Generations of St. Andrew parishioners in Tipton continue decades-old Thanksgiving Day Festival tradition

While the St. Andrew parish’s annual Thanksgiving Day Festival is massive compared to when it started almost eight decades ago, the parish’s annual fundraiser still provides parishioners and visitors from miles away a chance to work, celebrate and give thanks together.

This year’s event is billed as the 79th annual, but the first mention in The Tipton Times of a festival-type event at the church was in the issue dated Nov. 29, 1940.

The year before, the Tipton Chamber of Commerce held a card party and dance on Thanksgiving night, Nov. 23, 1939, at the A.F. Martin factory building, which at the time was experiencing a layoff. Proceeds were going to fund the chamber’s Christmas treats for children and the purchase of Christmas decorations for the streets.

That same year, it was reported that Father Herman J. Breit, pastor of St. Andrew’s at that time, was a guest of the Charles Grevillot family on Thanksgiving Day, so it is unlikely there was anything going on at the church.

Under the headline “St. Andrew’s event was well patronized,” the following account is given:

“The Thanksgiving Day turkey dinner given by the ladies of St. Andrew’s parish at the school was largely attended, the proceeds amounting to $378.57. The dance given at Kueper Center that night by the Knights of Columbus also met with a generous patronage, with over 100 couples attending.

“During the course of the evening, two turkeys were given away, one being won by Frank Gerbes, the other going to a Boonville party. Music for the dance was furnished by Jimmy Jolly and His Ambassadors of Sedalia.”

A beautiful day

Regardless of its date of inception, the St. Andrew’s Thanksgiving Festival is still a day for families to come together in the spirit of community, in their extended family, to celebrate and give thanks to God for another year filled with blessings.

In spite of anything they may have endured in the past year, they share their thankfulness one with the other, commiserate over loss, glory in triumphs, and simply revel in being at home together.

This year, the festival dinner will feature 1,200 pounds of turkey — that is meat from 51 turkeys at 22 to 23 pounds each — and about 650 pounds of Burger’s baked ham.

“People have always come to the festival from miles around, and we’ve lucked out with the weather most years,” noted Helen Kuttenkuler, 93, who was 15 when the festival started, her first year of high school.

“Thanksgiving Day will be beautiful, because it always is,” she said.

Nice work

if you can get it

The festival began, according to some sources, as a chance for families who had loved ones in faraway places and didn’t want to spend the day alone to share the holiday together, as well as a way to raise money to pay off the debt incurred in building a new school, which was began in 1939, constructed for $60,000, and dedicated in May 1940.

The festival has maintained much of its original purpose. It’s still a homecoming day for the St. Andrew’s family and friends. It still provides a good meal and lots of fellowship for those who would otherwise eat at home alone, either here or in neighboring communities. And it still raises much-needed funds with the dinner, auctions and games to supplement the parish budget each year.

It also builds up a spirit of camaraderie among parishioners.

“There wasn’t a year when I didn’t work,” said Mrs. Kuttenkuler. “We were so happy to be asked to work. You got to wear high heels and dress up, working as table waiters. We had real pretty coffee pots and filled those from a big pot.”

And so it began, with the young people taking on roles of service, just like today. And as they got older, helpers took on other jobs, each more responsible than the last, many times ultimately culminating in chairmanship of the dining room, kitchen and then the overall day itself.

Mrs. Kuttenkuler is a former co-chair for the event, as is Jean Lutz, who has also “worked every job you could possibly work” at the festival.

Parishioner Joanne Koechner, a more recent chair, said that while she was growing up, her family’s Thanksgiving dinner ended with her older siblings washing their plates and heading to St. Andrew’s to “work.”

“I remember how excited I was to FINALLY be old enough to be included in this tradition!” she said.

It was Thanksgiving 1975. Her job was to push the pie cart around the school basement cafeteria, offering guests homemade deliciousness.

“My classmates, who had jobs pouring tea and coffee, and upper-classmen, who were scheduled to wash dishes, tried to convince me to trade jobs with them,” she recalled. “I had the best job of all and no way was I going to change it! Little did I know, my future self would do just that.”

Sunrise ... sunset

Mrs. Lutz said the early dinners held in the school cafeteria didn’t see near the turnout planned for this week’s event.

“There was less than 100 people there in those early years because people didn’t have the money and it was in the school cafeteria,” Mrs. Lutz said of the smaller venue. “I think we dressed maybe five or six turkeys for the meal.”

Mrs. Kuttenkuler remembers having to finish cleaning the birds, pulling pinfeathers off the dark meat. And when working with Mary Lee Kliethermes, a turkey farmer’s wife, the ladies learned how to properly wash the poultry.

Mrs. Lutz remembers a woman named Rose Lix making the dressing in black skillets.

“She had a recipe that called for chopping the onions very fine,” Mrs. Kuttenkuler noted. “I think they still use that recipe.”

Handing down those traditional preparation methods and staying organized are hallmarks of the festival’s longevity.

“I volunteered as kitchen chairman Thanksgiving 1993,” said Mrs. Koechner. “We started cooking at sunrise and did not finish until 10 that evening. I learned the importance of every step from Mary Lee Kliethermes and Margaret Ann Bestgen,” both of whom left their mark on the day.

“They laughed when I asked why we needed four pressure cookers and ‘why do we cook bones?’” she said. “They diligently taught me how to prepare every part of the Thanksgiving meal.”

You know not the day

The festival was moved to the Knights of Columbus Hall shortly after the new building was dedicated in July 1981.

And the crowd continued to grow.

“Leo Koechner and his crew brought us 700 pounds of turkey that he had been in charge of purchasing and preparing for the 1993 festival,” said Mrs. Koechner. “He had done this job for years, and no one knew how to do it but him. Every kitchen chairman would take notes for the following year to reference. Every year, the chairman would ask Leo what he did to order and prepare the turkeys. His usual response was, ‘Don’t worry about it. I will do it next year.’

“When I asked him that year, he gave me a short description, and said Marvin (his son) would know what to do,” she recalled.

He passed away suddenly two weeks later.

Volunteers fill every role imaginable in putting together the festival, from kitchen helpers to the game room for kids. Mrs. Kuttenkuler said her choice of jobs would have to be the salad room because “it was the easiest. And cutting pies.”

“... If they come out of the pan good!” Mrs. Lutz added.

Wing and a prayer

Parishioner Delores Claas’ husband David served in the U.S. Air Force from 1951-54.

“When we were stationed at Greenville, South Carolina, I opened the paper around Thanksgiving and I was so surprised to see they had a story about the Thanksgiving Festival at Tipton, Missouri,” she recalled.

It was 1952, her first Thanksgiving away from home.

“It made me just a little homesick,” she said.

Mrs. Kuttenkuler said her family ate the festival dinner most years, and then when her daughter moved to Iowa, she worked in the days leading up to the big event and then went there for Thanksgiving Day.

“There have been a lot of good workers, and still are,” she said.

Becky Holloway, a member of St. Andrew parish in Tipton, is editor of The Tipton Times newspaper, in which a version of this article was originally published. It is republished here with permission.