Welcome to the Mount Holyoke College Class of 1965

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Please join us for

“Food & Food Ways: Then and Now”
presented by our classmate, Caroline Fuller Sloat

CLASS ZOOM MINI-REUNION

SATURDAY, November 13, 2021

12 PM (EST)/11 AM (CST)/10 AM (MST)/9 AM (PST)/6 PM (CET) 

November is the month in which Thanksgiving, the most American of holidays, is celebrated. It is also one that is a really big deal at Old Sturbridge Village, where Caroline was privileged to work for many years. Read Caroline's Bio.

Can you imagine what was stocked at a country store in 1830? How food was procured? How it was paid for? How it was prepared? Caroline will tell us all about the women who wrote the cookbooks that became household names, and how they helped make Thanksgiving a national holiday.

Following her presentation there will be a Q&A session and social time (always!)

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

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For assistance email Videocoordinator@mhc65.com

Did you ever wonder what it was like to be a passenger on the Mayflower? What the Pilgrims ate?  What they wore? How they got to know their Native American neighbors?

In a spectacular presentation Saturday, August 14th, Noelle Parsons Granger answered all these questions and more. She grew up in Plymouth, virtually across the street from what was originally called “Plimoth Plantation” and was one of the first guides hired when it opened. Thus her interest in the Pilgrims and the Pokanoket (Wampanoag) is deep seeded, long lasting, and ongoing.

Her decision on how to write The Last Pilgrim, a work of historical fiction focused on 4-year old Mary Allerton Cushman, turned on what voice to use for the narrative. Finally, after two years of debating this issue, she decided to have Isaac, Mary’s father, speak for her until she became an adult. That worked!

Noelle illustrated her talk with beautiful slides and even added a video of herself sweltering in the winter garb and latchets—shoes—the Pilgrim women wore. 

The women who arrived on the “Mayflower,” having endured an unimaginably miserable 66 days at sea, were then required to stay on board while the men went ashore. Conditions were so wretched, that only five women survived the first winter.

Besides the subject of her book, Noelle talked about two other women who played significant roles in the colony. First, Bridget Fuller, a midwife.  When other ships arrived after the ‘Mayflower’(The Fortune, Anne, Little James), their passengers included many women. Thus Bridget had a very important job, essentially ensuring the survival of the colony by assisting in the birth of many children. 

Another female colonist of note was Elizabeth Warren, who came on the Anne in 1623. Five years after she arrived, her husband, Richard, died and as she did not remarry. She eventually played a role equivalent to that of a man, in that she owned property and paid taxes. Her farm extended from Plymouth to Sandwich, and she earned a place in the Records of Plymouth Colony: “Mistress Elizabeth Warren, an aged widow, aged above 90 years, deceased on the second of October, 1673. Who, having lived a godly life, came to her grave as a shock of corn fully ripe.”

Focusing on Separatist culture, the Plimoth colony, and events of the time, Noelle shared background material from many other topics she researched that were not included in this book. For instance, she talked about a peace treaty between Massasoit and the Pilgrims (Governor John Carver, Captain Myles Standish and Elder William Brewster). They mutually agreed upon nonaggression and mutual defense. I daresay most of us didn’t realize this treaty endured for forty years!

As we learn more about Plymouth Colony, and inasmuch as “Plimoth Plantation” has been renamed the “Plimoth Patuxet Museums,” we can hope for a better understanding of the Wampanoag , ”The People of the Light.”

Thank you, Noelle!

Sunny Eaton Steadman

is a Professor Emerita at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the author of the Rhe Brewster Mystery Series as well as The Last Pilgrim.