Here are some thoughts from a page of one of my Grandma’s Scrapbooks.

I will start with the poem that caught my eye.

A Farmer’s Prayer for Thanksgiving

Lord of harvests, Keeper of our feedlots and orchards, we thank thee for a turkey that is fat.

We thank thee for bread with butter on it.

Would we could set music to the glorious autumn song of praise that rises from these frosted, browning stalks of corn, bent with ears of gold. Accept the fragrance of red clover in yon mow as burnt incense rising from the holy earthen alter of this stock-farm.

Help us to be humble, just, and kind as thy servant said — especially kind to those creatures over whom thou gave us original dominion, which we have subdued and fattened and multiplied and milked according to thy direction.

Make us good shepherds to them as thou art the Good Shepherd to us.

Bless all thine own children about this board or absent from it.

And make our hearts big enough to receive thy bounty in constant Thanksgiving.

Amen

This picture was not directly related to the prayer above, but it does show a farmer and his wife who are giving thanks for their harvest.

This prayer reminds me that we need to be especially thankful for the farmers who grow our food.

Another item on the same page was an article stating that 1956 had been a good year for fruits and vegetables. The farmers indeed had much to be thankful for.

There was also a handwritten note made by my Grandma on the page.

Thanksgiving of 1956 we spent in Omaha. Going up the night before on the ice to the hospital in Council Bluffs to see Harry’s dad. Spent the night with Elmers. Fried chicken for dinner. Then to the hospital again then home. Still icy.

My Grandma must have pasted the items in the scrapbook and wrote the note right after returning home from their Thanksgiving trip.

My Great Grandfather Harvie Braman passed away just three days after Thanksgiving of a carcinoma, and I am sure the note would have been much different had it been written a few days later.

The picture shown above of Harvie and his wife Ruth was taken on Labor Day in 1956 and would have been one of the last pictures taken of him. They are together in the stockroom of his H & R Cafe in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

For more about my Great Grandpa Braman see A Labor Day Picture.

Steven