Ypsilanti Thanksgivings in a Hard Time

Husband and I had for tonight's dinner "Thanksgiving Hash," a delicious mishmash of mashed taters, cooked yam, gravy, stuffing, and turkey all warmed up together.

There is a tower of reusable tubs in the freezer with at least six portions of leftovers for upcoming lunches.

But there was a time when such lavish, easily-obtainable amounts of food was simply not the case in Ypsilanti. It was during World War Two.

Thanksgiving Suggestions from 1896

The Ypsilanti grocers Kief and Meanwell offered a list of tempting Thanksgiving goodies in the November 20, 1896 edition of the Ypsilanti Commercial.

Two items that seem to have been more popular then are an assortment of table relishes and plum pudding. There are also a few brand names that I hadn't realized were so old. I also hadn't realized that salad dressing was commercially available this early, in lieu of making one's own at home. The foods are:

Queen Olives in bulk
Queen Olives in Bottle,
East India Pickles,
Cross & Blackwell's Pickles,
Heinz's Chili Sauce,
Heinz's India Relish,
Lea & Perrin's Sauce,
Durkee's Salad Dressing,
Keystone Gelatines,
Bon Ton Cheese,
Nose Gay Club Cheese,
Malaga Grapes,Catawba Grapes,
Jersey Sweet Potatoes,
Cape Cod Cranberries,
Fancy Layer Figs,
New Mixed Nuts,
Gordon & Dilworth's Plum Pudding.

Thanksgiving Note to the Ministers of Ypsi from Editor C. R. Pattison

C. R. Pattison was the most fiery editor in all of Ypsilanti history. He treated his paper, the Ypsilanti Commercial, as a large cannon. He didn't fire it in every weekly issue of the Commercial, but when he did not even local ministers were out of range.

The Commercial's printing-house stood at the corner of Huron and Cross Streets, though I don't know which corner it stood on. In the November 22, 1884 edition, Pattison tells local preachers to tone it down already.

A HINT
As a rule Thanksgiving sermons are unmercifully long. This fact has kept a great many people away from church. A year's thoughts and ideas are piled into one effort. Boil down, cut off the prefaces and expletives and long drawn conclusions. Give the solid meat.

Again enough singing is piled service to last five years. Last year we laid up the program of song, such a multiplicity of pieces on purpose as a reminder to this coming occasion, but we have mislaid it.

At all events short prayers, not over three glorious Thanksgiving hymns, a brief boiled down wide awake sermon, and there will be many more thankful souls. Many a good woman can give the promised good dinner and yet enjoy the church service, many a farmer and farmer's wife can come to church and get back to their turkey, and not grumble all the way homeward and be [ticked off...]

In the very same issue, even on the same (front) page, Pattison delivered another editorial, this one aimed at the Commercial's detractors.

ANYTHING BUT STAGNATION
Some would like to have the Commercial tamed or toned down so as to give no progressive ideas, to be very careful not to advance a step beyond the path it has been accustomed to tread. Not give its readers anything to think of but lull them to sleep with the same old song. Better give them something to get mad on, for they will soon get over it and feel better, than to administer to a perpetual stagnation of thought and action. It is the glory of American freemen that they are not hampered and if they kick and get a little mad [they] yet have common sense enough to soon get over it and behave manfully and nobly. The COMMERCIAL would not be worth taking did it not stir up your laggard brains and ideas occasionally. Count on it doing so at least when you need it bad.

Turkey Poem from the Farm Journal

--Reprinted in the November 20, 1891 Ypsilanti Commercial

Thanksgiving through the years

Thanks to the Citizen for publishing my T-giving tale! I am so happy to be published in the Citizen! Here's the story.

Save Wires for War!

Kind readers, if you were thinking of calling your gramma in Florida over Thanksgiving, or your cousin in California, please--don't.

Those phone lines are required for urgent war-related business. Don't imperil that business by making a social call over the holiday.

Please make only the most urgent Long Distance calls on Thanksgiving Day, and keep those calls as brief as possible.

Dusty D found this ad while researching a Thanksgiving story to turn in to the Courier tomorrow.

Note that it is Michigan Bell that is telling its own customers to NOT use its service--in contrast to today's phone service providers, who, to some, seem intent on determinedly extracting an inordinate amount of money from one's pocket.

Perhaps Michigan Bell's ad was made in a spirit of patriotism. Or, more cynically, perhaps they knew their lines were at the maximum load already with wartime work and they didn't want to deal with thousands of irate civilian customers unable to put calls through MB's over-stressed system.

Around this time, another rationed item was coffee. Coffee was going to be officially rationed a few days after this November '42 ad. If you were caught hoarding it, which translated to buying more than 1 pound before the ration went into effect, you could be fined $10,000 or sentenced to ten years in prison.

The war was real and loomed large in the lives of Ypsilantians, when today, to many of those without a service member in the family, the war is at best just a glimpsed headline to an unread story.

--Ypsilanti Daily Press, November 24, 1942