Chapin memories of giving thanks

The all-school assembly to celebrate Thanksgiving creates some of the most lasting memories of Chapin community gatherings. Though each assembly only takes a few minutes before the start of each Thanksgiving break, it creates mental images that seemingly last forever, and it permanently embeds the songs of yore in the their hearts and minds of our alumnae. We asked some Chapin women to send us their reflections on Thanksgiving, a handful of which are excerpted below.

Thanksgiving Assembly — back then, it was called Prayers — was a much-beloved Chapin tradition. The fruit hats we made from colored construction paper were big and bright, and we wore them with pride as we marched in. We entered the Assembly Room to view a stage filled to the brim with the canned goods each of us had brought in to donate to those in need. When you see it all on the stage like that, you realize the tangible difference you can make in someone’s life, or more specifically, in someone’s Thanksgiving, by doing something so easy as bringing in some food.

—Leslie Aslanian Williams ’93

What stands out to me most about Thanksgiving at Chapin: the traditional filing into the Assembly Room, the two Kindergarteners in their crowns of fruit presenting bowls to two seniors, and the enormous collection of food on the Assembly Room stage. All of these made us, no matter how small, remember how thankful and grateful we all really were.

—Wendy Anthony McCarthy ’91

All my cousins, as well as our family, went to Chapin.  Still today, when we gather in Connecticut — all 53 of us! — we stand in a circle holding hands, are led in a prayer by our Lutheran Minister brother in law, and sing “We Gather Together” and “America the Beautiful.” The young ones dress up in pilgrim costumes sometimes. It all stems from Chapin Thanksgiving Prayers.

—Louise Hartmann McGinnes ’60

I have the fondest memories of the Thanksgiving Prayers assembly. I have visions of Lower School students wearing leaf wreaths around their heads and bringing in canned goods, and I think I even remember doing it myself when I was very little. I also remember stacking the food contributions on the stage. Because of my Self-Government office, it must have been one of my responsibilities to do this and report to the entire school body of how many cans we had, or how much money we brought in.

—Sarah Harper Dorer ’72

I remember Thanksgiving prayers and the feeling of excitement I had. We had made paper leaf wreaths for our hair. We carried bowls of fruit down the middle of the Assembly Room while we sang, "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing ....” I treasure those memories as long as I live. Prayers meant so much from the time I was in first class to the ninth grade.

—Elizabeth Willard Willett ’63

I consulted some old diaries of the 1950s to see if I had anything to say about Thanksgiving at Chapin. There isn't much of anything, except I noted in 1958, when I was in ninth grade, that my bolero was lying in a mess at the bottom of my locker. I guess we had to wear them for the Thanksgiving Festival, as I referred to it. As we didn’t use the boleros very much, they eventually were buried under gym shoes and such. My earlier memories seem to have us bringing food to the school; it was put on a big table in the Assembly Room.

—Lydia Andrade de Sanctis ’62

Today, as I sit thousands of miles from Chapin, celebrating my first Thanksgiving without my family and old friends around me, I remember Chapin Thanksgiving Prayers. Whatever else may have been happening in my life or the lives of my friends, classmates, schoolmates and peers, that half-hour period right before Thanksgiving break brought us together, if only briefly, in a spirit of community that had existed long before we had, and which continues to stretch unbroken into the future. Thinking about Thanksgiving Prayers has brought the spirit of that holiday back into my life in a way that no amount of turkey or stuffing ever could.

—Kathryn “Katie” Benedict ’06