LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - NOVEMBER 22, 2020 by Lynne Belluscio Thanksgiving is truly going to be different this year. We all may have to search for things to be thankful for. But I know I am thankful that I can be with my family albeit by phone or zoom, and that all of us are safe and well. I am thankful that my family understands why I have decided that it is best for all of us to share my dinner withBelle, Smudge, Meow Meow and Batman. I am thankful that I love turkey leftovers. I am also thankful that I don’t have to cook this year, because when the tree came down on my powerlines a few weeks back, it wiped out the control board on my oven and I haven’t replaced it yet. I’m also thankful, that if I had to, I could roast a turkey in front of the fire in my old fireplace, and I could bake bread and pies in my wood-fired brick oven but I don’t have to. I am also thankful that I have the means to share some Thanksgiving with the folks at the Village Green Nursing Home. And I am thankful to the folks who enjoy reading these articles for the past thirty- two years. I am going to share an edited version of an article that I wrote twenty-five years ago in 1995 about a Thanksgiving 110 years ago in LeRoy. It was just before Thanksgiving in 1910. Alexander Sutherland bought a live turkey for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner and brought it home and put it in a bag in the woodshed. He planned to “dispatch” it later that day. His wife planned to pluck the feathers and get it ready for the oven but the turkey had other ideas. Sutherland heard a loud crash in the dining room and when he went to see what had happened. He discovered that his Th a nk s g i v i ng a d i nn e r had escaped from the woodshed and had made its way into the dining room. The frightened bird crashed into the china cupboard and broke the family set of china and did a pretty good number on the china cupboard in the process. This story was reported in the LeRoy Gazette and although there is no mention of what became of the errant gobbler one can only suspect that it eventually made it to the dinner table - - on the everyday dishes. Thanksgiving week in LeRoy in 1910 was full of activities. The local schools held special Thanksgiving programs on the Wednesday. Dominic Mogovero, Rosie and Bettina Antinore gave recitations. Margaret O’Shea, Winfred Olsen and Ralph Stevens did a dialog. Louisa Rider read a poem, “Harvest to Come.” The front page of the Gazette listed all the children who participated in the school program in length. At a time when football games weren’t on television, it was still a Thanksgiving tradition to watch football and it was a big attraction in LeRoy on Thanksgiving Day in 1910. Three LeRoy teams had games scheduled on Thanksgiving Day. The first game of the day was at 10 in the morning at the Summit Street field. The All LeRoy Eleven played the self- p r o c l a ime dh j ama t e u r champions of Rochester, the Dreadnaughts. Don McVean and Fenton Taylor scored touchdowns. The final score was 12 to 4. (How in blazes could you get a score of 4?) The 1:30 game was between the LeRoy Stars and the East Ends from Buffalo. LeRoy lost the game 18 to 0. The Buffalo team was a lot larger than the boys from LeRoy. At 3 pm the High School played against Griegsville. It was a grudge match since LeRoy had defeated Greigsville the Saturday before. This game was also played on the Summit Street gridiron. (The name comes from an open hearth cooking implement used like a grill to cook meat over hot coals. The wrought iron bars arranged in parallel lines resembled the yard lines on the football field.) The game was the final game of the season and LeRoy beat Greigsville again in a blowout, 41 to 0. There were seven touchdowns: three by Glidden, two each by Bundy and Kavanaugh. Glidden and Selden each kicked 3 goals. During the season, the LeRoy High School team scored 111 points against their opponents and had been scored upon for only 5 points. The week after Thanksgiving the Wiss Hotel hosted the entire winning LeRoy High School team for a special dinner. The LeRoy merchants were getting ready for the Christmas season and shoppers were reminded in the Gazette that there were only five weeks until Christmas. (I wonder if Mrs. Sutherland received a new set of china for Christmas.) And how do you keep a turkey in suspense? - - - I’ll tell you later. How to Keep a Turkey in Suspense