Children of the Mayflower get traditional for Thanksgiving

Helen Brewster Nims Anderson can trace her family’s American ancestry all the way to the Mayflower voyage. On her mother’s side, she’s related to William Brewster, a Mayflower passenger who became a church elder of the Plymouth Colony.

So perhaps it’s no wonder why in 1974, Anderson, then of Newport Beach, took her family’s Thanksgiving traditions to the next level.

She gathered everyone at O’Neill Regional Park in Trabuco Canyon to a enjoy a day outside with all the fixin’s and dressed in a bit of pilgrim garb. In addition to the food, they’d bring footballs and baseballs, playing outside and enjoying one another’s company.

“It was a huge success,” Anderson said in an interview Wednesday in her son’s Newport Beach home. “Just wonderful.”

The event took place regularly from 1974 until about 2002.

Now, the Andersons are bringing it back, and four generations of their family, about 25 people, ages 1 to 97, are going. They’re coming from throughout Orange County and as far away as Salt Lake City.

Anderson’s four children — Thomas, Richard and Robert Anderson, as well as Carol Owen — say this year is particularly important because they want their mother, now 97 and living in Irvine, to be there.

O’Neill Park has always been the perfect place for the tradition, “because it’s remote and nobody goes to a park on Thanksgiving,” Thomas said.

When asked how she’ll feel, Anderson said she’s “just excited for them. I wanted to have a party where the family was all together, because they’re either on one half of the country or the other half.”

Robert said he’s always enjoyed how having Thanksgiving outside, in a park, allows for much more activity than typical Thanksgiving dinners.

“The freedom of having two or three dogs running around,” he said, “football games going on — the ability to do all that stuff while you’re still having a turkey dinner is pretty fabulous.”