quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:
I didn't get to know my grandparents well, as I lived overseas and they had all died by the time I was 15. I remember my aunt telling me that when her grandmother was a girl, one of the things she and her best friend used to do for fun on a Sunday was walk up to Hampstead Heath to watch the stagecoaches come and go.

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In my Grandma's day there was only one high school in her area, and it was somewhat of a distance from where she lived. All three children in her family graduated from high school, and her sister even went on to college, which was a really big deal in those days. (Grandma was born in 1902.) Anyway, Grandma and one of her friends used to drive a horse and buggy to school. The way Grandma told it, the two girls would have such a giggling good time driving that horse and buggy that they would sometimes have to stop and compose themselves so that they could enter the school building with some sort of dignity.

My other grandmother made the trip from Italy to the United States on her own, with her two young children (my father and my uncle) in tow. My grandfather had come over here first, then had sent for them. My grandmother, who was from a hill town near Naples, knew absolutely no English and had probably never been anywhere outside of her town in her life. Yet she made the trip across the ocean (hating every minute of the sea voyage) with a baby and a toddler, to join her husband in a strange country. She made a life for herself in her new home, learned to speak very strongly accented English (she never lost that accent, even after being in the United States for about 70 years) and lived to be 93 years old, outliving my grandfather by many years. Talk about strength and courage!

By the way, my grandmother did not travel in steerage. One stipulation that she had given my grandfather was that she would not travel that way. He had to get her a regular ticket (probably 2nd Class). Since he didn't have the money, my grandfather ended up borrowing money from a loan shark to pay for the ticket! I don't know how he paid it back. My uncle, who told me this story, didn't tell me that part.
 

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Posted by Sine Nomine (# 3631) on :
 
This is so great, people.

I'm tearing up as I read some of these stories.

Don't you miss them? I wish so badly they were still here.
 

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Posted by Sine Nomine (# 3631) on :
 
Sorry for the double post, but for you folks who don't "get" America, these American stories should give you a clue far more than any "pond war" postings will.

As do the English stories about England. Maybe this is really how we communicate.
 

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Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
My grandad was in the Royal Navy - on sailing ships. He joined as a teenager. One of his stories was about chasing slavers.

The RN ships had to chase, catch and take over the slave traders who were breaking the law by still conveying slaves across the world from Africa.

When they caught a ship, they used to open the hold and let the slaves out. Grandad said it was horrifying how they were crammed together, and the stink was unbearable. He was furious that people were treated like that, and hurt and sad at the same time. Also proud that he'd been involved in so many rescues.

So I never had to learn about slavery from history books, just listen to him. Makes it much more real.
 

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Posted by duchess (# 2764) on :
 
My great-grandma from Denmark ate scraps in a pub in Copenhagen cuz her family was so poor. After her mother died, they all left Copenhagen to go to Ellis Island. After that, they went to a Danish colony in Iowa. She attended Danish School every day after regular school & a Danish church (Lutheran). She married my great-grandpa, a flying Daneman, who took off and never came back when my grandfather was 3. She later remarried a nice guy and died right before I was born. My grandfather never got over his dad leaving which explained why he did not take my parents divorce well.

My mom & my aunt still talk about how she never got over her mom's death & what a dear woman she was but no one much talks about great-grandpa.

I also got a great Indian war story (not very pc) which I told in SoF some months ago. If I can find it, I might link to it later.
 

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Posted by duchess (# 2764) on :
 
The thread was deleted. I will retype a short version.

My great (x 5) grandma, Miss Knox, lived with her family in Indian Territory. Her sister went to go visit her friend one day. Well a band of Indians came and killed everyone in the family. I will leave out details since this is heaven. A squaw took a liking to Grandma Knox. Grandma knox lived with this Indian tribe for years. One day at an Indian trading post, she ran into her sister. Her sister could tell it was her since she had kept a piece of the dress she had on the day the Indians came on her outfit (I don't remember if it was a belt or what, but it was hanging on her). Her sister called her by her pet name and emotional Oprah moment happened.

My great (x5) aunt (my grandma Knox's sister) later on married a guy with the last name Polk and had a son named James Knox Polk, one of the presidents of the United States. True story, I have documents backing it up. I have heard many entertaining versions of this story through the years and finally got to read about it after my mom let me go through some papers.
 

