A new piece of information

Well, we've come to that great national holiday where families stuff themselves, trying to put relatives into a food coma so they won't beat them in line to any shopping specials. We also talk about how great the Indians were in helping Pilgrim colonists from starving while their ultimate reward were pestilence, abuse and ridicule.
But that's an essay oft repeated...now, we know here in East Falls there are a number of people buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery. (The late great Harry Kalas comes to mind.) But this person is connected to Turkey Day. I'll let Gwen Kaminski, Director of Development & Programs at LHC explain:

There would be no Thanksgiving if not for Sarah Josepha Hale...

When we think of Thanksgiving, the traditional story of Plymouth's Pilgrims and Native Americans coming together to give thanks for a bountiful harvest most often comes to mind. This celebration occurred in 1621, while the United States was still a colony under British rule.

However, long after America earned her independence, the significance of Thanksgiving remained unrealized. In 1827, Sarah Josepha Hale began a 40-year campaign, lobbying five presidents and numerous congressman to commemorate Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Finally, in 1863, her persistence paid off, when President Abraham Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation declaring the last Thursday of every November a national day of thanks.

Widowed and penniless at the age of 34 with five small children to raise, Hale was determined to ensure her family's survival. She became the first editor of the first woman's magazine in the United States, Godey's Lady's Book. She was the first to start daycare nurseries for working women, and the first to campaign for equal education for American girls, helping to organize Vassar College. Hale insisted on the term "domestic science" to decribe the noble art of housewifery, and introduced the word "lingerie" into the English language as a way to catergorize a woman's underwardrobe. She raised money both to complete the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and to preserve Mount Vernon as a national historic site. The author of numerous books and poems, her most famous was included in a collection of children's poetry entitled "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

Hale died on April 30, 1879 at the ripe old age of 90, and was interred in Section X, Lot 61 at Laurel Hill Cemetery, the first necropolis in the United States to be honored as a National Historic Landmark. Without question, Sarah Josepha Hale earned her peaceful rest at Laurel Hill.