Was Consumption the Topic Around Your Thanksgiving Day Feast?
By James W. Petty, AG, CGRSSM, BS (Genealogy)
On Thanksgiving Day, many of us found ourselves sitting up to the traditional feast memorialized on this holiday. The table was covered with mouth-watering delicacies; mashed potatoes, candied yams covered with a marshmallow crust, cold apple cider, and hot citrus fruit punch, fresh baked home made rolls with cranberry jam, bowls of assorted hot vegetables, corn on the cob, bread and walnut dressing, and the ever present roast turkey. On the side table are pumpkin and apple pies, and an assortment of other pastry delights for those who still have room after the main courses.
After the meal when family members sit around talking and chatting did your discussion sound anything like this?
“Wow, am I full!” “Wasn’t that pie and punch great?!”
“Yeah, and that turkey was so moist and delicious; I just ate until I was stuffed!
“And now that you mention stuffed, I loved the stuffing. I consumed so much of it I thought I had died and gone to heaven!”
“Hey, talk about ‘consumed’ and ‘gone to heaven’, I remember reading in our genealogy where great great grandpa died from Consumption.”
“That right, son! But we don’t know if he actually went to heaven!”
“Dad, are you telling us that one of our ancestors actually died from eating too much Thanksgiving turkey?”
“No. but I do remember a death record I found about someone else’s great grandpa, who died in Arkansas from ‘over-eating opossum’. That would be called ‘over-consumption’.But, what I mean about our ancestor dying of ‘consumption’ is that he died of a disease known today as tuberculosis. In early times ‘T.B.’ was called ‘consumption’ because it ‘consumed the body.'”
“That’s very interesting, Dad. What other kinds of diseases have there been in our family, and what should we know about them to protect ourselves and our kids.”
“Well, my Grandpa Lewis had diabetes.”
Have you ever sat down with your family and talked about your ancestors and loved ones. and discussed your family health history? This is a very important and most appropriate topic to raise at family gatherings like Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
This holiday season would be a good time to share this type of information with our brothers, sisters, and children.
Just this past month, the Surgeon General of the United States announced a new program called the U.S. Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative, to encourage all American families to learn more about their family health history. U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona, M.D., declared Thanksgiving 2004 to be “the first annual National Family History Day,” noting that Thanksgiving is the traditional start of the holiday season for most Americans and their families.
The web site for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/) discusses this new initiative, pointing out that Americans know that family history is important to health. “A recent survey found that 96 percent of Americans believe that knowing their family history is important. Yet, the same survey found that only one-third of Americans have ever tried to gather and write down their family’s health history.”
“Because family health history is such a powerful screening tool, the Surgeon General has created a new computerized tool to help make it fun and easy for anyone to create a sophisticated portrait of their family’s health.”
By connecting to a “link” on the Health & Human Services website the government provides citizens with a free publication similar to a family pedigree chart, that helps people record the names of parents, children, uncles, aunts, and other relatives, and their relative health issues. This “tool” or chart will help you record your information, and when completed you can “print out a graphical representation of your family’s generations and the health disorders that may have moved from one generation to the next. That is a powerful tool for predicting any illnesses for which you should be checked.
Family history is more than a collection of names, dates, and places. It is an account of who, and what your ancestors were; where and how they lived their lives. If you don’t know what your family health history is, start talking about it. It isn’t something that should be hidden from the kids, or forgotten in time. Your ancestors still have a valuable role to play in their family’s lives. They can provide you with the knowledge to help you live longer, and live a better quality of life. If you don’t know who your ancestors were, begin searching for them now. Contact parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Visit a local family history library, or go to www.familysearch.org/, and learn how you can begin the search for your family tree. If necessary, contact a professional genealogist who can access records and uncover your family history for you.
Begin gathering your family history now, and in a year for Thanksgiving (or better yet, this Christmas), when the clan gathers around the table again, you can start to share the stories of your genealogy and discuss your family’s health history. Then your family can consider the meaning of “Consumption” around the holiday feast.
