Sundays in Dover
Dover, Ohio was a great place to grow up in the 1950’s. Located in Tuscarawas County, it had rolling hills, green pastures, lakes, and creeks to play in. We also had steel mills and manufacturing plants. Dover had approximately 5,000 residents, a great school system and a beautiful brick football stadium built by Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA). Most of the people were blue-collared workers, many of whom were veterans. We even had our own coal-fired electric plant that helped to keep the cost of living way down. My father, after being laid off from a factory job, went to work for the city at the electric plant where he was in charge of ordering the coal and literally shoveling it into the furnaces. Dad rode his bike, our only mode of transportation, to work and to the grocery store. My mom was a homemaker. I remember my mom saying “our house only cost $3,700, but those $50 a month mortgage payments were hard to make sometimes.”
Life at our home was pretty simple. When my dad wasn’t at work, he worked on the house or in the garden, where we grew the vegetables that we ate in the winter. Mom did the canning. Our meals were simple - leftovers from Sunday Dinner on Mondays, chicken on Tuesday, pork chops on Wednesday and leftovers or sandwiches the rest of the week. But Sundays were the best. Mom, my sister, and I went to church and always came home to a great-smelling house from the Sunday Dinner that Dad cooked for us. The menu was usually decided by Dad while he was grocery shopping. He often made roast beef dinner with potatoes, carrots, or steak on the bbq, chicken, or corn on the cob. If we were celebrating a birthday or a special occasion, we got to pick what we wanted for dinner and what kind of cake Dad would make for us. When it was my birthday, I usually asked for a salmon patty and french fries.
When we got home from church, we gravitated to the kitchen, made sure the table was set, and waited until my dad said that it was ready, usually by 12:30pm. My grandma, mom, dad, sister, later her husband , and on occasion my uncles and cousins would join us as well. I remember that sometimes my sister and grandma would have a contest to see who could eat the most corn on the cob. We laughed and shared stories from the week.
Sunday Dinner was the only time we sat around and talked after dinner. During the week, it seemed we always hurried to get dishes done and get the kitchen cleaned up. Maybe we didn’t rush on Sundays because we ate at noon and had “time” to sit and talk. Great stories were always told and left me wanting more, especially when aunts or uncles or friends stopped by to share a meal with us.
Once I had my own family, I decided to keep the tradition alive celebrating the end of the week and the beginning of the next. Connecting around the Sunday Dinner table was not always easy to do with everyone’s schedule. Friends were always invited. Whether we had our Sunday Dinner in the morning, noon, or in the evening, we always felt it was important to take the time to sit and share our school week or work week with each other and discuss what lay ahead for us come Monday. Sunday Dinners kept us all connected.
By Carol Hunt
Carol lives in Grove City, Ohio with her husband, Jerry Hunt and dog, Sydney. She is an avid reader and enjoys painting. She has been married 45 years and has 4 kids and 12 grandchildren.