Lorton History - The Chicken Dinner

This story came to me from my sister-in-law Dolores who entered our family by marrying my brother “Boots” in 1949 when I was six years old. It was a lovely wedding and I remember being very excited by everyone being so dressed up. After more than 50 years, Dolores and I frequently talk about old times, and it was during one of these talks that she told me of her chicken dinner experience.

At the time of their marriage, Dolores and Boots were best friends with a couple named  Margaret Clark and Joe O’Connor. At that time Dolores and Boots were living in a rustic little log cabin on a hill above Gunston Road not far from Route 1.

After Dolores decided that she was going to serve chicken she had to figure on where to shop. There weren’t a lot of places to shop in Lorton in those days, at least not large markets like those that would come years down the road. Helm’s Store on Route 1 had whole chickens with their heads still attached and displayed in a dingy glass case. Lord only knows how long they had been there. Neither Tillinghast’s Store in Lorton Station or Norman Shepherd’s Store carried fresh chicken, so that left the likely choice: Gladys Shepherd’s Store near Cranford Church.

Buying a chicken from Gladys Shepherd was an experience in itself, as she kept her live chickens in a pen behind the store. You would go into the store and ask for a chicken and Gladys would go out back and bring it in with its feet tied together. That’s exactly how Dolores got her fresh chicken on that fateful day back in 1949.

Dolores had seen her mother, Maggie Grimsley, kill chickens on many occasions. She had never done the deed herself, but thought it couldn’t be too difficult. She took out the hatchet - and that’s as far as she got. She just couldn’t do it, and now she was really in a fix. Company was coming and the chicken dinner was still alive! What to do? Quickly, she remembered her neighbors, the Hudsons, who had a whole passel of boys who would do just about anything, and she enlisted their assistance. Soon, with the deed behind her, she tried another first for the day - plucking a chicken.

Just then, Dolores’ friend Margaret arrived to help with the dinner preparations. Margaret’s help was limited as she had never killed, plucked or dressed a chicken herself. Soon, the chicken was plucked and ready for dressing. Margaret’s attempts at moral support were brief - she had to excuse herself from the scene and threw up in the yard leaving Dolores to do the dirty work alone.  

Dolores never got around to telling me how that chicken dinner turned out but there is one thing of which I am fairly certain; Margaret probably didn’t eat chicken again for quite a while!

Over the years, Dolores went on to prepare an untold number of chicken dinners without mishap for my brother and their five children. Joe and Margaret married and produced a family of their own. Thankfully, neither cook had to repeat the experience of that 1949 chicken dinner.