THE WAY IT WAS….
…Remembering Thanksgiving
by Al Eicher

We all celebrate Thanksgiving, but do we remember some of the Thanksgivings of the past and why they were so special? I tossed this question around in my head and decided to arrange my thoughts to focus on the various homes or places we spent Thanksgiving from my early childhood. You might be doing the same exercise. I can remember being several times at Grandma Sting's house having a goose for dinner on that day. In the late 40s and early 50s, we had turkey and pheasant at my Great Uncle Harry Leslie's home.

But Thanksgiving is not about food…It is about being Americans and thankful for our many God given blessings and being with family and friends.

You might be interested to know, President George Washington in 1789 proclaimed November 26 as "a day of public thanksgiving and prayer". This proclamation, however, did not lead to a national observance. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln by another proclamation invited Americans to set aside "the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens".

In preparing to write this article, I thought that during my lifetime of 71 years, I might try to focus and search for that special Thanksgiving Period when the whole country was filled with the Spirit of Thanksgiving. With much thought and searching, that had to be in 1945.

Why did I pick a date 61 years ago, and why would there be such Thanksgiving? It was on August 14th, 1945, that people in Michigan heard, via the radio, that WWII was over. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I was ten years old, living with my parents in Pigeon. I remember hearing the bells of many churches ringing for a long time and then starting up again and again. People came out of their houses, wondering what was happening as they hadn't heard the good news on the radio. The town fire whistle also started to blow. The local band teacher pulled together a group of high school band members to play for a gathering and then paraded down the main street. Some churches had prayer meetings.

There was much to celebrate after four long years of war. For those who lost a son, daughter or husband the grieving, I am sure, continued, but they knew their loved ones had not died in vain.

I was curious what happened on August 14th, 1945, in other towns around the Thumb…so I called friends to find out what they remember about that special day. The following is a brief description of their recollections.

At Caseville, Jesse Otto, back then Jesse Beadle, was in Caseville working at Bill Dormey's, Blue Water Inn. The dining room at that time was not busy but she noticed people were gathering in the middle of the street. Soon many more people arrived; everyone was hugging each other and others were crying for joy. The church bells started to ring. When Jesse heard the news she was elated as she had six brothers and one sister in the service at that time.

There had to be great jubilation in the Stoeckle family, at Sebewaing, this day, as they had five young men also in military service. They displayed a five star service flag in their window. The church bells also rang at Sebewaing.

Cass City and Pigeon were like many towns in the Thumb, which activated a Civil Defense team early on in the war. These teams worked around the clock. At Cass City, these volunteers, including Boy Scouts, scanned the skies for enemy planes. Air Raid Warden also knocked on your door when you, by accident, left your lights on during a black out period. This all ended on July 14th, 1945.

The Rationing Program would, praise the Lord, end! Rationing stamps had been issued for shoes, gasoline, sugar, butter and other items. Automobile manufacturers, four years earlier, had converted to making tanks and airplanes. All this would change practically overnight. Soon the soldiers came home and "Rosie the riveter" no longer had to help build the war machines. Our American industry now switched to consumerism.

I don't think we had any idea what was coming in the near or distant future. In 1945 we listened to radio, and in 1946 we saw the first television set ads from Sylvania and Zenith. My Friend Irma was a new situation comedy on radio starring Marie Wilson and Hans Conried.

"White goods" it was called, came in the form of new electric kitchen ranges, electric washers and dryers. There were appliance demonstrations at the Gem Theater hosted by General Electric. Pyrex ware by Corning Glass was something new and so was the Presto pressure cooker. Instant coffee was introduced by Nescafe and Maxwell House. Coca Cola in the bottle was a nickel in 1946 and stayed that way until about 1950.

What was new in children's toys? Many toys were now made of plastic. Metal was needed to build automobiles and steel beams for industrial buildings and new schools. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head would arrive in the early 50s as well as a walking ballerina doll on skates. There were no audio tape recorders or portable radios at this time. At Christmas time in 1950, Bad Axe had parking meters!

In 1947, some of the first "small engine" rotary lawn mowers were on the market to make that task a little easier. Riding mowers were many years off in our future. In 1947 there were less than 100,000 TV sets in America, but seven years later there were 27 million. Television was fast becoming a replacement for radio programming. With the advent of television, we wouldn't have to use our imagination any longer plus all the characters would soon be in living color.

The late 40s and 1950s, for many, are considered the "Happy Days" as a television show of the 1970s reminded us of American life after WWII years…Yes, we do have much to be thankful for over the 61 years following the great war...And That's The Way It Was!!!

Al and Dave Eicher provide television production services to corporations, ad agencies and nonprofit organizations. They also create Michigan town histories and offer lecture services on a variety of Michigan History Events. You may contact them at 248-333-2010; E-mail: info@program-source.com; Web site: www.program-source.com; Address: PSI, P.O. Box 444, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303.