Know any family stories from the first three decades of the 20th century?

[bertha katzenengel]

I ask because I did something today that reminded me of this tale.

It was around 1929-30 that Grandma saw this pocket watch in the Sears Roebuck Catalog. She wanted it so much. She had to have it.

She ordered it without telling anyone. Then it arrived C.O.D. It cost a dollar. She got the bleep beaten outta her.



So. Yours?

[Orsino]

1. My father was carried away by a tornado in '33...

...winding up hundreds of yards away from the homestead the twister completely leveled. He was knocked out, but otherwise had only minor injuries, and his mother escaped with only a broken arm. Her lost wedding band was recovered eight years later, turned up by a plow in a neighbor's field.

[Frosty1]

3. My grandparents lost their home in a hurricane

Florida 1927 I believe. They rode it out in a bathtub. 2 adults & 3 kids.
They packed up and returned to South Dakota where they then lost their home to a tornado.

[Javaman]

18. There an old song by Piano Red called the Florida Hurricane.

it talks about just that hurricane.

[Frosty1]

21. Know where I can find the lyrics?

Thanks:hi:

[Javaman]

25. good question LOL I have the song in my mp3 collection.

let me add you to my buddy list and I will see if I can dig it up for you. :)

[Frosty1]

33. Thanks

:thumbsup:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. That's amazing!

Especially that they found her ring!

[mitchum]

2. My great grandfather was in a minstrel troupe at the turn of the century

show business is in my blood!

[_testify_]

4. The first day my grandfather spent in the US was in jail.

He and my great-grandfather were arrested for selling fruit without a license. It was 1918-19.

[madinmaryland]

5. My grandparents got married in

1926!

[Blue Diadem]

6. My Dad was 7 in 1925.

His Dad died that May from Brights disease. That July, his little brother, age 3, fell down their basement steps with a coin in his mouth and choked to death. A few months later, his Uncle,(Grandma's brother) died. The family said Grandma was changed forever.

I remember him telling me how frightening it was to be so little and see your dead loved ones in your living room/parlor where they were kept for viewing.

[Javaman]

15. Prior to 1945, the "living room" was called the Parlor because

that was where the wake was held. It referred to the color and tone of the skin.

It was only after WWII when the funeral business really took off, as well as the housing boom. People stopped having wakes in the parlor and builders wanted a more upbeat name so that is why we now call it the "Living room".

No more dead allowed.

[Sequoia]

20. That certainly is interesting.

[Deep13]

30. I still call it that.

Under the house is the cellar. Sometimes I eat supper down there and watch TV with a glass of tonic.

[Blue Diadem]

47. I didn't know that..makes sense "living room". n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. No, it comes from 'parler' - French for 'to talk'

It was the room where guests were received, and you talked (it dates back to 1230, in the case of a monastery). Ice cream parlors wouldn't have been very popular if they were named after a morgue.

As for 'living room ' - the Oxford English Dictionary dates it back to 1825. The living room is for everyday family use - the parlor is a special room for receiving guests. It just went out of fashion because people stopped thinking they needed a room for special occasions only.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

7. Granddad was a great jokester...

Once, when he was at work, he sat at the lunch table, rested his ankle on his knee, and put a little peanut butter on the bottom of his shoe. Then he proceeded to start eating, as he waited for his usual lunch buddies to show up. The first fellow who noticed pointed to the mess and asked, "What's that on your shoe?"

Granddad looked at his shoe and answered, "Oh...Geee...Well I know what it looks like."
Then he bent down to sniff it and said, grimacing, "Hmmm...Smells like it too."
Swiped his finger in it, stuck it in his mouth, and said, "Yup. That's what it is, alright."

[bertha katzenengel]

39. LOL

:hi:

[XemaSab]

9. Back in the 30's my great-grandpa used to take grandpa and his brother

into the woods near Yosemite and leave them there all summer.

