One hundred forty years ago, Sarah Hale saved Thanksgiving. By the mid-nineteenth century, the holiday was fading into history, celebrated only in New England, ignored in the rest of the country. Sarah, a mother of five, a poet, the first female magazine editor in the United States, publisher of Poe, Longfellow and Hawthorne, dreamed of an entire nation celebrating a day of thanks together, like a family. So she began to write letters, and inspired the women of America to write letters as well. Thousands of letters. To President Taylor, then President Fillmore, President Pierce, President Buchanan. They all refused the request. But Sarah and her army of volunteers kept writing, to the new President. And finally Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, celebrated for the first time on November 26, 1863 – one week after the President delivered an Address dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg.
Now it’s seven score years later. And this year, just as Sarah Hale and thousands of others came together to save Thanksgiving, this community came together to save something just as precious. Our schools. Our teachers. Our children. Our future. This year, we all share a beautiful new reason to give thanks.
Bennett Tramer