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Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :
 
Another story about Uncle Oakey. He and Aunt Bebe had a lodge they shared with another couple. One day the other couple brought a minister from Scotland to see the lodge. Bebe's aunt Val, being shy, took off for the interior of the house as soon as she saw a car pull up. The Reverend Reed was introduced to Uncle Oakey who undertook to introduce the Reverend to everyone else.

Unfortunately, Uncle Oakey was extremely hard of hearing. He had to ask the Reverend for his name again. The Reverend replied "Reed. Reed it tis." Oakey then proceeded to introduce the Reverend Reedittis to everyone else at the lodge.

Then Aunt Bebe decided to take the Reverend Reedittis on a tour of the lodge. She ended up in the her bedroom where she decided to show off how big the closets were. She opened up the door to reveal Aunt Val who had chosen that closet as a hiding place. Aunt Bebe saw aunt Val, said "And this is our aunt Val," closed the door and walked off as if nothing unusual had happened.

I am led to understand that the visit to West Virginia has become a Reed family story as well.
 

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Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :
 
My grandmother, my father's mother, had always planned to be a missionary to China. As a result, she wasn't planning to marry. But when she went away to college, she found that she got so homesick, she almost couldn't bear it. She decided she'd never be able to go to China.

When she returned home from college, the principal of the local high school (the one she'd attended, in fact), took a fancy to her. He was nearly 20 years older than she, and had never married. He started calling on her, and one winter evening, he took her out on a sleigh ride.

As she told the story, when they got back to the house, he kissed her. And so, of course, they got married.

"We had to," my grandmother told her grandchildren. After all, he'd kissed her!
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
My paternal grandmother, having left the University of California around 1912 with a degree in Home Economics, majoring in nutrition, was a cattle rancher. Grammy used to tell me about her gasoline washing machine. Apparently it was a V-twin (like a Harley -Davidson on its side) Maytag and had to be kick-started. This is likely one reason she lived to age 94: she was no stranger to hard w*rk! She had this career until she married at age 30 to a young up-and-coming engineer with the Los Angeles Electric Company who eventually became third in command (Exec VP) of Southern California Gas. They built a large house next door to a bean field, ten blocks away from UCLA. To this day, it is free from earthquake damage. Her half-nieces, both very much alive, are in their 90's; one is still a world traveller!


 

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Posted by Light (# 4693) on :
 
My greatgrandfather on the paternal side was a missionary to India for the Salvation Army. I remember meeting him once, when he was very old and in a nursing home. The family had a very ordinary Swedish surname, but as the British were in charge (or had been, my grasp of colonial history is not good, when did India achieve independence?)the name was quickly anglified and we have kept it so ever since.

The family stayed in India for many years and my grandfather was twelve when they left to return to Sweden. Since he had been born in India he wasn't allowed to leave without special paperwork, because he was an Indian by birth.

When my grandfather married, the first thing my grandmother had to learn was how to cook hot Indian curry. This is still a family tradition and my father and his brother always make it for family gettogethers. It was also the meal I and my husband cooked together on our first date...
 

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Posted by biscuit (# 3550) on :
 
Grandad S (my mum's dad) was an Ulsterman, from one of the fishing villages on Belfast Lough and a great one for stories.

As he was a retired Salvation Army officer (minister), stories tended to involve the places and people he'd been involved with.

One that always made me laugh was the moving carollers. The Salvation Army in the UK has a tradition of carolling in town centres with their brass bands. The trouble was - at the time of this story - that the shops of the time were pre-department stores, just the single space with counter around and a couple of shop-keepers complained about the noise of the carolling. So they were asked to move (IIRC, the local policeman politely requested this).

So the whole band moved constantly for the whole of the session... shuffling two feet one way and then two feet back...

b.
 

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Posted by musician (# 4873) on :
 
These are great stories! I never knew my grandparents...can I tell a story from my dad??

