As you sit down for Thanksgiving dinner this year, consider including these people in your list of reasons to be grateful, Susanna White, Elizabeth Hopkins, Eleanor Billington and Mary Brewster.

Like many a good gathering, they did most of the work but reaped little of the credit.

They were the only four grown women present at the first historic feast in 1621, according to records. These women cooked a three-day feast for 53 pilgrims and about 90 Wampanoag men.

The four women who made the meal that became known as the first Thanksgiving did so because they were the four women who survived to see it. Five young girls lived as well. Primary sources on the first Thanksgiving are scant.

William Bradford wrote one of just two primary accounts known to date.

“They begane now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fitte up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strenght, and had all things in good plenty; for as some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, and bass, and other fish, of which they tooke good store, of which every family had their portion,” he said.

Edward Winslow kept the other record. As it turns out, he married Susanna White, the first of our four Thanksgiving chefs, after her husband William White died.

Largely what is known of the women at the first Thanksgiving is based on their associations to their husbands.

Many historians note that Susanna White was friends with Elizabeth Hopkins, wife of Stephen Hopkins, but little else is known of Hopkins.

Eleanor Billington and her family had a reputation for being troublesome. Her son Francis drew scorn for firing a musket inside the Mayflower. Her husband John was executed for murder in 1630.

Mary Brewster and her husband William were known for their religiosity, and William Brewster’s role as a Pilgrim leader continues to be celebrated by his descendants through the Elder William Brewster Society.

The accomplishments of those like William Brewster, William Bradford and their contemporary men are well documented. Lesser known are the women who made the first feast, whose biographies are short and whose tasks were likely limited.

Those not included at all. Historical mentions of Wampanoag women at the first feast are even scarcer.