Thanksgiving Disaster and Christmas Revenge

Thanksgiving circa 1957 was held in Genoa City at Derold and June's house. These were always great family events. Their house was in the country, down a dirt road and about 1-2 miles outside of the town. The house was at the end of the road in a great forest, but with a farmer's field within walking distance behind the house. As boys, we would hunt rabbits and squirrels with their .22 caliber rifles, although almost never actually wounding anything, and we would go exploring in the woods.

When we arrived this year on Thanksgiving morning, we didn't initially smell the turkey cooking, but later we did and just thought this was aunt June getting the turkey in the oven late. She was being very secretive and wouldn't let others help her in the kitchen. Around 2 o'clock, we all sat down for Thanksgiving dinner and were totally ready to feast (picture upper right)! However, instead of bringing out the turkey and trimmings, June brought out individual turkey TV dinners (Swanson?). An audible gasp was heard...almost like a scene out of Christmas Story ("No turkey dinner! No turkey leftovers! No turkey sandwiches!"). June and Derold then told us that a poor family in their church could not afford a Thanksgiving dinner, so they gave that family ours, including all the trimmings and dessert, and then bought TV dinners for us. I remember him saying that it was a day not only to give thanks for all that we had, but also to help others who were less fortunate.

However, this did not sit well with mom, who was looking forward to the real thing, and she let it be known that she wasn't amused. Derold laughed it off (as did most of the rest of us) while Eileen stewed and plotted revenge...

....continued at Christmas 1957 in Rockford!

Everyone was invited to Rockford for Christmas that year and mom plotted her revenge like Eisenhower planned the Normandy invasion on D-day. She surprised us with a turkey dinner a week or two after Thanksgiving, saying it was for the one we missed in Wisconsin. Then, she carefully stripped all the meat off the bones and cleaned and bleached the carcass. She then painstakingly glued sequins and glitter all over the caracass and carefully wrapped it as a Christmas gift. On Christmas morning, as we were all opening gifts, she mentioned that she had a very special gift for her dear brother Derold, and brought out this large and beautifully wrapped present..........