LETTERS FROM DAD AND MOM: BILOXI THANKSGIVING

We celebrated our Thanksgiving Sunday this year so we could all be together: traditional, family-oriented. The grandchildren talked easily about school, video games, friends. The men watched soccer, football, NASCAR. The women chatted about TV cooking shows and good books, while cleaning up the delicious remnants of turkey, dressing, fruit salad, green bean casserole. In 1943 my parents planned to be part of a similar family Thanksgiving scene, minus the television, video games and green bean casserole. Dad had completed his training at the Air Corps Technical School at Kessler Field in Mississippi, where Mom had joined him in July. His furlough was planned to begin Thanksgiving week, but the “good ole Army” changed its mind and they were left in Biloxi for another week.

Dad wrote to his parents in rural Michigan, “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving—my first one away from home. I have a pass from four thirty until seven thirty Friday morning. That will mean Eva and I can spend all day together. She already has the chicken for our dinner.”

Mom was quite excited about that chicken. She wrote to her in-laws, “I got acquainted with a lady with a car…this morning we went down real early to see about getting a chicken. There’s a place she knew of where you could buy them alive and then they dressed them while we wait. It was $1.55 for a 3 ½ pound one….I scrubbed and cleaned that chicken for a good hour so it ought to be clean. I’m going to stuff it (bought some fresh oysters too), have never done it before so am anxious to see what it will be like.”

Later she notes, “We surely stuffed ourselves,” and even describes the table set up in their one room tourist cabin, “Our table really looked nice even if we didn’t have a table cloth for it…We ate so much we stacked the dishes and took a nap…then we went downtown to a show.”

Certainly different than our Thanksgiving held over sixty years later, but maybe not so much, still an emphasis on good food, being together, and entertainment. Especially being together, sharing a small segment of their lives; finding a way to embrace the moment given, rather than the moment postponed.

Both Mom and Dad knew the furlough coming up would be Dad’s only chance to be home before going overseas. Mom wrote Dad talked about seeing his nephew and nieces, whether they would even “know me.” She quoted him, “Eva, I can’t tell you how much it means to be going home.” But for Thanksgiving they were together and that was enough.