Welcome to the Strong Women Podcast, where each week we explore a deeper understanding of the humanity, value, intellect, and creativity of women.

I'm Sarah Stone Street.

And I'm Erin Kunkel. Glad you're here.

Welcome back to the Strong Women podcast for our Thanksgiving edition. And first of all, I want to just say,

Happy Thanksgiving. We're so grateful that you're here with us today. And Aaron and I've had the

best time just thinking about Thanksgiving and how thankful we are for a holiday that reminds us to give thanks. And then

that took us down a whole rabbit trail of gratefulness and how that leads to so many other things.

So giddy up, buckle up, because here we go. We got things to say. Right, Erin?

Yeah, well, of course, reading the Thanksgiving book that Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote and then having that conversation

with her kind of launched us into this whole idea of gratitude and the importance of it. And

for me, I have ever since we talked to her, in particular,

I've been thinking about having gratitude,

particularly in times of suffering and grief and sorrow,

and how in those times we need it even more than in regular times.

Although I think this annual Thanksgiving holiday is a good reminder of that in sometimes

when we're having good times, we forget to be thankful for all the things around us.

But just the idea with her about this holiday became a part of our country during times of lots of suffering, of lots of grief, of a lot of fighting and turmoil, and how during those times

is when people were drawn to even more. We need to have this holiday of Thanksgiving,

which is interesting, don't you think, that it wasn't during times of plenty, like, oh, thank you, God, for all these wonderful things.

It's like during war was when this holiday was really established in our country.

Right. Both the Civil War, as you pointed out in our interview with Melanie, both the Civil War, where Sarah Josepha Hale

convinced Abraham Lincoln to do that. And then again, with FDR during World War II, I thought

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