He grew up in the west of Ireland early last century on a farm. His story was that his dad had moved from Co Galway to Co Sligo after the Famine.
Dad was one of identical twins. They got up to all sorts..dad remembered standing waiting to meet his girlfriend and watching a motorbike roar past with his girlfriend on the back behind his twin.
Anyway, to his story.
A local farmer died at a great age when the twins were young lads.
The wake was to be in the farmers house and it went on for a bit. Then a bit more. The twins managed to behave foras long as they could
(probably about 20 minutes!)then they wriggled under the bed on which the deceased was tied, cut the ropes tying him and up he sat.
Dad's version was that folk were going out the house by door and window.

Another time his mother had spent months fattening up a ?goose ?turkey for Christmas. Off she went to town and came back to discover that the house was still stnding, but it wasn't in best repair.
The twins had tried to bake a cake, but gone off to the yard to practice. They only realised the cake wasn't at the correct temp when the smoke billowed through the door. They panicked and threw cold water onto the oven to put out the peat in the range. The range, being iron, cracked.
Their practice hadn't been too good. Long before Indiana Jones, they'd been target practicing with a whip. Shame the Christmas bird got in the way and was minus a head!
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
My paternal Grandfather was a carpenter in business with his brother. During the Boer War he accepted a last minute job building stalls for horses in a troopship bound for South Africa. He got so busy working that until he came up on deck he didn't realise the ship had weighed anchor and was sailing out of Wellington Harbour.

Fortunately for Grandad, large boats need a pilot aboard to navigate in and out of Wellington Harbour so he got a ride back with the pilot boat which dropped him off at the wharf nearest home. Apparently Grandma complained when he was late for tea and it was some time before she actually believed he had almost left the country.

Later in his building career Grandad was one of the workers building Wellington Railway Station.
At that time there weren't many tall buildings in the area, and the Station overlooked one of the poshest Hotels. Imagine the surprise of the workmen when a woman came out onto the Hotel roof and stripped off some of her clothes to sunbathe. One of the foremen ran over to the hotel and a very well-dressed man accompanied by a woman was seen to come out onto the roof and say something. The sunbather wrapped herself in a towel and departed rather quickly.

I used to love Grandad telling his stories - with a naughty twinkle in his eyes.


Thanks for this thread Sine.


Huia
 

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Posted by Alaric the Goth (# 511) on :
 
I don't remeber my grandparents telling any stories, but my parents ara lot older than me, as old as the grandparents of people I was at school with, so here are some of their stories:

My mother was a daydreamer when she was a girl. She had three younger brothers (and an elder sister). One day, she took the youngest baby brother out for a walk in his pram, the two older boys hanging onto the sides. They went to the local park,and my daydreaming mum proceeded to walk down a slope - wheeling the pram straight into the park pond! Everyone was soaked; the baby's things floating on the water!

During WW2 she was in the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF), stationed in Lincolnshire. One day, out in the fields, 'in the middle of nowhere',she need to relieve herself, and was miles from the nearest toilet! She selected a field, with a long earth bank at one end, and squatted down... Along the embankment came a passenger train! She was so embarrassed!

My father has a strange tale of when he was on holiday in Holland. A 'Dutchman' (or so it seemed, hurried towards him shouting 'Willi!' (pron. 'Villi' I beleive) in an animated fashion, but when he looked at my dad cloesely, went off, seeming disappointed. Now, my dad's name is 'William', and so was his father's, and by all accounts my grandfather had looked similar to my dad when that age. My grandfather's brother had deserted from the army during WW1, and no-one had found out what became of him. Except perhaps my dad on that day...?
 

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Posted by Sine Nomine (# 3631) on :
 
Here is my great-great-granfather's description of the Great Meteor Shower of 1833, from his memoirs...

In the fall of 1833, while my father was living at the Barkesdale place, the wonderful meteoric shower occurred, about which much has been written. Brother Silas and I were sleeping upstairs. About day, or perhaps a little before, Charles (a colored man) came running to the house, crying out in great alarm "Master! Master! The stars are falling!" This awoke Silas and myself, and we came down stairs. THe heavens were ablaze with what seemed to be falling stars. It was a grand, a wonderful and an awful sight. The explosive and whizzing sounds of the meteors were continually heard. Long streams of fiery light remained in the track of many of them. The meteoric shower continued until obscured by the morning light. The whizzing sound of the meteors, though somewhat abated, could be heard for some time after it was too light to see them. Father and Mother looked serious, but not alarmed, and hence I was not frightened. Many thought that the last day had come, and hence were much alarmed.
 

