According to original sources, the Pilgrims had cod and bass, waterfowl and turkey, venison and corn on hand for the first Thanksgiving harvest feast in 1621. No cranberries are mentioned.
Julie Hatfield was an award-winning staff reporter for The Boston Globe for 22 years, 18 of them as fashion editor. She is now a freelance travel writer and feature writer for numerous newspapers, magazines, and websites. She has two grandchildren.
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Music mutes the wind and rain at the nation's oldest museum
On a dreary Saturday in November, as rain and hurricane-force winds pelted the streets (the kind of day that makes parents wonder, "What can we do with the kids indoors?") Pilgrim Hall Museum was open, but not for business as usual.
Educator and musician Ann Pizer enthralled a group of children from the ages of seven months to 15 years for a full hour — dancing, singing, playing colored sticks, and making up funny lyrics.
Two-and-a-half-year-old Sofia Watts of Plymouth, Mass., shyly stood and watched Pizer play guitar and sing. By the time Pizer had given her some colored sticks to knock together and started singing “Yankee Doodle” and then playing "Freeze!" — Sofia was happily banging her sticks together and rocking back and forth to the music.
Sofia’s baby brother, 7-month-old Logan, got into the spirit after Pizer played rock music tapes, bouncing on his daddy’s lap and calling out "Aagh!" presumably his own version of "Rock on!" Nearby, James Mullen, 4 ½, of Randolph, Mass., was breakdancing to the music. His “Auntie June” Jordan of Taunton, Mass., said, "We’re always looking for things for James to do, and this is perfect."
As it was billed as Kids (& Grandkids!) Day, Pizer included the third generation in a verse of “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain.”"She led the kids in singing, “She will have to sleep with grandma when she comes (Move Over!)."
Pilgrim Hall’s History
Kids at this museum are encouraged to touch (certain) artifacts, sketch, and draw as they learn about the first white settlers to the country, and — on occasion — make noise and dance through the halls. Pilgrim Hall, the nation’s oldest continuously operating public museum, is open seven days a week. It offers four levels of treasure hunts — kindergarten through high school — for children to find things within the exhibition halls, answer questionnaires on clipboards, and win little prizes.
While the museum is closing from Dec. 2, 2007, until May, 2008, for a $4 million renovation and expansion, Kids Week school vacation programs will continue at a nearby hotel. Colonial craft-making and activities for children, parents, and grandparents will be offered in February and April.
"Kids Weeks are especially popular with grandparents," says Peggy M. Baker of the museum staff. "Many retirees like to bring their grandchildren to Pilgrim for a one-on-one session of painting or creating objects related to the museum. We find that the grandparents will spend the entire two-hour session with their grandchildren, and they seem very happy that there are no distractions such as television, computers and telephones."
Pilgrim Hall offers artifacts of everyday Pilgrim life, a ship model of the Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620, maps of the Wampanoag settlement and stories of the first Thanksgiving. Through Dec. 2, visitors can "Hear the History!" through earphones. Selections range from the Separatists’ Old Hundredth Psalm, Algonquian drumming and singing, and sea shanties, to the 2007 rock music of Aerosmith! Band members live in and around Plymouth.
The Pleasures of Plymouth
The museum is in the center of town, near several other sights that a grandparent would enjoy with the little ones on a sunnier day. A handout from the museum will lead you on an artistic treasure hunt at nearby Burial Hill. You can help your grandkids find gravestones featuring “a chubby-cheeked angel head” or side panels carved with flowers.
From Burial Hill there’s a good view of the harbor. It’s an easy walk to the waterfront to see Plymouth Rock and tour the full-sized replica ship, the Mayflower II. Let the kids romp alongside Town Brook through Brewster Gardens park before visiting The Jenney Grist Mill, where a costumed miller grinds cornmeal for sale.
About three miles south of town, the extensive living history museum Plimoth Plantation depicts 17th Century Plymouth and a centuries-old Wampanoag homesite. Costumed Pilgrims and contemporary tribespeople engage visitors in one-on-one discussions about the arrival of the English on New England’s shores.
Since this is the home of the first Thanksgiving, not only are Pilgrim Hall Museum and Plimoth Plantation open on Thanksgiving Day, but they celebrate it with special feasts and exhibitions. It just might be more fun for Grandma and her grandchildren than their going "Over the River and Through the Woods...."
