Local residents now enjoy such events as the Turkey Trot and various free Thanksgiving dinners on the fourth Thursday of November and prepare to string up lights and decorate homes for Christmas.
Years ago, the holiday was centered around the family much like it is today, but Loveland’s traditions weren’t always the same.
In 1923, Thanksgiving turkeys cost 35 cents per pound, which was a discount of five to seven cents from the year before.
A Reporter-Herald article said, “The turkeys are big and fat this year, said several dealers and market owners here today. One dealer who is considered authority regarding them, said that there is more corn in the country this year than usual, and farmers have fed heavily of it to the turkeys.”
An interesting fact to note was that bylines and attribution on articles was not a big part of news writing back then.
Thanksgiving Day events
Associated Veterans dinner: Annual Ann Jenson Thanksgiving Day Dinner, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 305 N. Cleveland Ave., Loveland. The event is open to all veterans, their families and anyone who is alone, in need or homebound. Call Rita Henderson at 663-2374.
New Freedom Outreach Center dinner: 175 S. Madison Ave., Loveland, fourth annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the community of Loveland at noon, the group reaches out to the Homeless Coalition, and to anyone who would like to come for a Thanksgiving dinner. Call 669-1480.
McKee Foundation Turkey Trot: 3.1-mile race begins at 8:30 a.m. on Hoffman Drive near McKee Medical Center, Loveland, $35 for adults and $20 for kids on race day. Call Hayley Carson at 581-0318 for details.
Thanksgiving potluck: Thanksgiving Potluck and Sing-Along, 4 p.m., at the Wild Basin Lodge, 1130 County Road 84 W., Allenspark. Fresh-roasted turkeys provided. Bring a side dish or dessert for the buffet table. A cash bar will be available. Reservations are appreciated, but not required.
All holiday events: Post your upcoming holiday events in our live forum at rhnews.co/merryloveland0 or Tweet them with the hashtag, #merryloveland.
An ad by Edwin Anderson ran several times in the days before Thanksgiving in the 1920s for the annual turkey shoot at S.G. Anderson Ranch northeast of Loveland boundaries at the time. The turkey shoot involved shotgun and rifle targets as well as a “high dice” game.
Ray Mehaffey, whose grandfather farmed the land west of Loveland that will be the future Mehaffey Park, remembers that the Thanksgiving meal was mostly homegrown in the 1940s as he was growing up.
Letters to Santa
Children can submit letters to Santa in several ways:
Walk-ins: Drop off letters at the Santa mailbox in the Reporter-Herald lobby.
Mail: 201 E. Fifth St., Loveland CO 80537 care of “Santa Claus.”
Email: Children can write their letters and ask their parents to email them to news@reporter-herald.com with “Letter to Santa” in the subject line. Parents, don’t worry about editing your children’s work for spelling and grammar.
Phone: We have a call in line this year where children can call Santa and leave a message with their Christmas wishes at 970-599-1218.
More info: Messages will be printed in the paper and posted online. Audio calls will also be posted online to listen to. A few cute calls might also make it into our Twitter Feed or Facebook. Call 635-3636 for details.
His grandfather raised many of the vegetables and turkey used on the table, and his mother canned vegetables and fruits early on and then used them for the holiday meal.
They raised turnips, peas, green beans and cherries, and sold them to Fred and Fred’s Grocery Store (Fred Fishburn and Fred Pomrenke). They also sold cherries for two cents a pound if people came and picked the cherries themselves.
“I do remember one Thanksgiving instead of a turkey, (my grandfather) brought in a rooster,” Mehaffey said. “It got out and we chased it all over the neighborhood and finally caught it. The head was chopped off and it was the toughest chicken we ever had. We ran the tenderness right out of it,” he added with a chuckle.
Mehaffey said he was a mail carrier for the Thanksgiving issue of the newspaper, which ran the day before Thanksgiving, as there was no issue on Thanksgiving Day (the Reporter-Herald didn’t run issues on Thanksgiving or Christmas days through at least 1965).
His bicycle route to deliver the paper was about 12 miles. “That was rough, going through the snow,” he said.
Mehaffey liked the tips at the holidays, especially the bag of of homemade popcorn one subscriber always gave him.
As there was no television back then, which means no football, his family- which included his brother, parents and a grandparent from each side-played board games, made snowmen or had snowball fights on Thanksgiving Day.
In 1965, advertisements of meat for the Thanksgiving meal by the pound included midget turkeys at 49 cents, young ducklings at 49 cents, roasting chickens at 45 cents, heavy capons and oysters at 79 cents and stuffed turkeys at 59 cents.
City crews decorated the Loveland Community Building-now the Pulliam building-with “Yuletide” lights after Thanksgiving in 1965 and announced a drawing contest with prizes when businesses opened the following Monday.
All businesses in Loveland, except for “hotels, eating places and drug stores,” were closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas days.
The Reporter-Herald made up for it the day after Thanksgiving with articles like one on Nov. 30, 1923, that said, “Loveland enjoyed a plain, quiet Thanksgiving yesterday. The city was quiet throughout the day, and there were few disagreeable features here to mar the day.”
The article detailed a Thanksgiving service at the “Christian church” and said that “It was pronounced by many who expressed their opinions as being one of the best Thanksgiving services witnessed in Loveland in recent years.”
Stay tuned for a column on Christmas Day with anecdotes about what Christmas was like over 50 years ago.
Thanksgiving in Days of Grandmother
Note: This is an article written Nov. 26, 1923, about what grandmothers did in preparation of Thanksgiving Day, which would have been in the 1800s at the time.
Our grandmothers began preparation for Thanksgiving day long before it arrived. Pickles of all sorts, apple sauce and preserves were prepared ahead of time. Mince meat was mixed that it might ripen and acquire a more delicious flavor. All the vegetables were ready for the pot on Wednesday night, the chickens or turkey were stuffed, the puddings and pies were prepared and there was nothing to do on Thanksgiving Day but cook the dinner.
Oysters belong to Thanksgiving, according to tradition, because friendly Indians who joined the early celebrations brought gifts of shellfish. A garnish of fried oysters is tasty and appropriate to surround the turkey, or a dish of scalloped oysters may accompany the turkey, or an oyster cocktail or oyster soup may be served before the turkey, or may be molded in a thin layer of jelly, which should be cut out with a fancy cutter.
A cupful of chopped peanuts blended with two cupfuls of coarse bread crumbs or cracker crumbs and seasoning is a fine stuffing for the turkey…
The article continued to discuss particular dishes prepared for the day.
Jessica Benes: 970-669-5050 ext. 530, jbenes@reporter-herald.com, twitter.com/jessicabenes.