Thanksgiving; Celebrating Thoughtfully.
Greetings to all!
I have written many many Thanksgiving week newsletters to this community over the years. This one will be different, for a number of reasons, but first a bit of background and context.
If you were at Featherstone Farm for our 30th Anniversary Celebration in September, you will recall the story at the front end of the “History of FF Timeline” that we put together. The origin story for the name Featherstone Farm. Very briefly, this is the story of my great grandfather, AP Anderson; his roots on a homestead in Featherstone Township just north of Red Wing, the memoir he wrote late in life, and the impact this all had on me as Jenni and I contemplated a life in agriculture (hint: it was the inspiration).
For nearly 30 years we have celebrated this legacy at Thanksgiving time, with a big family gathering at the home that my great grandparents built just 3-4 miles up the road from the original Featherstone homestead (now known as the Anderson Center for the Arts). We are celebrating there again this year; Emmet has taken over the organizing, and he reports there will be over 40 people in attendance. Wonderful! Thanksgiving has always been a big deal for me, as a farmer celebrating the completion (survival!!) of another growing season.
But two things are different for me for this year’s holiday. First, an important connection that I made while preparing the Timeline for our Anniversary in September: AP Anderson was born on November 22, 1862, precisely 34 days before 38 Lakota warriors were hung ~100 miles west of the homestead (Mankato), in what is to date the largest mass execution in US history. The origins of my family’s success and legacy in SE Minnesota- something I have celebrated my entire adult life- were and are inextricably linked with the now unconscionable displacement of the region’s original inhabitants. I now have to have this in mind as I look in the mirror, preparing for Thanksgiving dinner this year. The true story of Featherstone Farm is a lot more nuanced than I’ve cared to think about for the past 3 decades.
The second thing that will powerfully temper my sense of self regard(!) this year as we gather for Thanksgiving, is a feature length movie that Jenni and I just watched these past several evenings: Lakota Nation vs United States (https://www.lakotanationvsus.movie/). I’ve been aware of this documentary for several years; Jasper and I visited my cousin Benjamin as he was writing and filming it in 2021 (Ben produced the film). And I was aware that Lakota Nation just won two Emmeys in September (best Documentary and best Director). But we had not taken the time to watch it, until now (we will be seeing Ben in two days and can’t come unprepared! ).
Watching this film was the kind of powerful experience that leaves a person sitting silently in their chair, minutes after the credits cease scrolling by. I am not going to summarize the film, or tell you what to think about it; I am going to recommend that you watch it and draw your own conclusions.
My ancestors may or may not have been directly involved in what we can now safely call a genocide. But they- and I!- undoubtedly benefitted from the bonanza that followed its bloody conclusion in 1862. As Minnesotans, we owe a good part of our modern day livelihoods to the death of the Dakota nation that was here long before anyone named Anderson or Hedin.
I have written many glowing accounts of Thanksgiving dinners at Featherstone Farm and at the Anderson Center (what my grandparents and family still refer to as Towerview Farm). Some of these accounts have undoubtedly crossed the line into a self congratulatory tone. This year I will still celebrate the holiday whole heartedly; we truly DO have so much to be grateful for, and taking an occasion such as this to be mindful of it all is important! AND- not but- I now see that we can do this in a more modest, more thoughtful way. In fact, I think we have to.
Holding and accepting two different- even opposed or irreconcilable- realities in one’s mind at the same time without going crazy… isn’t this someone’s definition of wisdom? Perhaps this is another thing for me to be grateful for this Thanksgiving: I am certainly getting balder and harder of hearing as I approach 60. But there may be a silver lining as well.
Gratefully- Jack Hedin