From Lenape harvest celebrations to Pennsylvania Dutch apple-butter parties, to modern-day mission meals, the story of Thanksgiving in Berks County reveals how generations have gathered to give thanks — each in their own extraordinary way.
The Thread of Gratitude
On a brisk late November Thursday in 1968, Clarence Swope bundled his family into their Chevrolet Impala after finishing the morning milking on their Pleasant Valley farm. As they drove past the intersection of Route 183, they spotted Frankie Gruber walking from the wagon works.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Frankie!” Clarence shouted through his rolled-down window.
“Same to you, Clarence,” Frankie responded, pulling his broad-brimmed cap against the chill. “A little chilly today.”
“Yes it is,” Clarence agreed. “Winter’s coming, whether we want it or not.”
This simple exchange, documented in Joseph J. Swope’s memoir Pleasant Valley Lost, captures something essential about Thanksgiving in Berks County — a holiday that has always been measured not by parades and football games, but by the rhythm of farm life, family obligation, and the stubborn persistence of tradition, no matter how illogical it might seem.
For more than 350 years, the people of Berks County have gathered in late autumn to give thanks. But the manner of that thanksgiving has evolved dramatically — from Native American harvest ceremonies to Pennsylvania Dutch communal feasts, from supernatural interventions to acts of charity serving the city’s poorest residents. Each generation has put its own stamp on the holiday, yet certain threads remain constant: gratitude for the harvest, the importance of community, and the belief that sharing abundance is as sacred as gathering it.
This is the story of Thanksgiving in Berks County — a tale told through the voices of those who lived it, recorded in historical documents, personal memoirs, and newspaper accounts spanning centuries.
Before the Colonists — The Lenape Green Corn Ceremony
Long before William Penn arrived in Pennsylvania, long before Reading was founded in 1748, the Lenape people had already established their own autumn traditions of thanksgiving in the lands that would become Berks County.
According to historian Jean R. Soderlund in her comprehensive study Lenape Country, the agricultural cycle of the Lenape people culminated each year in what they called the Green Corn Ceremony — “their principal religious celebration.”
The preparation for this harvest thanksgiving began in spring, when Lenape women planted corn, tobacco, beans, squash, and gourds. Throughout the summer and early autumn, the community worked together: men hunted and fished while women tended and harvested the crops, gathered shellfish and berries, and dried fish and preserved corn for the approaching winter.
“In late autumn,” Soderlund writes, “men organized the hunt, burning off undergrowth and creating fire-surrounds to trap deer and other game such as bears, wolves, and raccoons. Hunting parties could number more than one hundred people.”
When the harvest was complete, the Lenape gathered to celebrate. “They commemorated the harvest with the green corn ceremony, their principal religious celebration, by dancing, singing, and feasting on corn and venison,” Soderlund documents.
This was more than a meal — it was a spiritual acknowledgment of the reciprocal relationship between the people and the land, between human effort and natural abundance. The dancing and singing could last for days, binding the community together as they prepared to face winter with full storehouses and grateful hearts.
The Lenape understood something fundamental: thanksgiving was not a single day but the culmination of a year’s worth of cooperative labor, respect for the seasons, and recognition that survival depended on community bonds as much as individual effort.
Pennsylvania Dutch Traditions — Making Work a Holiday
When German settlers began arriving in Berks County in the early 18th century, they brought with them a distinctive approach to harvest and thanksgiving that would define the region’s culture for generations: the transformation of hard labor into joyful celebration.
In a remarkable first-person account preserved in The Socialist Movement in Reading, Pennsylvania, an unnamed observer who spent time among Pennsylvania Dutch farmers in Rockland Township provides an intimate glimpse of this vanished world:
“The community moved in groups from one farm to another, and put away the crops. These were joyful occasions, with great feasts and plenty to drink. The people lived a simple life, with wholesome food, and I have no recollection that there were any poor people about, or that, at any time, any one was in want.”
But what made these occasions truly remarkable was not just the abundance, but the spirit in which the work was approached:
“One thing these people understood, which modern industry has lost, and that is making work a pleasure by creating a holiday spirit round the work. An apple-butter party lightened the toil of sorting, paring, stirring, and boiling. So with husking corn and threshing wheat.”
The Apple-Butter Tradition
The apple-butter party was perhaps the quintessential Pennsylvania Dutch harvest celebration. As documented in Morton L. Montgomery’s School History of Berks County, “nearly every family boiled apple-butter in an open fire-place in the Fall of the year.”
This was an all-day affair. Neighbors would gather at a farm with baskets of apples. The women and children would sort and pare the fruit, while men tended enormous copper kettles suspended over outdoor fires. The apples would be boiled down with cider and spices, stirred constantly with long wooden paddles for hours until the mixture achieved the perfect dark, thick consistency.