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Posted by Benedictus (# 1215) on :
 
My grandmother was born in 1890 in South Carolina, so her grandparents and her parents and their brothers and sisters were alive during the American War Between the States. (My grandmother was a little soft-spoken woman who rarely spoke sternly to her grandchildren. One exception was if you used the phrase "Civil War" in her presence. So I have to call it The War Between the States if I'm telling her stories.)

About sunset one evening, on a farm in South Carolina during the War Between the States, close to suppertime, a little black boy rode up on a mule and called out, "Sherman's coming! Sherman's coming!" and rode off to warn the next farm. (For those who don't know, this is General William Tecumseh "War is hell" Sherman, who marched through Georgia to the sea, burning, pillaging, and destroying everything in his path, 40 miles wide, as he went. I grew up in Georgia, he still doesn't win a lot of local popularity contests.) Well, they knew he was in the neighborhood, and they knew what that meant; if Sherman was coming, there wouldn't be much left. My great great grandmother was there with the children and slaves, all the men were away fighting. The table was already set for supper, and she snatched all the silver off the table and threw it, with a few other things, down the well, it was about all she had time to do before Sherman rode up with his men. He demanded supper, and demanded my great great grandmother cook it herself, rather than tell the slaves to do it. She fixed pancakes, under the supervision of one of his men, and realized after she had served the men, she had forgotten syrup. She took it to them in a little glass pitcher and, from suspicion she had poisoned it, forced her to drink the pitcher full of syrup herself. After supper, they went through the house and destroyed or took anything of value, including slashing paintings and smashing furniture. The silver she had thrown in the well was the only valuable thing that was saved.

The pitcher and the little table it was placed on, I've been told, became family heirlooms, and my sister has some of the silver.
 

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Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
I love these stories. This thread is marvellous to read. Whether they are sad or cheerful, they are so worth reading.
 

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Posted by Hinematov (# 4766) on :
 
I wish I knew more of my grandparent's stories. They never learned much English, and we grandchildren never learned Italian. I guess they figured it would do us no good here.

I do remember my grandpa Pasquale telling me how he fell in love with and courted the beautiful Angelina, who had come from Bari, Italy with her family. She was still pining for the boyfriend she left behind, and Grandpa, poor and uneducated as he was, wasn't much of a catch in anyone's eyes.

Nevertheless, he pursued her relentlessly, serenading her with his accordian.

Finally, he said, "Angelina, I'm not much. If you marry me I can't give you money or fine things. But I promise you this...your children will be good-looking".

That was it. They married and had five beautiful daughters.
 

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Posted by Lesley W (# 4445) on :
 
My step father (born 1908) was, amongst other things, a bus driver and very proud of the fact that he drove the first ever double decker bus in Bradford.

He used to tell me how, because he was the only person on his shift with transport (a motor bike and side car) the other men at the depot used to ask him for a lift into work, and he didn't like to refuse. He would travel from home to Bradford, some 8 miles or so, mostly on main roads, and pick them up en route. The record for the number of men who reached the depot on one journey in this way was six. In addition to him, there was one on the pillion, one on the luggage rack, one in the sidecar and two sat on the sidecar body.
 

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Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
this is a story about my great-great grandfather, but its my grandfather who passed it down to us.

his grandfather was a conductor on the underground railroad, smuggling escaped slaves to freedom in canada. they were the last stop on their "line" of the railroad, and it was actually their job to bring the ex-slaves across the canadian border. they had an underground hiding hole, which still exists, (i've seen it, there is now a monument there) but that was only used in times of emergency, most of the time the escapes stayed in the barn, and ate in the kitchen with the family.

i just did a google search and to my surprise actually found this webpage:

thomas root house

and the story is correct except that he was not a quaker, i believe he was methodist.

[ 07. October 2003, 19:41: Message edited by: nicolemrw ]
 

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Posted by duchess (# 2764) on :
 
A couple stories now from my dad's father about my great grandpa, a Calvinist who was a Quaker Rev., rescued a lady who tried to commit suicide in the countryside of New York by drinking Hydrochloric Acid. He had been milking a cow, so he brought over the cream (which is at the top I believe of the bucket when you milk a cow) and had her drink it. Saved her life.

