There were no televisions or refrigerators when Ruby Fulmer, 96, celebrated Thanksgiving with her family in her childhood. Her sister played the family piano and the family sang along. Fulmer now lives by herself and still does a bit of driving.
She recalls last year’s Thanksgiving: her 101-year-old sister and her 100-year-old husband came with their sleep-in caregivers.
“Strangely we had a hilarious time. They ate and laughed and told family stories—some which we knew and some we hadn’t heard before,” Fulmer said.
Thanksgiving was an everyday affair for Fulmer before she moved to the United States when she was 8 years old.
“We thanked God for sunshine and flowers, for trees and plants that gave food, for the rain and springs that gave water. We were taught by our parents’ examples to love and care for each other and to be obedient,” she said.
Young people live in a very different world today, according to Fulmer. Even the food on the Thanksgiving table is changing.
“We never had ‘fast food’ we ate fresh foods prepared and sometimes grown at home,” she said.
Fulmer hasn’t been to the Thanksgiving Day parade a single time.
“On TV it looks to me more like entertainment than Thanksgiving,” she said.
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