In the early 1960s, Mom would begin planning for our Thanksgiving meal about a week out.

Dad expected sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, a nice young turkey baked to perfection, mashed potatoes, plenty of gravy and, of course, pumpkin and apple pies. Mom picked up a fresh turkey from Rex’s Market in Ashfield. The potatoes, cranberry sauce and apples were purchased from, probably, the A&P.

Jamie, Carol and I, along with Mom and Dad, enjoyed the meal. Dad, of course, expected some leftover turkey so that four days later he could take some sandwiches with him on the first day of deer season.

Let’s go back to 1900 and see what has changed.

First, a bit of wildlife history. By 1900, due to a variety of reasons, there were only about 500 white-tailed deer living in Pennsylvania. Wild turkeys flourished throughout the state until the late 1800s, but they too nearly disappeared,

American chestnut trees dominated the remaining forests in Pennsylvania. Small family farms were the norm, where a grove of apple trees, grape arbors and small gardens prevailed. The stone fence rows in Carbon County separated the fields, and elderberry bushes flourished there. Bluebirds nested in the holes of the apple trees or in the rotting wooden fence posts around the corral. Starlings and house sparrows weren’t introduced yet. Barn owls nested in the old barns’ hay lofts. You get the picture.

William McKinley just won his second term in the 1900 elections and cars were just showing up on dirt or cobblestone main streets. Folks had no refrigeration, but some could afford ice boxes. Local ponds like the Phifer Ice Dam and Gravers (Graverville area of Lehighton) produced enough ice in winters (that were then cold enough) to cut ice to be stored in ice houses all summer long.

Milk, ice and produce where often delivered by horse and wagons (buggies). Mom, and probably Grandmom, living in the extended family homes, did most of the sewing or quilting, canned meats and vegetables, and maybe sold the down from the domestic geese that wandered around the barnyard. The farm had a cold cellar where the potatoes from the summer crop were stored, as well as the apple varieties that “kept well” for months there.

Here’s what I expect was eaten on Thanksgiving Day in 1900: Mom didn’t go to the store for cranberry sauce or potatoes; she just went to the cold cellar for the spuds. The diminishing turkeys couldn’t supply the needs, so maybe a turkey raised at the farm fit the bill.

Elderberries picked in late summer were made into wine, and the apple drops in their orchard went through a press and hard cider was the norm.

Black walnut trees grew all around the small farms, and the youngsters were assigned the messy job of peeling the black covering off the nuts. Later they broke open the nuts to pry out the tasty fruits, which ended up in the nut bread on the family table.

Homemade applesauce was taken from the jars stored in the pantry; cranberry sauce was probably absent. Neck pumpkins, also stored there, were cut up and made into Pennsylvania’s famous pumpkin pies. The vegetable of the meal was probably either green or yellow beans that were canned in July or August.

Nature supplied the walnuts, chestnuts, elderberries and maybe even watercress from the spring at the spring house. Today, the chestnuts are gone, the fence rows are gone and few take advantage of the walnuts anymore. But luckily for us, Thanksgiving still offers some good family times and the opportunity to thank our ancestors for making the country strong and healthy.

Notes on the wild turkey: The population of turkeys was so numerous that Ben Franklin wanted it to be our nation’s symbol. But market hunting, no hunting laws and the tremendous harvesting of the “big forests” doomed them.

Then the Pennsylvania Game Commission stepped in. First, it tried releasing pen-raised turkeys, but they became a resource like the pheasants today that were stocked in the wild and didn’t survive the hunters for more than a day or two.

Eventually, through research, the game commission started the trap and transfer of turkeys caught in nets and then reestablished them throughout most of our counties. Unfortunately, the pendulum swung back again. West Nile virus (hypothesis) and the reintroduction of fishers has seen the population plummet again. But still, they’re holding on and the turkey is still the mainstay for today’s old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinners.

Test Your Not so Outdoor Knowledge: True/False — Brady’s Lake, Gouldsboro Lake and Tobyhanna Lake were all built to supply ice by rail cars to cities along the East Coast.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: The American robin, Eastern bluebird, and of course the hermit and wood thrushes are all members of the thrush family.

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com