An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving!

The Little Dolls Celebrate Thanksgiving!

In the story "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving" written by my cousin Louisa May Alcott, Mother Bassett was busy preparing for Thanksgiving when she and Pa were called away by an emergency. The Bassett children were left with the oldest children in charge of caring for the family. The children settled by the fireplace after a simple supper and the oldest boy Eph told the family story of their ancestor, Lady Matilda Bassett. The oldest daughter Tilly was proud to have been named after this ancestor, who they referred to as Matildy. The children discuss the old Bassett family and mention that "some of the Bassetts came along with the Pilgrims".

My 11th great grandfather William Bassett came in 1621 on the ship Fortune to Plymouth.

Click Here for Lovely Music

What a splendid turkey!

In the story "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving", the oldest girls of the family, Tilly and Prue, thought they would continue fixing the Thanksgiving meal. In pondering what "yarbs" would be best to put in stuffing for a turkey, sage was considered but sweet marjoram and summer savory were decided upon. Mistakenly catnip and wormwood were the "yarbs" grabbed in the darkness of the storage area. The catnip and wormwood totally ruined the stuffing! The turkey was roasted in front of the fire and some unexpected happenings caused the turkey to be burnt on one side.

Ma and Pa came back home when it turned out that there was no real emergency and the Bassett family enjoyed their Thanksgiving meal despite some flaws.

When all their guests had left Pa Bassett said "Children, we have special cause to be thankful that the sorrow we expected was changed into joy, so we'll read a chapter 'fore we go to bed, and give thanks where thanks is due."

This year will mark the 186th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's birth on November 29, 1832.

My 5th great grandfather Eliakim May was 1st cousin to Louisa May Alcott's great grandfather Samuel May.

 Samuel May's granddaughter, Abigail (May) Alcott, was Louisa's mother; "Marmee" in "Little Women".

 My direct ancestor Nehemiah May was brother to Louisa May Alcott's direct ancestor Ebenezer May.

I used my Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen for roasting the turkey in front of the fire. Here it is shown with the door open for basting. Isn't that turkey a beauty!

Jenny Wren Lindenwood is delighted and amused to watch the little dolls prepare the Thanksgiving meal!

The Corgyncombe Butt'ry holds many of our favorite things, yellowware, stoneware, tinware, jams, jellies, canned goods, baked goods, potatoes, squash, and apples!

At the very end of the story "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving", Louisa May Alcott speaks of "the soft scurry of mice in the buttery, taking their part in this old-fashioned Thanksgiving."

Little Tillie Tinkham, the seamstress mouse for the dolls at Corgyncombe, is a descendant of the Brown mouse family who came on the Mayflower. Mayflower passenger Peter Brown Mouse's daughter Mary Brown Mouse married Ephraim Tinkham Mouse.

The Mayflower was the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America in 1620.

I descend from Mayflower passengers Myles Standish, George Soule, Stephen Hopkins and his daughter Constance, Edward Fuller and his wife, Peter Brown, John Howland, John Tilley, his wife Joan (Hurst) Tilley and their daughter Elizabeth, Richard Warren and am researching Isaac Allerton, his wife Mary (Norris) Allerton and their daughter Mary, two different lines to Francis Cooke and another line to Stephen Hopkins with his wife Elizabeth (Fisher) Hopkins.

I brought out some of my Tasha Tudor Christmas card collection to enjoy at tea with pumpkin pie, cheese, and Tasha Tudor's Welsh Breakfast Tea. Birds have always been a favorite subject for Tasha Tudor at Christmas and throughout the year.

Spinning was an everyday task for Tilly and Prue.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our Dear Readers!

Some of the photographs and some of the writings on this post are from previous Corgyncombe Courant posts that can be found here on the Corgyncombe Courant and from our web site and our previous postings elsewhere on the internet.

Please do not "Pin" our photographs.
Please do not post our photographs on facebook.

Our email:
atthecottagegate@yahoo.com
If you receive an email you think is from me from this email, please make sure it is atthecottagegate@yahoo.com, and not just something that sounds similar.

Photographs, images, and text copyright © 2000-2018 Diane Shepard Johnson and Sarah E. Johnson. All rights reserved. Photographs, images, and/or text may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from Diane Shepard Johnson and Sarah E. Johnson.

http://corgyncombecourant.blogspot.com/2018/11/an-old-fashioned-thanksgiving.html
copyright © 2018 Diane Shepard Johnson and Sarah E. Johnson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Corgyncombe Farmers' Market!

