[Ohio-Talk] From Peggy Chong, the blind history lady.

[Shelly Duffy]

Black Friday and the blind

Are you going shopping on Thanksgiving this year before the turkey settles in your tummy?  Do you remember when nothing was open on Thanksgiving Day?  This time of year, we hear from many corners, the new traditions for what has become known as “Black Friday” and Thanksgiving.   

It seems to me that businesses want us in their stores for their Black Friday specials before the dishes are done on Thanksgiving Day.  Some hearty shoppers now get in line, outside a store on Wednesday before the turkey, camp out to be the first one through the doors for that special door-buster.  

Some say, “let the turkey have his day”.   Some stay home till early Friday morning.  While others of us stay in our jammies and shop on line three days before Thanksgiving.  There are many who leave the table, the turkey carcass and the dishes to sit in the overstuffed recliner telling us they are watching the game, with their eyes shut much of the time.  Yet we all know not to change the channel.  

So, what has this got to do with The Blind History Lady you ask?  In our history, some blind organizations had their Thanksgiving traditions on behalf of the blind.  Many of them occurring on Thanksgiving Day.  No, not shopping or a “Tag Day”.  Public events ranged from holiday events sponsored by society women to craft and Christmas sales by blind crafters.  Schools for the blind performed Thanksgiving Day concerts to launch the holiday season.  

One hundred years ago, Thanksgiving was a time of giving to the blind across the country.  In 1908, the Nashville Globe reported on a free Thanksgiving dinner held for orphans and the blind at the Railroad Protective Association.  The meal was donated and served by volunteers of Nashville.  

In Seattle Washington, a clothing merchant, Paul Singerman and his two sons began hosting Thanksgiving dinners for the blind at the Germania Café about 1903. They carried on this tradition for more than ten years.  At this dinner, the Singerman family performed for the blind by playing piano and singing.  Usually, the blind play for the sighted.

In 1910, the Sunshine home for Blind Babies began its holiday fundraising on October 31.  The home solicited public and private schools who took the Sunshine home on as a project through the school children.  Children and schools competed to raise money for the blind babies. That year they raised more than $3,000.00 by Thanksgiving.  

The Sunshine homes convinced families to turn over custody of their blind children to the homes as many of its staff and volunteers claimed it was so stressful on a family to raise a blind child properly.  

In the District of Columbia,  in 1933, members of the American Legion spent November giving to the blind by shellacking hundreds of pages of braille for the blind of Washington D. C.  This was done to many of the library books to protect the pages and lengthen the life of the book from being read by fingers.  Just in case you think that the shelacking had to be done by the sighted, not true.  In California in the early 1900’s many organizations that brailled books had blind proof-readers that also shellacked the books.  

The National Library Service, NLS, was not fully funded by federal dollars until 1932.  In the District of Columbia’s early years of library service for the blind, from about 1898 till 1931, most of the funds came from gifts and donations.   Yet the fundraising continued to pay for projects not covered by government funding.

In 1935, the Friends of the National Library Service for the Blind, made up of leading society women sponsored plays that opened at midnight on Thanksgiving Day.  

This was an ongoing fundraiser for many years.  Two very active young women, Peggy Townsend and Eleanor Meems, Debutants of the 1938 season though just 18, sold tickets for weeks in advance of the midnight performances.  The young women approached the socialite families, urging them to purchase bunches of tickets.  Many of the socialites gave the tickets to friends, domestic help or their employees.  For Eleanor and Peggy, this was just one more charity and chance to get their names in the newspapers.  Eleanor’s aunt Gertrude was most active as a volunteer with NLS almost until her death in 1951.  Gertrude often encouraged the young people to get involved in Library events and fundraisers to help the blind.

Blind patrons of the Opera could attend performances with crippled soldiers at many of the New York City Opera Houses for free during the holiday season of 1933. 

An article from a New Orleans newspaper tells of one generous Thanksgiving that caught the blind off-guard.  The words chosen by the newspaper reflects the impression that much of the community held towards the blind.

“Thanksgiving Santa Claus visited the Lighthouse for the Blind yesterday and left rejoicing in his wake. That there was "something in the air" became evident about 10 a. m., when the students in the institution were Invited to step into the board room. There Miss Sadie Jacobs handed each married couple a fourteen- pound turkey and each single person a two-pound box of candy. She acted for the donor, Harry Offner, who stood smiling in the background of the picture, enjoying it all as much as he did the picnic, he gave the 
blind last summer. 

Another pleasant event of the day was the dinner, at which members of St. Beatrice Circle, St. Margaret's Daughters, were their hostesses. The circle, of which Mrs. Finlay D. Ross Is president, gives several events annually for the blind, their special charges. Music by the blind musicians and dancing contributed to the success of the "spread."

John Bischoff, a famous blind organist always played for Thanksgiving services at the First Congregational Church in Washington D. C. at the corner of 10th Ave. and G. Street.  He was employed there from 1894-1909 as director of music.  Even before his employment at the church, many non-members packed the church on Thanksgiving and other holidays just to hear him play.  Members of the church thought of him as their famous organist, not a blind organist.

Now, a story to warm the hearts of any cynic.  In New York City on Thanksgiving Day of 1910, Miss Beryl H. Clarke, age 35, a blind librarian in charge of the Department for the Blind of the Pacific Branch of the Brooklyn Circulating Library and William M. Gooshaw, a blind chair caner ten years her junior were married.  The couple met almost five years before, just after the accident that blinded William.   She agreed to teach him how to read again with books through her library.  A friendship grew and soon a marriage that lasted almost 20 years until his death.  They purchased a large home where they rented our rooms.  Beryl remarried but passed away in 1944.  

Although today we may scoff at some of the Thanksgiving traditions of free meals for the blind, we also should remember the times they lived in.  For some of the blind men and women coming to these free meals, it was their first time to meet another blind person