Throughout the day, there would be music, storytelling, courting among young people, and a feast that seemed never to end. The work was demanding, but the “holiday spirit” transformed labor into celebration. Each participating family would leave with jars of apple butter — enough to last through the winter — and the knowledge that when it was their turn, the community would gather at their farm with equal enthusiasm.
Butchering Season
Montgomery also documents another crucial pre-Thanksgiving tradition: “‘Butchering-‘ was observed by all, and home-made sausage, pudding, scrapple, hams, and mince-meat were common in every household. About Christmas all the cellars of housekeepers were well stocked.”
Butchering was typically done after the first hard frost, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Again, this was communal work. Families would move from farm to farm, helping with the slaughtering, butchering, and preservation of pork. The men would handle the heavy work while women rendered lard, made scrapple and sausage, and prepared the ham for smoking.
By the time Thanksgiving arrived, every cellar in Berks County was indeed “well stocked” with preserved fruits, vegetables, apple butter, and meat. The feast day itself was a celebration of months of labor and cooperation — a time to pause and give thanks before the hard months of winter set in.
A Farmhouse Thanksgiving in Pleasant Valley, 1968
Perhaps no account captures the lived reality of Berks County Thanksgiving in the 20th century better than Joseph J. Swope’s memoir Pleasant Valley Lost, which documents his childhood on a dairy farm before the valley was flooded to create Blue Marsh Lake.
Swope’s description of Thanksgiving 1968 reveals how little had changed, in some ways, since the Pennsylvania Dutch settlers first arrived:
“We followed our holiday routine year in and year out without fail. Thanksgiving was at Uncle Bill and Aunt Kathleen’s house, and we hosted Christmas dinner… I never did figure out the logic in that, seeing that we were in the country on a rural road, and were much more likely to have bad weather on Christmas than on Thanksgiving. You might have thought that those holidays would be reversed, and that you’d invite family out into the country when there was less chance of a blizzard. But that’s not the way it worked, and logic had no chance of changing family tradition.”
This observation — that family tradition operated independent of logic — is quintessentially Pennsylvania Dutch. Tradition was tradition; it didn’t require justification.
The Sacred Timing
The day began with morning chores. No matter that it was Thanksgiving — the cows still needed to be milked, the chickens fed, the eggs collected. “After the morning chores, we bundled up on this brisk late November Thursday and piled into the Impala.”
After the encounter with Frankie Gruber at the wagon works, the family drove into Reading to Uncle Bill and Aunt Kathleen’s house on Weiser Street. Young Joey’s mother issued the standard warning: “Now mind your manners. Don’t act like pigs.”
His father, Clarence, chuckled. His wife shot him a look: “That goes for you too, Clarence.”
“Shit,” Clarence muttered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The Feast
Uncle Bill and Aunt Kathleen’s Thanksgiving preparations revealed the same communal abundance that had characterized Pennsylvania Dutch celebrations for centuries:
“Uncle Bill had managed to wedge together enough tables and chairs in their undersized dining room to seat all of us, if not as comfortably as you might have hoped. Aunt Kathleen had her stove top and oven, her counters and her kitchen table, and every nook and cranny besides, overflowing with food in various stages of preparation.”
Those not actively cooking learned quickly: “Those of us who weren’t cooking, setting the table and preparing for Thanksgiving dinner in some other way quickly learned to sit on the sofa in the living room and stay out of the way.”
Dinner was served “promptly at 1 p.m.” — a sacred Pennsylvania Dutch tradition that the Swope family maintained throughout their lives. The menu was epic:
“In addition to a turkey of epic proportions, Aunt Kathleen had made potato filling and sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, red beets and red beet eggs, cole slaw, trays of olives and pickles, tubs of gravy, rolls and much more.”
Grace and Gratitude
When Aunt Kathleen asked who would say grace, the four boys — Freddie, Eddie, Ronnie, and Joey — responded in unison with their own version:
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, whoever eats the fastest gets the most!”
After Aunt Kathleen’s gentle correction, they said the traditional prayer, “though it seemed much less exciting than our first rendition.”
“Then the typical madhouse ensued, as dishes were sent around the table one after another until everyone’s plate was overflowing. We consumed our Thanksgiving feast among much chatter.”
Swope notes one poignant detail: His grandfather, “Bebop,” ate quietly, “barely a nod to the conversation. This always fascinated me about my grandfather. In a one-to-one conversation, Bebop was thoughtful, erudite and patient. But he had little interest in speaking over the din in a group setting.”
The Great Potato Filling Debate
No account of Pennsylvania Dutch Thanksgiving would be complete without mentioning the importance of potato filling — a bread-based stuffing that is the touchstone of regional authenticity.
On the drive home, Clarence repeated his annual complaint: “I don’t know what she does with the potato filling. It’s always so runny.”
“Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling should not run off your fork,” he insisted.
His wife tried to placate him: “Don’t worry. I’ll make the filling right for Christmas.”
Years later, Joey Swope would write: “Dad’s admonition about runny stuffing still rings loudly in my ear as I mix my potatoes with toasted bread cubes, onions, celery, milk, eggs, butter and seasoning. I’m pleased to report that Dad never had a complaint about my filling. Lord knows I would have heard about it if he did.”
The Return to Work
After dessert — “Pumpkin pie highlighted a myriad of desserts” — the family “lay half asleep on the sofa” as Bebop tried unsuccessfully to engage them with chess problems. “The turkey and all the fixings defeated every attempt at engagement.”
But farm life waited for no holiday: “We didn’t linger long, because by late afternoon it was time to go home and do the afternoon milking. That was a fundamental fact of life living on the farm: the cows needed to be milked twice a day, no matter where you were or how long it took to get home.”
By 3:30 p.m., the Swopes were heading north on Route 183, their Thanksgiving celebration bracketed by two milkings, as farm Thanksgivings had been for generations.
Thanksgiving at Hope Rescue Mission — Carrying on the Tradition of Abundance
The Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of communal feasting and sharing abundance never died in Berks County — it simply evolved to meet the needs of a changing community.
Matthew Shaner’s book The Glass Jar City documents modern Thanksgiving at Hope Rescue Mission in Reading, describing “one of the longest-running holiday functions in the city.”
On Thanksgiving morning, after putting his own turkey in the oven, Shaner drives to the Mission for their noon meal. An early snowstorm had moved through the night before, leaving the city blanketed in white.
“This year they are fully staffed with volunteers. The parking lot has no spaces available when I arrive, forcing me to an opening at the strip mall across the street. I climb the stairs in the midst of a small crowd waiting to get inside. Men talk with their families who were there to visit. Girlfriends sit across from guys and hold their hands. Someone plays a guitar in the corner of the lobby.”
Robert Turchi, the Mission director, explains the scale of the operation: “Last year we fed two hundred and fifty people. We’re probably looking at the same number this time. We have almost the same number of volunteers. They cooked twenty-five turkeys.”
The scene Shaner describes echoes the communal harvest feasts of centuries past: “The doors to the dining area open and a line forms, allowing people to file inside… Tables are made and places set. Volunteers stand along the wall, hands gloved and ready, watching those who enter.”
The spirit of the Pennsylvania Dutch apple-butter parties lives on — the same impulse to gather, to share abundance, to make sure that no one in the community goes without. The difference is that in the 21st century, the community includes not just neighboring farmers but also Reading’s homeless, struggling families, and those who haven’t “crossed the threshold in years.”
The Thread That Binds
From the Lenape dancing around fires and feasting on corn and venison, to Pennsylvania Dutch families moving from farm to farm to boil apple butter, to modern volunteers serving 250 people at Hope Rescue Mission — the story of Thanksgiving in Berks County is remarkably consistent in its core values.
Each generation has understood that thanksgiving is not simply about being grateful for what you have, but about acknowledging the community that made your abundance possible. Whether it was a hunting party of one hundred Lenape, or neighbors gathering to thresh wheat and husk corn, or a family like the Swopes finishing their chores so they could join the feast, or volunteers cooking twenty-five turkeys for those in need — thanksgiving has always been a communal act.
The Pennsylvania Dutch understood this perhaps better than any culture that followed. As that 19th-century observer noted: “One thing these people understood, which modern industry has lost, and that is making work a pleasure by creating a holiday spirit round the work.”
That holiday spirit — the impulse to transform labor into celebration, to insist that abundance must be shared, to maintain traditions even when they defy logic — is the true legacy of Thanksgiving in Berks County.
And every year, whether in 1893 or 1968 or today, families still gather at precisely 1:00 p.m. for dinner. The turkey is still “of epic proportions.” Someone still complains that the potato filling is too runny. And after the feast, there is still work to be done — cows to be milked, dishes to be washed, neighbors to be served.
Because thanksgiving, in Berks County, has never been about a single meal. It’s about the work that comes before, the community that makes it possible, and the knowledge that when your turn comes to need help — whether from a powwow doctor or a mission volunteer — that community will be there.
Happy Thanksgiving, Berks County. May your potato filling be firm, your cellars well-stocked, and your hexes thoroughly banished.
Sources
All quotes and historical details drawn from documents in the GoReadingBerks collection:
- Soderlund, Jean R. Lenape Country
- Stetler, Henry G. The Socialist Movement in Reading, Pennsylvania
- Montgomery, Morton L. School History of Berks County in Pennsylvania
- Swope, Joseph J. Pleasant Valley Lost
- Shaner, Matthew. The Glass Jar City
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