In her book, "Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap," published in 1977, social anthropologist Margaret Mead explained the growing divide between the younger and older generations. 

The chasm, she said, began to show itself in the early 20th century when immigrant families began to rely on their younger members to help them assimilate and find their way in the new culture. 

For the first time in history, the experience of the elders seemed no longer relevant to the current generation's ability to navigate the future.

Just a few decades later, the outbreak of the Vietnam War and the growing distrust of authority widened the divide between young and old. 

Practically every step forward we've taken as a culture since then has been to the detriment of the "chain of wisdom" that had existed for millenia. Increased geographic mobility; segregation of the generations (nursing homes and retirement communities; college campuses and suburban neighborhoods); the speed of technology and changes in the way we communicate; our hectic, over-scheduled lives and double-income families ... and on and on and on.

I think that we're just now beginning to realize that we've lost something along the way. That in this time of fear and transition in our world — our elders may have something to offer us. At least I hope that we're self-aware enough as a culture to acknowledge the gap. Because it's there.

When we were contacted by a census worker this past spring, I gave the process very little thought. It seemed fairly irrelevant to my life now or down the road.

But my attitude has shifted, having recently stumbled upon Thom Patterson's article What the census can teach us about ourselves. Census records connect past and future — whichever direction you look.

The data collected last year will give the "future" a window to the past, providing our great-grandchildren valuable insight about how we lived in the first part of the 21st century. 

"Basic population statistics are released soon after each census is tabulated," Patterson wrote. "However, for privacy protection, documents with names and personal details of respondents aren't released for 72 years."

So fast-forward to 2082. What interesting tidbits will future family historians uncover about our lives? Patterson wrote, for example, that the effects of the recession will be evident to future historians by the number households with families doubling-up or adult children living with their parents.

But most of Patterson's article discusses the value of past census records in our lives today. They can offer key information about previously unknown or misunderstood pieces of our family history. 

My husband's family has recently uncovered some new and surprising information about his grandmother and her family — all because of census information gathered a century ago. Patterson provides some great insights about what information census records provide — and how to find it.

Ancestry.com is a great place to start sifting around for information about your ancestors (as far back as 1790). The 1930 census is the most recent census details released. You may be surprised by what you'll find …. 

WORLD WAR II THANKSGIVING 
ON THE HOME FRONT : 
NUT-SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE
from : Cooking on a Ration. By Marjorie Mills. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1943.
from : Thanksgiving "Over There."

4 to 6 sweet potatoes
2/3 cup dark corn or maple syrup
1 orange, sliced
1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup chopped nut meats

Peel sweet potatoes; then slice into a buttered casserole, arranging them in layers with orange slices and chopped nut meats. Dot each layer with butter and season with salt and pepper. Pour syrup over them. Bake in moderate oven for 1 hour. A little water or orange juice may be added if needed. Serves 4 to 6.

From : Cooking on a Ration,
by Marjorie Mills.
Houghton Mifflin, 1943.

SUGAR & SPICE APPLE PIE - 1865
from : An American Family Cook Book, by a Boston Housekeeper.  
New York : Oliver S. Felt, 1865.from : Thanksgiving & the New England Pie.

Take eight russetings, or lemon pippin apples; pare, core, and cut not smaller than quarters; place them as close as possible together into a pie-dish, with four cloves; rub together in a mortar some lemon-peel, with four ounces of good moist sugar, and, if agreeable, add some quince jam; cover it with puff paste; bake it an hour and a quarter.


"…it is best to begin by weighing out the ingredients, sifting the flour, pounding and sifting the sugar and spice, washing the butter, and preparing the fruit.… spice should be pounded in a mortar, except nutmeg, which it is better to grate."

ROAST TURKEY WITH TRUFFLE GRAVY
from : The Book of Good Dinners. By Fannie Merritt Farmer, 1905.
The Great American Turkey Exhibit

ROAST TURKEY : Dress, clean, stuff, and truss an 8-pound turkey. Spread with thick, sour cream, and let stand in ice box overnight. Put on rack in dripping pan, sprinkle with salt, dredge bird and bottom of pan with flour, and lay thin strips fat bacon over breast. Bake 2 and 1/2 hours, basting every 15 minutes with 1/2 cup butter, melted in 1/2 cup boiling water, and, after this is used, with fat in pan. Turn turkey frequently, that it may brown evenly, removing the bacon after the first hour of the cooking.

TRUFFLE GRAVY : To 4 tablespoons fat remaining in pan, add 5 tablespoons flour and pour on, gradually, while stirring constantly, 2 cups stock in which giblets, neck and tips of wings have been cooked. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, few grains pepper, 1 tablespoon Madeira wine and 2 chopped truffles.


WORLD WAR I THANKSGIVING
ON THE HOMEFRONT :
SUGAR-SAVING MOCK MINCEMEAT 
FILLING FOR PIE

from : Foods That Will Win the War & How to Cook Them.
By C. Houston & Alberta M. Goudiss. World Syndicate Company, 1918.
from : Thanksgiving "Over There."

  "What are you giving so that others may live? Eat less wheat, meat, fats, sugar. 
Send more to Europe or they will starve." 

1 cup cranberries, chopped
1 cup raisins
1 cup corn syrup
2 tablespoons flour mixed with 1/4 cup cold water
2 tablespoons fat

Mix all. Bring to boiling and place in double crust pastry.


CRANBERRY PIE - 1897
from : Hood’s Practical Cook’s Book. 
Lowell, MA : C.I. Hood & Co., 1897.
from : Thanksgiving & the New England Pie.

Line a plate with a plain paste and fill with stewed sweetened cranberries, scatter sugar over the cranberries and cover with strips of paste placed across parallel in two directions to form diamonds.


"Pie is the great American delicacy in the pastry line, and our foreign friends are prone to poke fun at us because of our supposed fondness for it.   It is assumed to be somewhat more of a sectional than a national weakness, however, and the ‘pie line’ is usually located somewhere north and east of New York."




(Recipes compliments of Pilgrim Hall Museum.)