By Jeff Salisbury

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.

Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.

If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

— Tecumseh

Thankful this holiday weekend for lots of things… family and friends, of course, both present and past… but like all Thanksgiving weekends (at least since I made the family tree connection) I find myself especially so for my most famous relative.

You see, my 11th great-grandfather Elder William Brewster was the spiritual leader of the Mayflower Pilgrims and I am thankful for him and his patience, persistence and perseverance, which allowed him and his followers to endure great hardships before and after leaving England and without whom I would not be here today, almost 400 years later contemplating my own sense of personal and family thanks-giving.

I am also grateful for the blessings brought to the Pilgrims and non-Pilgrim passengers of The Mayflower by the members of the nearby Wampanoag tribe of Native North Americans.

On Thursday last, thanks to the efforts of my wife,  Penny — whose 10th great uncle George Soule, though not a Pilgrim, also made the same arduous crossing with Elder Brewster and his congregation and who survived to earn his freedom from indentured servant to free citizen and who then successfully encouraged his other siblings to come to the Americas in ships that soon followed the Mayflower, we are also indebted to as well — we hosted our immediate family –  son Mike and daughter-in-law Jill and grandchildren Mitchell and Sarah…  our daughter Shelly and our son-in-law Aaron and grandchildren Auston and Maddie as well as Aaron’s parents, Terry and Nancy.

One day perhaps we will see Plimoth Plantation and visit both the Brewster and Soule homes there and pay our everlasting respects and thanks-giving to those two families, along with all the ancestral families as well as those of the noble Native Americans whose kindnesses and generosity to the families of our ancestors seeking refuge in their lands made and makes our very existence possible.

I am thankful to all those who came and went before us and to the generations that will follow us all.

I hope we can all strive to do right by them each and all and leave a lasting legacy of humble gratitude.

For more on Elder William Brewster: www.mayflowerhistory.com/brewster-william

For more on the Wampanoag side of Thanksgiving: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/22/wampanoag-side-first-thanksgiving-story-64076

Fore more on Shawnee Indian political leader and war chief Tecumseh: http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/tecumseh