Community Corner

Archives Director's Thanksgiving Cornucopia Overflows with Memories

Barbara Kellner has memories of stuffed dates, Uncle Walter's plum pudding and a wicker cornucopia that has been the star of at least 56 Thanksgiving tables.

Each year, when Barbara Kellner pulls out a wicker cornucopia in preparation for Thanksgiving, she is transported back to her childhood as memories of family life in Flushing, NY, rush over her.

The cornucopia — not packed away as carefully as one would expect from the director of Columbia Archives, she readily admits — is about 56 years old and is filled to overflowing with memories of loved ones.

"I have pretty strong memories of Thanksgiving," said Kellner, who deals each day in memories as the steward of the planned town's history. "It was always celebrated in a big way at our house."

Find out what's happening in Columbiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Kellner, mother of two and a long-time Columbia resident, perhaps has more of an appreciation of the past than most.

As the keeper of Columbia's history, she's concerned about what the move to online media and communication will mean to how history is recorded and preserved for the future.

Find out what's happening in Columbiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

She fears a time will come when the paper photographs, documents and other treasures that people enjoy filing, cataloging and researching will no longer exist.

That appreciation of history is what makes her childhood memories so important.

As she was growing up, each major holiday was "claimed" by a member of Kellner's extended family. Thanksgiving belonged to her parents, so her immediate family hosted the gathering.

As a child, Kellner, 66, was invited into the kitchen and encouraged to be part of the preparations for the annual feast, whether she helped prepare menu items or set the table.

Growing up, she had two specific tasks: to make stuffed dates and to fill the wicker cornucopia with fruits, nuts and natural decorations, such as leaves from the garden.

"I think I was about 5 or 6 when I started making the stuffed dates," she said. "We'd get a box of dates, and I would put a slit in each one and remove the pit. I'd stuff them with half a walnut — or maybe a quarter of one — close the slit back up and roll them in sugar."

It was a challenging task to crack the walnuts and remove the meat in one piece.

Thanksgiving kitchen memories are particularly strong for Kellner because, with full-time help in the household, her mother didn't cook often.

"It was really the only time I remember helping in the kitchen," she said. "But my grandmother was a baker and I learned how to bake with her."

She also has vivid memories of a traditional dish that none of the children ever ate.

"There was this plum pudding that one of my bachelor uncles brought to us from a very expensive, fancy store in New York," she said. "It came in these beautiful earthen bowls, and those bowls became the ones that my mother served dishes in.

"And it was always a big deal that Uncle Walter was bringing the plum pudding."

The pudding, similar to a fruitcake, was a dark brown, unappealing dish that was set afire after being topped with a "hard sauce" of confectioner's sugar and butter and doused in liquor.

"To this day, I have never tasted plum pudding," she said.

When Kellner's mother died at the age of 52, Kellner claimed Thanksgiving for her own to carry on the family tradition.

She continued to make the stuffed dates for a number of years until she figured out that no one actually ate them and her own two children wondered why she went to the effort for something no one liked.

But the wicker cornucopia continues to hold a treasured place at Thanksgiving gatherings.

When Kellner and her family moved to Columbia nearly 30 years ago for her husband to take a job here, the cornucopia was among the family treasures that made the move.

This year, Kellner spent Thanksgiving with her daughter and son-in-law, Aime and Scott, and their three children, in Newport News, VA.

And when she hit the road, the beloved cornucopia was along for the ride as well.



Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here