Quaker great-grandpa was a rather conservsative Calvinist who could not stand it when my Rev. Grandpa joined the Peace Party. He read him the riot act. That is why my own father FREAKED OUT when I told him a year ago that I am a Calivinist. My dad then informed me of this trivia "your great-grandpa was a Quaker Calvinist" and told me about him lecturing my grandpa on his beliefs. More useless trivia: My Rev. grandpa was a pacifist but still worked as a Chaplain for the military in WWII.

[ 07. October 2003, 20:05: Message edited by: duchess ]
 

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Posted by Gracia (# 1812) on :
 
I heard lots of stories,more than my sisters and cousins, because I was the first grandchild on both sides, & very very close to my mother's mother (much closer than to my mother).

The first one that comes to mind, is a story about my great-grandfather in San Francisco bringing home some kittens who appeared abandoned outdoors,during a storm.
He put them in the oven to warm them up - you can guess what happened. No one ever had to tell the end of that story.

The second, my grandmother told often, about her grandmother in Ireland, sitting for hours,looking out the window. She was "watching her dead children walk by".

Finally: my grandfather's father had a farm on the Kings River,near what's now Merced,California.
One day Joaquin Murietta & several of his gang stopped there and "traded" one of their tired horses for a fresh one from the farm.

I can't leave this out: my grandpa (as a boy)slept with a pig named "Jim Budd" after the governor of Calif at the time. My grandpa talked about Jim Budd, the pig, a lot.
 

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Posted by Sine Nomine (# 3631) on :
 
This thread has gotten me re-reading my great-great-grandfather's memoir.

Here are two excerpts about his wife...

After we went to Valley Farm, my wife brought the spinning wheel and loom into use. She was spinning one day, and I said to her: "Wife, how handsome and graceful you look at the spinning wheel!" She said there was not so much grace and beauty about it; that is was the idea her being at work that was so pleasing to me.

and...

My wife was a very strict observer of the Sabbath. I always thought I was strict enough; but she kept a little in advance of me in this respect. I thought she stood so straight that she leant back a little. I more than once reminded her of the boy who, as a means of encouraging him to be good, respect the Sabbath and reach the better land, was told it was always Sunday there, and who answered, "I don't want to go where it is always Sunday!" I reckon the little fellow thought he had had enough of Sundays in this world.
 

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Posted by Die Flederwally (# 3245) on :
 
My maternal Grandmother and her family were poor Missourians. People who would fondly be known as white trash now. Both her father Luther (whose full name was Luther Othel Russell which is a name I love) and uncle Elmer lost their jobs working on the railroad during the depression. Elmer being unmarried left for Chicago and returned several times wearing nice new suits, carrying cash and with presents for my Grandmother and Great Aunt (Alleta and Hazel if your keeping score at home). The last time Elmer came home he was in a box with a hole between his eyes. All anybody knew was that he had been in some kind of "accident".
 

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Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 
I had a great aunt whose name was pronounced "Byew-nie", but it was really "Buena" Vista after the eponymous battle. A great-great uncle went insane and shot his car and then himself in a tragic murder-suicide.

But the best family story is about my Auntie. She was my father's great aunt, who died at 107. She was born in 1894, and I had the privilege of knowing her, and my oldest son met her several times and I hope will remember her - five generations in the same room that day. Anyway, she never married. In her youth she was with the telephone company, as an operator -- you know, the kind who switched the lines, and later was an accountant for them. I saw her daguerrotype from then -- she was beautiful, big puffy bun and puffed sleeves Anne Shirley would have died for. She loved a man from outside of her little town, he was an engineer (designing tracks and stations for the railroad), and got engaged to him. He would come on the train to her little town from his hometown near Lexington, KY. One day, she told me, she got a telegraph from his mother that he was ill, and she should come. She rushed to the station, but the train had gone. She took the next available train. When she got to his station, his sister met her to say that he was dead. She never dated again, never married. When she was buried in 2001, she wore his ring. She told me "I guess I never liked any other man well enough as him." Faithful for 86 years. I hope they're together now.

[ 08. October 2003, 03:11: Message edited by: Laura ]
 

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Posted by Sine Nomine (# 3631) on :
 
God, Laura.
 

