A Month of Thanksgiving: Day 5 {For People Who Value the Past}

Not too far from the New England Grands stood an old stone mill. It still ground flour and meal. Henry Ford had built it to preserve the past for future generations. Mother had gone there as a little girl; the Grands were married at the white-steepled chapel down the road. Mother's sister was married at the historic inn down the lane, where Mother and Father held a dinner for their wedding party the night before their own marriage. Mother's family still gathered for meals there yearly, charmed by the candlelight and the towering oaks, the smell and sheen of weathered wood banisters. And Father and I used to come here for picnics before we got married, Mother told Pigeon as they drove out to the old mill with the Grands that October.

When Henry Ford bought the inn and expanded the grounds in the 20's, had he pictured a little Pigeon's wonder at seeing it for the first time? Had he heard the tiny gasp at the sight of rushing water, felt the boy's delight at the living history that matched the pictures in his story books?


Mother was thankful for this man, who believed the past would make a pleasant gift for the future. She was thankful for her own father, who believed the same, who loved these old places and nurtured a love for them in his own family.


Some small slice of Mother's rich and simple memories became Pigeon's that day. His hair in the sun and his small strong legs stepping alongside his grandfather's would become part of their own past--a past worth remembering, and worthy of thanksgiving.