He'd come by once every couple weeks to make sure they were okay and leave them more canned food, but aside from that they were on their own. :D

[livetohike]

10. My grandfather came from Czechoslovakia in 1929 - for jobs

He arrived in Pgh. in July 1929 - you know the rest of the story :-(.

[BrotherBuzz]

11. My Great-grandpa was lost in the San Francisco fire and earthquake of 1906

He died a week before the fateful day, and and his casket/coffin was in transit from Sonoma County to San Francisco for burial when the quake struck. All freight records were destroyed and his remains were never located. My grandmother always believed an unscrupulous funeral director tossed the body aside and resold the coffin that was suddenly commanding a great price.

[Javaman]

12. My great great uncle was married to the bare back rider from Barnum

& Bailey circus. :) He also had a wooden foot.

[Reverend_Smitty]

13. My great-grandfather lost his first wife in the influenza epidemic of 1918

it's funny how things work out because if she didn't die, he never would have met my great-grandmother and you know the rest of that story...

That same great-grandmother lost a brother in WWI and was gored by a bull when she was a child

I don't think they make people from the same "stock" any more

[sarge43]

50. Flu pandemic

My mother was 10 years old when that horror hit. There were seven people living in the home - herself, grandfather, grandmother, father, aunt, brother and sister. All of them, except her grandmother, came down with the flu. All of them lived through it. Mom believed her grandmother, a registered nurse, saved their lives. She said she'd always remember the truck pulling up in front of neighbor's houses and dropping off a coffin. Later, the truck would come back and pick it up, with a body inside. That's something out of the Middle Ages.

It's estimated that epidemic killed a half million people in this country alone, low ball figure 30 million worldwide.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

55. My mother's parents were living in a small town in North Dakota during the pandemic

The flu hit, and many people in the town died. My grandmother told me about two cases in particular, one being a young schoolteacher who had just graduated from college the previous year, and the other being a family of five. The family lived on an isolated farm, and one day, someone realized that no one had seen them for several days, not in the stores, not in church, not in school. The sheriff went out to investigate and found the entire family dead from the flu.

[sarge43]

57. One of the worst things about it

was it struck young adults particularly hard. Estimated that 45% of the deaths were people between 15 and 30. It just about broke the US Army. There's descriptions of cities and towns on the edge of anarchy because the human infrastructure had come apart, thousands dead, dying, sick or afraid to leave their homes.

What's so strange is that it gets very little recognition in official histories. There's just these fading family stories.

[Rising Phoenix]

14. a sad one

my great great grandfather was the town drunk in Ireland.....they found him passed out in the street and threw him in a cell to sleep it off....turned out it was a diabetic coma and he died....

[1gobluedem]

16. My great grandfather busted rum runners on the Detroit River

During Prohibition. He was a policeman. We have a picture of him posing with a Tommy Gun he confiscated from one of the rum runners.

[Javaman]

17. Another story...

My grampa was the oldest of 5 kids. Anyway. In 1917, his own younger brother accused him of running around on my grandmother.

My grandpa was so straight laced he squeaked.

My great uncle was well known back then as as "no account". aka a bum. Basically, he was trying to extort money from my grandpa.

So, my grampa being a straight arrow, but also on tough son of a gun. Grabbed his younger brother, hauled him down to the army recruiting station and signed him up.

My great uncle saw action in the famous WWI battles, but alas he was caught in a gas bombardment and left the army a lung scared man for life.

He later was one of the people who marched on Washington demanding his war bonus before he and his fellow vets were kicked off the washington mall by young douglas macarthur and an even younger dwight eisenhower. He hated them both till the day he died.

[johnnie]

19. My great grandmother went to college in the late 20s

Talk about uppity..lol.

[Lisa]

23. yes, them wimmenfolk -- tsk, tsk!

She would probably have laughed, to hear that the majority of US and Canadian college students are women, these days.

[Lisa]

22. my dad was born in an isolated village on the BC coast ...

One day, when he was just a little tyke (so, before 1930), his dad took him out fishing in the rowboat. Dad fell in. He nearly drowned, before Grandpa hauled him back into the boat. Grandpa didn't say anything -- just grunted at him, and kept rowing.

