1921: Learning To Be Thankful

By Grace Cash © 1995

Issue: Winter, 1995

Editor's Note... The following is one of a series of articles written by Grace Cash. She lives in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Watch for more of her stories in future issues.

In 1921 I entered Macedonia School and I was placed in the beginners' class. My school supplies consisted of The Primer, a slate and chalk, a Blue Horse writing tablet and a penny pencil. Somehow I never thought of myself as a beginner - there were so many things I already knew before I became a student at the one-room school house. We had all leafed through - and made a plaything - of whatever book we chose from Mama's side table. She still had The History of the United States, one of her textbooks at the church-house school when she was in the seventh grade. That was my favorite of the books on the table, its interest due mainly to its supply of black-and-white pictures.

I got on well enough with reading and writing and simple blackboard arithmetic, but November came and Thanksgiving Day. In preparation for that special day, the teacher gave us a writing assignment. We were to tell in one sentence the reason we were thankful. I remembered the picture in Mama's history book, showing the Pilgrims setting the table for the first Thanksgiving dinner. The women had on black dresses and white aprons and white caps. Each Pilgrim father had on a broad-brimmed black hat, a black suit and a rifle slung across his shoulder, ready to defend the families from Indians if they came and gave trouble. The Pilgrims were thankful for a free country and freedom to worship God.

I thought I would write that as my sentence. I would copy the Pilgrims, and say I was thankful to live in America, and free to worship God. Mama wrote my sentence for me, and I copied it for the teacher; "I am thankful that I have a father and mother to care for me." I could write what wasn't in books - I could write about Papa and Mama and being scared they would die! Sometimes I dreamed that Papa - or Mama - or both parents had died. The dream would wake me from a fretful sleep, and I would think; "If they die I'll have to go to the Orphans Home." Then I would snub, my head hidden beneath the covers, till I went to sleep.

Fear of the Orphans Home was common among the 1920s farm children. They knew when a farmer died and left his widow to raise the children, the burden would likely reach beyond her handling, and the children would be put in the Orphans Home or distributed among people who wanted a child, and the brothers and sisters would be separated. (In 1925 a family in our community had a similar experience. The twin girls, who were ten years of age, were sent to the Orphans Home when their widowed mother died, and the girls knew at the mother's funeral that this plan had been made.)

In the 1920s everything on the farm revolved around the plow hand. The effects of the First World War still smoldered in the shadows, and economic recovery was slow for farm people. When death struck the farmer who guided the mule in the fields, it brought disaster to the family. For this reason there was great rejoicing in countless households when a male-child was born. Just such fear - kept discreetly secret - caused Mama to write my thankful note, subtly stating what would happen to me if I didn't have a father and mother.

The next day when the teacher read the "Thankful" notes to the class, she knew I hadn't written mine. My wide-eyed classmates stared at me, not believing I wrote it either. It sounded "made-up." It didn't sound like "I am thankful for my doll," or "I am thankful for the sled Grandpa made for me." But Mama knew what would happen if we lost our plow hand - she knew it was the crowning reason I should be thankful, no matter what country I lived in.

That was the beginning of all the reasons I have ever had to be thankful. I am thankful to be a citizen of the United States of America, a free country. I am thankful I am free to choose my own vocation, and occupy myself unhindered in the pursuit of health, happiness and success, and not only for myself, but for all citizens alike. I am thankful I can vote in the county, state and national elections, men and women alike.

I am thankful I can protest, as did the Founding Fathers, when I believe a regulation or circumstances has been wrongfully imposed by higher authorities upon myself and my country and its people. I am equally thankful I am free to praise and celebrate when something good and wonderful has taken place in the nation. Above all I am thankful for freedom to worship God, and to keep a Bible in my home, or wherever I am, freely acknowledging my belief that the Bible is the Bread of Life, a divine gift intended for all people.