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Posted by Sine Nomine (# 3631) on :
 
I'm thinking this may be the first, and probably the last, thread I've ever started that might get saved to Limbo. Not that it has anything to do with me.

It's kind of like a Ken Burns documentary.
 

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Posted by Grits (# 4169) on :
 

quote:

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God, Laura.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
No, she's in the Eastern time zone.

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I live very close to Washington, DC. Flights on Southwest airlines to Nashville from BWI are very, very cheap, though.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Come to think of it, my grandparents lived through the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. My grandmother, then just about 20, found it so exciting that she would rush out to see the events unfolding before anyone could stop her, and was completely unworried by the barricades, gunfire and exchanges of bullets, etc. She would come back when she'd had enough excitement for one day, and tell the rest of the family what was going on. Events unfolded hour by hour, but some sieges in some parts of the city lasted much longer than others.

Many years later when I was a child in the 60s, my grandfather took me to the GPO (General Post Office) that had been the starting point which the rebels took over, and showed me that you could still see the bullet holes in the pillars outside. And so you can: worn and weathered now, but you can still run your finger over them and feel some of the roughness and half see what is now a busy, broad city-centre street as it must have been then, the shops suddenly deserted, the traffic suddenly gone from a road blocked with barricades and sandbags, everything uncannily silent except for the crack of gunfire and soldiers shouting, and the smell of fire as buildings nearby went up in flames. The contrast between that and the quiet normality of the suburbs (where my grandmother lived) was almost surreal.
 

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Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
one from mmy fathers side of the family (the above was my mothers side)

my paternal grandmother lived in indiana by the ohio river. she and her brothers were very good swimmers, and they used to swim the river (carrying their clothing bundled on theor heads) to visit relativesand friends in kentucky. one day my grandmother and some of her brothers had done this. they were walking down a road, when a man with a wagon stopped and asked if they'd like a ride. they got in, and e drove on. after awhile they heard riders coming very rapidly up the road after them. the man who picked them up said "you kids had better get out now." they jumped out and hid by the side of the road, and the man drove off as fast as his horse would go. the riders passed by, with guns blazing.

seems they'd wandered into the middle of a feud. i believe someone was killed, and they had to stand as witnesses in the trial.
 

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Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
One from the grandmother on the other side of my family. Her father was a dentist, and had surgeries in various small towns and villages. He lived in Coupar Angus and used to travel around on his white horse.

One day, a servant came rushing in, in a panic, "The horse has come back without the master! The master has gone!" Mama calmly told the servant off. "The horse has more sense than you have. Take the horse and follow him. He'll lead you back to the master."

So the servants took the horse out and followed him all the way back to a bend by the River Isla. There lay the master on the ground. They picked him up and brought him safely back home. The underlying awareness was that the master was a drinker.
 

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Posted by duchess (# 2764) on :
 
I'm going to post something that makes me cry. I have tears in my eyes as I write this.

My Rev. Grandpa, may he rip, told me this story when I was 8. Forgive me if I don't get all the details exact...

A little girl died. Her father was very heart-broken but he designed some stain glass windows in a church of little children to honor her. The draft was done and the father looked at it. Little chubby rosy cheecks, little children who all looked similar European.

The father went to sleep and had a dream. In it, he saw his daughter playing with many children...like a rainbow of color.

The father got up...went to the church and had the design fixed...this time he included the rainbow of children. Red-brown-yellow-white...All colors. Now the window was right.

He went to sleep, and his daughter thanked him for fixing the window.


As a child, I remember thinking my Rev. Grandpa had heard this story straight from the father himself. Who knows where he heard it. My Rev. Grandpa's little story made a BIG IMPRESSION on my heart. I still see a colorless picture, no rainbow, when there are only white people in a picture, due to this story which I badly tell here.

[ 10. October 2003, 15:29: Message edited by: duchess ]
 

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Posted by Flausa (# 3466) on :
 
I'm not close to my paternal grandparents, and my maternal grandparents are both deceased, so I don't have stories that they've told me. I do however have a story told about my maternal grandfather.

When my oldest uncle was making final preparations on his wedding day, my grandfather pulled him aside for a few last words of sage advice. Now, my grandfather had raised 9 children, so my uncle was anticipating something quite profound.

