Veterans eat free on Thanksgiving

EPHRATA — Seven years ago, Thanksgiving Day changed for Rosie Terry and her husband, Melvin, when they decided it no longer made sense for two people to simply stay home with their big turkey dinner.

"I had a turkey, I had a ham, and there is just my husband and I," she said of that Thanksgiving Day. "I said I'm not going to cook this for just the two of us."

So, she cooked the meat, added the trimmings and brought it all down to the veterans at the American Legion Post 28 in Ephrata.

"All we had was the pool table to serve from," she said. "We covered the pool table, put all the food on it and everybody tried to eat in a hurry while it was still hot."

Since then, Terry has been organizing Thanksgiving Day dinners every year for veterans and their families at the American Legion Post, including a dinner this year at 3 p.m. Thursday.

Unlike the first year in 1998, when they were eating off of the pool table, the newer American Legion building they moved into a couple years ago has many dinner tables and chairs for guests, she said.

Terry also will have the assistance of 10 to 12 volunteers Thursday, who will start working early in the morning to prepare the holiday dinner on time.

"It is more or less the ladies auxiliary that has taken hold and everybody pitches in and helps," Terry said. "People bring stuff and donate stuff and we don't charge a thing."

Last year's Thanksgiving Day dinner fed 50 guests and this year Terry said she expects to host 60 or more. So far, donations for the event have provided one large spiral cut ham, four turkeys, six vegetable dishes, mashed potatoes, eight different salads and nine pies and cakes. She also plans to have deviled eggs, olives, pickles and rolls to accompany the meal.

"It's just giving back to the veterans for what they have sacrificed for this country so that we can do all this in a free country," she said.

The lounge will be open at noon and four TVs will be tuned to football games for entertainment.

Terry said she plans to continue organizing the event every Thanksgiving Day as long as she can.

"If I'm not able to, we've got a young group down there (at the American Legion) that will help me out," she said.

However, she will not be adding a Christmas dinner to her holiday meal planning schedule.

One year, she remembers, between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, a veteran who had been attending the Thanksgiving Day dinner asked what she was cooking for Christmas.

"I said, 'I don't cook on Christmas,' and he said, 'Well, us old folks get hungry on Christmas too, you know.'"