Thanksgiving memories

Editor's note: This is part four of a five-part Thanksgiving week guest column series.

Thanksgiving in Charleston, Mo, was the happiest and the saddest of times.

The day started at the First Baptist Church at 10 a.m. at a community Thanksgiving service, which was always packed. I sang in the Girl's Glee Club and we always performed the same number, "Thanks Be to Thee, O God." It was so familiar that even the second sopranos did not need the music to know their notes and lyrics. Miss Louise Ogilvie was the director. The minister always prayed for the players and the coaches who would take the field for the annual Turkey Day Game at 2 that afternoon. Personally, I prayed that Charleston would win over Sikeston, and I was not the only person in the church praying that same prayer.

From there, we hurried to our homes to eat the traditional Thanksgiving meal. For me, our huge house outside of Charleston rocked with food and people. I was the youngest of eight children, so my older sisters brought in baskets of food, babies, their in-laws, their out-laws, and, sometimes, their laundered linens. It was a time of sharing. My dad invited anyone in his church who had no place to eat, and everyone was welcomed. If we had an overflow crowd, we knew that FHB (family hold back) needed to be activated immediately. My mother stood over the stove with a scarf tied around her head to keep any sign of a hair out of the food she was preparing, and she hummed the tune of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms."

The men always sat at the "first table" in the dining room, and those of us who planned to go to the game grabbed the next set of plates, piled on food and sat down anywhere we could find a chair. There was always turkey and dressing, homemade rolls made by my sister, Julia, black cherry salad, pimento cheese stuffed celery, brussels sprouts casserole and two kinds of potatoes as well as a myriad of desserts. No one left the table hungry, except by choice.

I ate little. I wanted to be on the field for warm-ups so I could boo when Sikeston came on the field. My best friends, Harriett Goodin and Karen Ellis, were cheerleaders and we usually beat the referees getting on the field. Soon the bleachers began to fill up and the people overfilled the Charleston side. The women in town spent hours planning their outfits for the game. If snow fell, so be it. Sometimes it pelted us the entire game, and when the game was over, the pain began. Never once did I see Charleston beat Sikeston. Not even once. It made for the saddest of days.

I would go back home slowly. No one cared about my hurt except my brother-in-law, Warren, who felt the same pain. All of the rhetoric, "It's just a game," and "There will be another year," was unappreciated, but after a little while, the tears stopped and I filled a full plate. Mama told me to try the tomato aspic -- she knew I loved it. My sisters, Rose Marie and Betty, started after me to come sing with them. My brothers-in-law Joker, Warren and Audley, continued to tell me their stupid jokes until I finally was forced to laugh. It was at that time that I began to remember the joy that comes with family.

I am still so grateful for the lessons of this Thanksgiving experience. The days of life bring happiness and they bring sadness, and in the midst of both, we search for the strength to cope with each.

Enjoy the day.

Jane Cooper Stacy is a Cape Girardeau resident and former director of alumni and development at Southeast Missouri State University.