My grandfather's advice: "Raise pigs not kids, because when you get mad at 'em you can hit 'em over the head and eat 'em."
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
My Great Aunt Millie was the last sibling of Pop, my maternal grandfather. I got to know her in the last years of her life and she told me this story about him.

Pop was only 3 years old and was being bathed in a tin bath in front of the coal range. His mother was distracted by something and went out of the room. When she returned there was no sign of him. She ran out into the road calling his name and found him marching down the road nude behind the Salvation Army Band.

The story was remembered particularly in the family as Pop spent much of his life playing drums in brass bands - fully clothed of course.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
There is a story about my grandparents. At this time they lived in Ashland, Virginia. The train tracks in Ashland ran down the middle of the main street--not across it, but along the length of it.

One day my grandfather's car stalled on the railroad track with a train coming. My grandmother sat there in the car, calmly waiting for him to come around and open the car door for her.

Moo
 

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Posted by ce (# 1957) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:
There is a story about my grandparents. At this time they lived in Ashland, Virginia. The train tracks in Ashland ran down the middle of the main street--not across it, but along the length of it.
Moo

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They still do:Ashland

ce
 

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Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
Did you notice the number on that train engine?
 

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Posted by Sine Nomine (# 3631) on :
 
Ok, here's one Episcopalians, especially Southern ones, will appreciate. From another of my great-great grandfather's memoirs. (We're a family who believes in writing things down.)

It was in 1860, I believe, that my grandfather who lived about twelve miles from what is now Sewanee, gathered up all his numerous family to attend the laying of the cornerstone of what was intended to be the first building of the University of the South.

The trip was made by wagon and horseback through the mountains and we camped out one night on the way. I was about ten years old and remembered being scared by the screaming of a wildcat during the night.

We arrived at the site of the university the next day. There were certainly enought startling events to excite an ignorant country boy who was then getting his first glance into the means used to open the vast reservoir of history and knowledge which had so far been sealed to him.

The first thing I noticed was a great throng of country people, more than I had ever seen before or since, gathered there on the mountaintop of almost unbroken forest. They had come on foot, horseback, and in wagons as we had. They had come prepared to enjoy the day, bringing provisions which included liquor.

I saw fighting on a large scale. The combatants were so numerous that no one had the least idea what the row was about. I saw the least regard for the ceremonies that were being conducted around the cornerstone not over two-hundred yards away.

Around the cornerstone was assembled a large number of better dressed and more orderly people. There were the church dignitaries dressed in their caps and gowns, who, I suppose, were calling on God to bless the building to be erected.

I could not hear much of what was being said. I was more impressed with the caps and gowns worn by the clergy. I had never seen any of our preachers or men dressed like women before.

I remember that lone block of marble lying there in the mountain. There was nothing there except the railroad track. It was built during the Civil War by the Union Soldiers.

After the war Bishop Quintard got up the funds to start building operations for the university. I was the first person to enter the freshman class at the university. I knew and admired Dr. Quintard and Dr. Knight very much.

Later this week-end I will tell you the tale of the beautiful and mysterious Maude St. Pierre.
--Sine
 

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Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 
I wish I could tell you the best story, the story of ninety-year old Uncle W and the eighteen home health care specialists, but that has to wait until my grandmother has passed on. I can't besmirch the family name in public like that.
 

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Posted by Mili (# 3254) on :
 
My father's parents were missionaries in Ethiopia in the 1950s and '60s. There was no hospital in the village where they lived, so when my father was due to be born in 1953 they had to travel to a hospital in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia was an independent country, unlike many African countries that were, or had been ruled by Europeans, so a local offical advised my grandparents that some people might take offence if they had locals carry my grandmother to the hospital. So as the area was unaccessible for cars my heavily pregnant grandmother rode a mule to hospital.
 

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Posted by Icarus Coot (# 220) on :
 
A story from and about my dear Grandmother who is 96:

She was born in Cyprus at a time when the liberation from the oppression of the Ottoman Empire was barely a generation old, a time during which the people suffered greatly from starvation and persecution. Poverty was still widespread. But her family was quite well off: her father was a grocer and owned a stables in the centre of Lemasso (the land prolly worth millions now). Her mother was one of 6 daughters, whose father married each one off with a house and contents (as was the custom in those days), and she lived in a street made up of all the houses of her aunties.

