The Thanksgiving game was the culmination of the football season in recent decades. (Photo provided)
Having grown up in Sussex County and having lived here the whole time (except for college), I have seen much change. Then again, much stays the same.
In years past, it seemed that there were fewer people here, reflecting the old statement of “more cows than people” for the population. Like most of America, there were fewer humans living on the land.
The cows have decreased as time has moved forward.
From days when the railroads came through here, roughly 1850s onward, the bovines were part of subsistence living and were part of the farming family’s food supply.
After the arrival of rails, transportation of milk and meat were available for shipping to the city.
Milk production was a staple of our Sussex County industry for more than 100 years.
Imagine that, in one perspective, not much changed on the farming front with “being rural” as a backdrop for a century.
This made for a quiet and close family tradition to develop: anticipating Thanksgiving before the advent of the winter.
The farm-fed Thanksgiving dinner was heartfelt as well as personal.
Schools were essential, and the older and plentiful one-room schoolhouses grew, according to our history resources, from shortly after the Revolutionary War and 1800.
There were many so the farm kids could walk to the classroom. They were small, and with few children in each class, all years learned together. The students were companions, with their personal lives and the heritage of community that they all knew and shared.
School consolidations came about in the early to mid-1900s, and secondary education became established as well.
Rivalries between towns became a Sussex County thing and held a strong following, with those who grew in the footsteps of their parents on common ground in town and county.
This created a somewhat festive end to the popular football games in the colder air before the snows came.
I know of a strong rivalry between Franklin and Newton that held popular sway for at least half a century. The Thanksgiving game was the culmination of the season.
More recently, in the past 50 years or so, those going away to college or service might be able to come home for the holiday and those pick-up tackle football games of old school chums would make for a muddy retreat to home for the Thanksgiving dinner.
During the past 25 years, a 5K run or fun walk allows residents to take a last jaunt in the autumn air.
Through my lifetime, Thanksgiving has been a national time for sharing food and good times with family and friends.
Thanksgiving has reflected a first dinner of European settlers on this continent having friendly relations with the First Peoples who helped them and shared with them.
The telling of this story has, for me, given a strong positive feeling of how we have before and how we can live now, live with our brothers and sisters honestly, healthily and prosperously in the American way of life.
Contact Bill Truran, Sussex County historian, at billt1425@gmail.com