No Chairs, Utensils : Pupils Learn of Hardships at Holiday

Pilgrims and Indians broke bread Friday in Canoga Park. But they didn’t sit down to their Thanksgiving feast. They stood instead.

“We don’t have any chairs,” 7-year-old Kenny Woods said, wiping cranberry sauce off the collar of his construction-paper Pilgrim suit. “We don’t have any because the Pilgrims didn’t have chairs. Each house only had one, and the Pilgrim father got to sit in it.”

The chair shortage was just one of the legends celebrated by 80 primary pupils at Our Lady of the Valley School who re-enacted the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Another was the knife and fork shortage. The children used their fingers and seashells to scoop up their turkey, corn, tuna, carrots and pumpkin pie.

“It’s not really good manners, you know,” said Dale Donckels, 9, who was dressed in an Indian vest fashioned out of a grocery bag. “My mom won’t let me eat like this at home. But this is the way the Pilgrims did it.”

Indian-costumed Julie Reyes, 9, said she decided to eat with her shell after learning that “the moms washed them before we got here.”

Second-graders played the Pilgrims. Third-graders were Indians. They stood side by side at tables in the school auditorium, fidgeting and poking at one another’s costumes.

“I think getting third-graders together with second-graders is probably harder than it was to get the original Pilgrims and Indians together,” said Noelle Flohr, a Canoga Park teacher who organized the meal. “The Pilgrims and Indians did just fine on that first Thanksgiving.”

Flohr said she has staged similar feasts at the Catholic school every other year for 16 years. The schedule gives each student at the school a chance to be either an Indian or a Pilgrim.

Likes Pilgrim Hats

She said her second-graders spent a month studying about the original Thanksgiving and cutting out paper hats, bonnets, collars and shoe buckles.

“I’m glad I’m a Pilgrim. I like our hats better,” said Alma Macias, 7. Eight-year-old Davin O’Brien, who was standing next to Alma, said he preferred being an Indian. “Their hats always fall off,” he said. “Indian feathers are glued on.”

Marilyn Niravath, 8, was also happy. “I’m glad to be an Indian because I’m already an Indian,” she said. “I’m an Asian Indian. My family is from India.”

Sean O’Hayer, 8, had mixed feelings about being a Pilgrim. A plastic musket was part of his costume. But he said it was actually a pirate’s gun.

“I’d rather be a pirate,” Sean said. “They have more fun.”