Dressed in his first tux, Norman Rockwell formally met J.C. Leyendecker at the 1920 New Rochelle Art Association banquet. Buoyed by this encounter, Norman eventually extended a dinner invitation to Mr. Leyendecker. He accepted! A cook was hired, and the menu set.

The "party" in this silence-packed dinner party didn't commence until the cook tripped and the turkey landed under the table. A passage from Norman Rockwell's autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, describes this scene:

I crawled under the table from one side and Mr. Leyendecker from the other. We met over the turkey, which was lying on its side among the table legs, one drumstick torn away from the body, stuffing gushing from the breast. I looked at Mr. Leyendecker. "That smells good," he said and, sticking his finger into the heap of stuffing, tasted it. "Chestnut," I said. "How is it?" And I tried a bit. "Wonderful," he said, and he ate some more. "I say," said his brother (Frank), looking under the table at us, "bring that turkey out of there. Mrs. Rockwell and I would like some."

No more silence--two great illustrators spent the evening, and the next 25 years, discussing their craft, especially the difficult task of painting turkeys.

My Adventures as an Illustrator contains several stories about J.C. Leyendecker and other notables in the field of illustration.