Her mother was a very generous woman, and one day my gran got her nose out of joint because she would make mountains of food and invite the poor people to her house and give it away (probably saw one batch too many of tasty kourabiedes being carried off ).

So when her father got home she went to him and dobbed her mother in: 'Baba, mum takes all the food and gives it away to the poor people!', expecting approval I imagine.

'Judas! Betrayer!' he said, and gave her a good hiding.
 

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Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :
 
When my father was very young, back in the UK, he went to a village cricket match. He was put out that "naughty men" stood in front of him, and blocked his view. In a piercing child's voice he asked his father to tell the men to go away and not annoy him again. Before his father could speak, the King of England turned around and apologised most profusely, and moved away with his party....
Both my father and my grandfather loved telling that story.
 

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Posted by Michal (# 5337) on :
 
My grandmother, daughter of a poor tenant farmer in Mississippi, left home at 15 to go to work in Memphis in order to help support the family and escape her new step-mother. Her Memphis stories were a hoot.

She worked for a cold cream factory, where several different types of cold cream were packed into jars with different labels. Her job was to scrape the cold cream from a large wooden barrel with a wooden paddle into whatever set of jars was on the tray--no matter what the label said. I guess in 1928 the FDA wasn't very picky about these things. She said the worst part was when you got to "scraping the bottom of the barrel" because it would make your back ache so, and you had to keep pace because you were paid by the jar.

However, there were the good times to be had. When she went out in the evenings, she and her girlfriends at the rooming-house would put rouge on their knees, just below where their stocking were rolled up, "because if the wind blew your skirt up a bit the boys could see your pretty pink knees."

[ 27. December 2003, 08:55: Message edited by: Michal ]
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
This is one of my gran's earliest memories, sometime around 1906, in Manchester.
Her dad was a bookie in the days that gambling was illegal except, I think, in very restricted circumstances. So, he would go off to the race course on race days. In the evening, my gran and her brother would be playing on the hearthrug and her mother would be sitting by the side of the fire. When her father came in, he would look down at his wife. They would never say a word, but she would hold out her apron, and he would shower gold sovereigns into it.
Of course, on other evenings, he came back without his watch and tie-pin because he'd had to pawn them, but that image of the gold sovereigns raining down in the firelight was just wonderful.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Speaking of horses, my grandfather was trained up to be a jockey when he was a boy. He hated it because they kept him on a special diet to keep him small and thin and supervised him to make sure he kept to the rules. It was a hard life, and growing too big and heavy was the only way he was going to get out of being a jockey: his father had decided that that was what his son would do and wasn't a man to change his mind easily.

Somehow my grandfather managed to sneak out and eat as much as he could on the rare occasions when he got the chance. He was punished for this when they found out and they starved him even more to make him lose the extra weight but after a while time and age worked their trick and the trainers realized that it was a lost cause. His father was furious but got him a job as an assistant to the Leopardstown vet: he helped to treat injured racehorses.

In due course he moved on from that into a different line of work, and eventually got married. But by now there wasn't much he didn't know about horses, and it stood him in good stead at the bookies. And my mother told me that he used to do so well that every year he would take the family away to the seaside for a few days in the summer, all paid for out of his winnings over the year. So some good did come out of it.
 

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Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
Story told me by same granny whose father was a dentist and a drinker with an intelligent horse.

Her older sister (18yr old) was getting married the next day. This is before the end of the 19th century. She went out with her fiance that evening and came back home late. Their father had locked the door. So my great-aunt threw stones up at granny's window and begged her to come down and unlock the door, but granny was too scared and before she got up the courage to open it, their father had heard the noise. He opened the door, brought his daughter in, told her off for staying out late and whipped her with the riding crop.
 

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Posted by Shrinking Violet (# 4587) on :
 
I love to hear stories from one of my grandparents in particular, my Oma. She has had a fascinating life.

I hear stories about:

1) how she grew up as an orphan and was told at the age of 14 she had to go out and work because she had to support a brother she didn't know she had.

2) how she fought in the war as a sergeant in England manning the anti-aircraft guns

3) her engagement to an alcoholic English captain who she subsequently dumped and got together with my Opa who was also fighting in the war.

4) her migration to Australia....

and the list goes on....
 

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