony of the little apartment we rented in Detroit, just over the city limit from here. I had stood on that balcony a few months earlier and watched fires spreading out along a main artery from the city as the Detroit riot got underway. I had been at John’s wedding a few years earlier. He married my classmate Rosemary and by this time they had three or so of their eventual seven children. John was working for Proctor and Gamble and had been sent to work for a while at the company headquarters in Cincinnati. Later the whole family lived in the States for two years and we were able to visit back and forth, but in 1967 John was on his own and we were delighted when he accepted our invitation to visit Detroit.

After the Theobalds returned to Hexham, just outside Newcastle, John left Proctor and Gamble. He felt that he could make a bigger contribution to the world by passing on his love of science to children who didn’t have the best start in life. I lost touch with John and Rosemary for a while and when I finally contacted Rosemary three years ago, I was shocked to learn that John had died of a heart attack seven years earlier while his youngest sons were still in school and living at home. Rosemary has filled me in on the events in her children’s lives. All have been academically outstanding and all the boys have become scientists of various kinds. Rosemary, too, has devoted her life to caring for the less fortunate.

Thanksgiving 1970 involved another guest, Ernie’s aunt Sr. Marie Charlotte who traveled to Detroit from the Visitation Convent in Dubuque. I suppose Vatican II influenced the order to tell the sisters to get out and see the world and we were happy that it was our part of the world she decided to see. Staying with us and a three year old, a two year old and a one year old probably convinced her that she had been fortunate in her vocation. That was also the year that our next-door neighbor had an extra ticket for the traditional Thanksgiving Day Detroit Lions football game. Since that was in the days when the Lions actually won games, Ernie snapped up the ticket. That was one long afternoon, waiting for Ernie to get home so we could sit down together for our turkey.

That little girl sitting between Sr. Marie Charlotte and me is Kate. Today she and Ron cooked a magnificent family Thanksgiving dinner. I hope the baton will be passed on to their children.