The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

78

THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

the great holiday were universal, and preparations for it were
made weeks in advance. There was a general gathering of
kindred from far and near, feasting and social enjoyment,
while a spirit of general good will and benevolence ruled
the hour.
Everybody attended meeting in the morning, to return
thanks to the Almighty for his benefits. It was expected
that everybody would have a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how straitened his circumstances, nor how
shabbily he had dined on every other day throughout the
year. If there were poor relatives, or acquaintances who
were homeless, they were sure to be invited to the Thanksgiving dinner of some one more fortunate than themselves.
Chicken pie and roast turkey were always served at dinner,
followed by a variety of pies and puddings, and for dessert
there were Messina oranges, Malaga raisins, Smyrna figs, and
nuts. These fruits were not brought from California, which
was at that time terra incognita, but from Mediterranean
ports. Ice cream, sherbet, frozen pudding, charlotte-russe,
and other like modern delicacies had not then come into
vogue.
In my father's house there were always invited at
Thanksgiving a number of poor women belonging to the
church of which he was a member - women who were husbandless and homeless, who boarded in families, or lived in
solitary hired rooms, picking up their meals through the
week as best they could. We children were expected to
treat these guests with great consideration, - they were the
"Lord's poor,"-to be quite content if they monopolized
our places at the dinner table, while we were placed at a
smaller board in an adjoining room. There were also a
number of relatives who dined with us on that day,-not a
large number, as my father's brothers and sisters had large