Nebraska Town Of 2 Grows Exponentially For Thanksgiving Feast

GROSS, NE — Fifty people came home to Gross, Nebraska, for a pre-Thanksgiving celebration, swelling the population of the tiny town by about 2500 percent and giving its only two residents — Mike and Mary Finnegan — a day neither is likely to forget.

The pre-Thanksgiving gathering last month at the Finnegans’ restaurant, the Nebrask Inn, was arranged by the folks at Ancestry.com, a for-profit company based in Lehi, Utah, that helps people unravel their family history. Fifty of the Finnegans’ relatives from Nebraska showed up for the traditional meal and feast, and two surprise visitors — descendants of the founding family of Gross — also came from California.

Mary Finnegan effused gratitude to Ancestry.com for bringing people together at the restaurant — essentially, the town of Gross now — she and her husband bought more than three decades ago.

“Oh my goodness gracious, it’s just amazing,” she said in a phone interview. “I can’t give you any words to describe how grateful I am for that. It was just an absolutely perfect day. It expresses the importance of family, getting together and having a place for everybody to call home and come to for holidays. I hope everyone who was there learned that important bit of information.”

After the feast, everyone gathered around a bonfire, made s’mores and flashed sparklers. The Finnegans’ three children and eight grandchildren were there, discovering they’re related to people they’ve known their entire lives. And descendants of the Gross family visited the mansion that town founders Ben and Melinda Gross built with bricks fired at a plant in Gross. It was a showplace in its day, but has fallen into disrepair.

“It made memories for not only me, but for everyone who was there,” Finnegan said of the hometown reunion.

A Chance To Come Home

The Finnegans have been keeping Gross on the map for 33 years. Once a boom town, Gross was left behind by the railroad and later by the Highway 281 bypass. A couple of fires in the early 1900s wiped out the stores and homes built in anticipation of the railroad that never came and prompted the mass exodus that sealed Gross’ fate as a ghost town.

A bar that opened in 1957 changed hands several times until Stu and Marge Stringfellow purchased it, remodeled it and named it “Nebrask Inn” (say it aloud — Nebraskan). When the restaurant came up for sale 33 years ago, the Finnegans snapped it up.

It was a chance to to come home.

Even when Finnegan, then Mary Kayl, was growing up near Gross in the 1960s and 1970s, the town’s residents could be counted on two hands. By the time they moved home — Mike had grown up about 150 miles away — the population had dwindled to two, the owner of the restaurant and a bachelor. The Finnegans raised their three children in Gross, but they moved away.

Coffee's Still A Nickel, But Cursing Costs More

When the Finnegans bought the restaurant, they continued the time-honored tradition of a 5-cent cup of coffee. Travelers still won’t pay more, all these years later. It’s advertising gold.

“Coffee was 5 cents when we bought it,” Finnegan said. “The lady who owned it said she wasn’t in the business to make money.”

The Finnegans started a tradition of their own that smacks of small-town cordiality. Don’t even think about swearing while you’re enjoying that nickel cup of coffee or devouring one of the inn’s signature burgers. They wanted the Nebrask-Inn to be a place where people could bring their grandmothers, moms and children.

“You say that nasty four-letter f-word and you’re going to owe me a dollar, and you’re going to have your name written on it and have it put on the ceiling,” she said.

And people who curse just to get their names on a dollar bill on the ceiling will be unceremoniously booted out.

“You don’t get an unlimited supply of f-words,” Finnegan said. “It’s going to make me mad, and I’m going to kick you out.”

The ceiling of shame has become a conversation piece for travelers who stop by Nebrask Inn. Some find it by happenstance as a way stop on their journey, some stop out of curiosity and many are loyal customers.

What Will Become Of Gross?

All that remains of Gross now is the Finnegans’ restaurant, their home and a former pool hall that serves as a gathering place for family reunions and 4-H clubs.

Finnegan frets about what will become of Gross. The Finnegan children — two sons and a daughter — all have established professions in other areas of the state and aren’t interested in giving up “a solid income and a solid paycheck,” their mother said.

“If we close up the inn, I’m afraid the town of Gross will just die,” she said. “Who’s there to share all the stories? We did our best, but we’re both getting up there in age. We can’t complain, but it’s a lot of work.

“What are we doing to do?” she said. “Who is going to come back and continue this?”

But those worries aren’t the pressing thing right now. The Finnegans are digging into their own family history, thanks to the prompt from Ancestry.com. One thing they’ve learned is that the Finnegan branch of the family isn’t 100 percent Irish.

“The name is about as Irish as it gets,” Finnegan said.

She has barely started researching her own family history.

“I know the Kayl family originated in Liechtenstein, settled in Wisconsin and migrated to Nebraska, but I’m just scratching the surface,” she said. “There’s so much interesting to learn.”

She doesn’t know yet if she’s a descendant of the original founders of Gross.

“I could be related,” she said, adding that only more research into her family tree will reveal the answer.

For now, she’s basking in the memory of the Saturday in late October when the relatives she does know came together. Everyone pledged to get together more often, and not just for funerals.

“It strengthened our resolve to pursue our roots,” Finnegan said. “You always get together for the wrong reasons, like a funeral, and now that we’ve gotten together for the right reason, we’ve vowed to get together more often. It’s not just something we talked about that day and then got lost in the wind. It’s actually going to happen.

“We had such a nice time reminiscing,” she said. “Everyone brought old photos, and it was a wonderful day spent with family. It makes you remember how important family is.”

All photos and video courtesy of Ancestry.com

Lead image: Two descendants of the founding family of Gross, Nebraska, snap a selfie.