Why I Spend Thanksgiving in Fort Worth, Texas...

When I was a child most of my classmates would talk about going to grandparents' for Thanksgiving or having grandparents visit them. I was never the conventional kid, and so instead of that my family always trekked to Fort Worth, Texas. When asked "why?", my answer was usually along the lines of "just because", but over time I began to understand why Fort Worth and why it mattered, and along the way I learned some valuable lessons about life and family.

In the beginning, everyone went to Ma and Pa's house (Amanda Ellen Brown Peacock and George Omo Peacock) near Shay, Oklahoma. It was natural that all their girls and the one son would congregate there. In 1938, Pa died the day after Thanksgiving and according to those who remember, was buried on a cold, rainy day. His death had a profound influence on my mother (then 3), but that is another story for another time. Even after that, the group went to their house for the holiday. There were Thanksgivings during that time period, but for my family, the "first Thanksgiving" was in 1944, and the reason I go to Fort Worth.

In 1944, World War II was in full swing, and all the "girls" except my grandmother had moved to the Fort Worth area to work in defense plants, and Ma rotated living with whichever daughter had the newest baby and needed help. The economy was bad, we were at war, and it seemed as if everything was rationed. Tires were rationed, gas was rationed, sugar was rationed, and other things were rationed. Defense plants worked three shifts a day, and there was no Thanksgiving holiday for those workers. As a result, it was decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at the oldest daughter's house (Auntie to me, Aunt Maudie to the rest of the clan). It would be an all day affair with folks coming together whenever they weren't working.

My Papa didn't trust the slick tires on his 1941 Ford to make it the slightly more than 100 miles, but he didn't want my mom, uncle, and grandmother (Mamie/Aunt Goldie) to miss the family dinner. He put them on the passenger train in Kingston, OK at 4:00am and at the end of the line, Nunkey (Uncle Ernest) picked them up. It was quite the adventure for my mom who had just turned 9 and my uncle Eddie who was about 18 months old.

Auntie and Nunkey had moved to a new neighborhood and had a house on Malvey Street. When they pulled up in front of the house, Mama remembers seeing the two blue stars in the window -- one for each of their sons. She also remembers seeing too many houses with gold stars in the window as they drove the streets of Fort Worth.

Meanwhile, Papa had decided he missed the closeness of my grandmother's "people" and instead of driving about 10 miles to where some of his relatives were having dinner, he decided the tires weren't "that bad" and drove to Texas. He'd never been to the house, and Auntie and Nunkey didn't have a phone then, so he just drove around, knowing it was somewhere near a Montgomery Ward store and a water tower. After asking several folks with no positive results, he continued driving around and happened across my grandmother's two youngest sisters, Jackie and Sis (Velma) as they crossed the street. He flagged them down and went to the Thanksgiving gathering.

It was an all day affair, with loads of food and laughter. There was an ongoing game of 42, and by hook or crook, it seemed Uncle Bufard was the ongoing champion. The children played. The adults visited and listened to the radio. Late in the evening things began to wind down, and a family tradition was born.

In 2008, we had 87 people at Thanksgiving Dinner. Four from the original group assembled in 1944 were there -- Aunt Jackie (of chocolate pie fame and the youngest and only surviving Peacock girl), my mother, and two of her cousins, Bruce and Judy. Bud was one of the blue-star boys that first Thanksgiving, but he has missed very few years since he came home from the War.

We've long since outgrown meeting at a home, and the last 20 years or so we've met in a fellowship hall at a local church, but no matter where we meet it's family time.

In my 44 years, I've missed a few when we've lived too far away to make the trip or my dad only had one day of vacation, and I missed a few years ago when Mom had heart surgery and our family had Thanksgiving at home. Other than that, there's been little question where Thanksgiving Day will find me. Several years stand out in my memory: an unknown year in the early 1970s when some of my cousins and I discovered a way into the YMCA and just about wore out the trampoline; 1985 when Mamie was too weak from the cancer to cook and she sat in her chair and instructed me on how to fix her ham and other side dishes; years when we had lots of new babies, particularly the births of my cousins Andrew and Chloe; and two years ago, which was the first time I went by myself because my parents' were ill and that was the first Thanksgiving after losing my uncle Eddie.

It's been 64 years since the "first Thanksgiving" and yet there are so many similarities -- the economy is shaky, we are at war, and several houses in the family could sport blue stars -- but most importantly God and family remain a central focus of the extended Peacock clan. A new generation has taken over but we remain true to our heritage.

And that is why I go to Fort Worth every Thanksgiving....and Aunt Jackie's chocolate pie is a bonus!