Sharing the Bounty

The country was still in the depths of the Great Depression at Thanksgiving time in 1939.

I was 9 years old, and my parents decided to invite the whole family to our new LaSalle Avenue home in Niagara Falls, New York, for the holiday. It was an unusually warm day for that part of the country, and the men in our family had extra cause  to be thankful because they were all ­employed.

We had a real houseful for dinner. Besides my parents, sister Jeanne and me, there were my four grandparents and two of their foster children, plus aunts, uncles and cousins. Some of us kids even had to eat in the breakfast nook.

The meal was a sumptuous affair: platters of sliced turkey, huge bowls of stuffing, mashed potatoes, baked squash, candied sweet potatoes, plus Grandma’s cranberry sauce and pickled beets. Dessert was homemade pumpkin, mince and apple pies.

We were just finishing dessert when there was a knock at the front door. My mother went to answer it and found a slender, dark-haired teenage boy standing there. He had seen all the cars parked out front and wondered if we would like him to wash them for 25 cents a car. He said he was the sole support of his mother and younger sister and needed the work.

After a brief consultation, it was agreed that he should wash the cars, but this was not enough for the women in the family. They invited him in to fill a plate from the vast amount of leftovers from our dinner.

He declined, saying he couldn’t enjoy such a delicious-looking meal with a clear conscience while his mother and sister waited at home without much food on the table or in the cupboard. Then he thanked us for the offer and went to work on the cars.

But my mother and the other women weren’t finished. While the boy washed the cars, they got a basket and filled it with dish after dish of turkey and all the trimmings. The basket was so full my mother could barely lift it.

When the young man finished with the cars, he came to the door for his earnings. After paying him, Mother told him they had prepared a Thanksgiving basket for him to take home. With tears running down his cheeks, he thanked my mother and the rest of the family. Then he took the basket and, struggling to carry it, headed home.

The next morning, we found the basket on the front porch. The dishes were spotless, and there was a thank-you note from the young man’s mother.

Though we enjoyed many wonderful Thanksgivings together after that, I remember this as one of the most meaningful, sharing our bounty with a less fortunate family.

— By Ellis Delahoy, Ransomville, New York