Nanny Nettie-Kin Loads Her Wagon and Readies for the Market!

Nanny Nettie-Kin readies her wagon for the Corgyncombe Farmers' Market.

Click Here for Music

Nanny Nettie-Kin and her wagon have arrived for the Corgyncombe Farmers' Market.
Hitty Delight, the most recent Hitty to come to Corgyncombe, accompanies Nanny.
What a lovely autumnal glow and wonderful day for the Corgyncombe Farmers' Market!

Corgyncombe Acorn Squash

Corgyncombe Broccoli

Corgyncombe carrots being readied for canning.

Corgyncombe cabbage and beans.

Corgyncombe Pumpkins

Corgyncombe cabbage

Hitty Delight helps Nanny Nettie-Kin unload the wagon.

Nanny Nettie-Kin's display at the
Corgyncombe Farmers' Market.

A jug of Corgyncombe maple syrup is up atop the display.

Corgyncombe Potatoes and Tomatoes

Corgyncombe onions

A lovely Autumnal display on our way to ancestral lands in Vermont.

"My Summer in a Garden" by Charles Dudley Warner is interesting and humorous to read during the weeks of vegetable gardening season. A quote from the book: "There is life in the ground; it goes into the seeds; and it also, when it is stirred up, goes into the man who stirs it. The hot sun on his back as he bends to his shovel or hoe, or contemplatively rakes the warm and fragrant loam, is better than much medicine." On the book is a Corgyncombe potato blossom.

Lovely Hitty Delight carries the basket of buttons used by the dolls as currency.
I oft' times carry a basket instead of a purse myself.
Tasha Tudor had the children use buttons to buy goods for their dolls and animals and Sparrow Post to deliver mail. The currency for the dolls at Corgyncombe is buttons, as well!

Corgyncombe Vegetables

Corgyncombe canned carrots.

Corgyncombe Butt'ry

The large golden dollhouse,
Pumpkin House,
an old New England House.

Nanny Nettie-Kin and the Little Dolls of Pumpkin House
bringing the harvest in to the hall of their Old New England House.
Many hands make light work.

And Tillie Tinkham, the seamstress mouse for the dolls at Corgyncombe, comes and little paws help, too.

 

The squash are stored in the hall of Pumpkin House,
which also serves as Nanny Nettie-Kin's Herbary.
Hitty had rushed upstairs with her favorite Pumpkin and hid it under the bed to later make a "Pumpkin Moonshine". Tasha Tudor wrote and illustrated the book "Pumpkin Moonshine" about a little girl who found a special pumpkin to make a pumpkin moonshine.

I acquired the sandstone sink in Connecticut where my ancestors, the Stanclift family, dwelt. In the above photograph I have a colander full of washed carrots from the Corgyncombe Vegetable Garden.

Gravestone carving was a tradition in the Stanclift family. The stone of the gravestones and the Corgyncombe Butt'ry sink are the same reddish brown sandstone. The sink, which was from a very old house in the area the Stanclifts lived, could well have been made by one of the Stanclifts.

Our Stanclift family came from Yorkshire, England in the 1680s.

Nanny Nettie-Kin has had an abundance of squash at her Pumpkin House gardens and decides to make gourd soup.
Above, she is chopping the squash.

The dolls at Corgyncombe and I have many things in common including a love of yellowware, baskets, gardening, and many old fashioned favorite things and old ways.

 Nanny Nettie-Kin cooking her gourd soup on her old cast iron stove, which is called the "Ark".

Nanny Nettie-Kin puts the gourd soup through a sieve.

Nanny Nettie-Kin serves gourd soup.
She went out in her herb garden and found the smallest leaves of sage to put atop the soup.
All the Hittys at Pumpkin House find it to be most delicious!

Some of the photographs and some of the writings on this post are from previous Corgyncombe Courant posts that can be found here on the Corgyncombe Courant and from our web site and our previous postings elsewhere on the internet.

Please do not "Pin" our photographs.
Please do not post our photographs on facebook.

Our email:
atthecottagegate@yahoo.com
If you receive an email you think is from me from this email, please make sure it is atthecottagegate@yahoo.com, and not just something that sounds similar.

Photographs, images, and text copyright © 2000-2017 Diane Shepard Johnson and Sarah E. Johnson. All rights reserved. Photographs, images, and/or text may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from Diane Shepard Johnson and Sarah E. Johnson.


http://corgyncombecourant.blogspot.com/2017/10/corgyncombe-farmers-market.html
copyright © 2017 Diane Shepard Johnson and Sarah E. Johnson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~