Thanksgiving is a unique national holiday in the United States, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November each year. It is also one of the most tradition-laden holidays literally centered on the Thanksgiving meal, and the centerpiece of that meal is the turkey.
I can remember, as a child, my mother and grandmother getting up at 5AM to heat the oven and get the turkey going. I’d get up late. That meant 8AM. I would wander into the kitchen, already warmed by the oven with its turkey and side dishes roasting away. I can still remember the aromas of clove, pumpkin, celery, onion, garlic and turkey wafting through the house enveloping me like the warm blanket that I had just crawled out from under.
But where did the turkeys come from that so many families cooked? There were turkeys aplenty at the grocery store, or from special holiday outlets. And many families like ours got our turkey from their employers. My second corporate job had a holiday custom of giving turkeys to employees every year. My mother came to count on these delightful and bountiful birds that saved her both money, and the need to fight the hordes at the local grocery store as the holiday drew near.
Earlier in our country’s history, there were even more ways to acquire one of these birds around the holiday. Turkeys were given as prizes for bowling. For instance, on November 27, 1909, the Montclair (NJ) Athletic Club gave away turkeys as prizes in their annual bowling tournament. In 1910, Pilch and Lorenz each won a turkey at the City Alleys in Spokane, Washington. And the advent of Skee-Ball tournaments meant there was yet another way to procure a bird for the holiday table.
Beginning on November 18, 1920, The Skee-Ball Co. of Dayton, Ohio ran several ads about the Skee-Ball contest they were having on Thanksgiving Day. Prize for the highest score?
A turkey.
On November 30, 1920 the Miami Herald reported that on Thanksgiving Day, Fred Fuchs won a turkey for his high score in the Skee-Ball tournament.
On November 17, 1924 an advertisement appeared in The Robesonian of Lumberton, North Carolina that A. E. Spivey was giving away a turkey for the person making the highest score on November 26th at Skee-Ball at their establishment.
And, on November 20, 1947, an article appeared in the Cloverdale Reveille newspaper, of Cloverdale, California reporting that a Skee-Ball tournament was underway at the Moderne Liquor Store owned by Frank China and Lawrence Hourihan. First prize in the tournament would be a turkey.
So there you have it, turkeys were, and probably still are, the Skee-Prize to roll for in the Thanksgiving Skee-Ball tournament.
Happy Thanksgiving!
And the balls roll on…