Dad says he remembers that they were in a little inlet, lined with weathered old totem poles.

[WolverineDG]

24. My grandfather was in the Navy in WWI

He wrote home about his voyage to France. He said he was fine, but there were many on board who looked like "the last rose of summer." He didn't get seasick, which is strange because until he enlisted in the Navy, he'd never been on a ship or a boat.

dg

[Deep13]

32. My Great Grandfather was in WWI. nt

[WolverineDG]

38. I bet we're about the same age, though

My mom was a late-life "surprise" & then she didn't start having kids until she was in her 30's. :)

dg

[Deep13]

51. Could be. I'm first born of the first born.

[MrScorpio]

26. My great uncle, Joe Louis defeated Braddock to become heavyweight champ of the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis

[Deep13]

29. Yeah, but are you related to anyone famous?

:7
Very cool.

[WolverineDG]

37. My dad met Joe Louis

:hi:

dg

[Drunken Irishman]

27. My great grandfather was a member of the Irish mafia, was arrested and deported.

The family had come over from Ireland prior, or during, the Irish revolution. They settled in Boston and my grandfather began working with organized crime, both Italian and Irish. However, in the late 20s, he was arrested and given basically two options. He could spend time in jail or return to Ireland. He decided to return to Ireland, but told my family to stay in the Boston area. So my great grandmother did. What's interesting, though, is that he had the English government looking for him prior to the family moving to the United States, so when he returned to Ireland, no one heard from him again. My great grandmother moved the family west to Utah, where they settled here. They assumed he was killed back in Ireland.

[Deep13]

28. How charming. Wow.

My grande Memere as a toddler went with her mother, Memere LaTourneau, around 1920 by buck board to Alberta to try to farm a homestead. Pepere LaTourneau did his best to clear the place of rocks and trees, but it was too much for one man and they moved back to central MA. Grande Memere was born in 1911 and is 96 today. She was kind of a wild kid and used to go tearing up the streets of Worcester in her V-8 Ford (probably a Model B).

[no name no slogan]

31. My great-grandfather was very active in the Minneapolis DFL

He ran several retail businesses, and also ran for alderman a few times in the 1930s & 1940s (lost each time, though). He knew Hubert H. Humphrey back then, about the time HHH became Minneapolis's mayor. In fact, my grandfather used to ge Christmas cards from the Humphreys up until HHH died in the 70s.

[trackfan]

34. Not a family story, but I did overhear a conversation in a restaurant

a few years ago. An older woman was telling the two younger (middle aged)men she was with about the time, when she was a girl, that she and her friends were so excited and thrilled when they saw Hitler pass by in a motorcade.

[Thirtieschild]

35. My mother had malaria three times as a child in Georgia

one time after they moved to Oklahoma when she was nine (1918). She says it was so awful that she decided that if she got it again she wouldn't try to get well. She's 99 now, mind still sharp, will likely live well past 100.

And if we count the 1930s, I was born in the heart of the Dust Bowl, in the worst year of the storms. Mother says after one of the storms she'd have to clean house with a shovel instead of a broom.

[lost-in-nj]

36. My Grandfather

my Moms father
was suppossed to be on the Lusitania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania

he had an infected hang nail and they would not let him board.....

his friends and army buddies were killed and he lived

rumor has it his hair turned white over night......



lost

[SPKrazy]

40. I know where my grandfather was born

and the little town (which is now a store and a bar) which was named after my great grandfather-- Paul Nebraska I've seen.

My grandfather was, like many, many others, in trench warfare during WW1, he got mustard gassed.

During WW2 because of my family's German heritage, my grandfather was very cautious about anyone knowing he was of German heritage despite the fact that his family had lived in the US for years and he was born here in the US.

Thats all I can come up with at the moment.

[Swede]

41. My grama was left handed,the teachers tied her left hand behind her back

to force her to become right handed.

[Blue Diadem]

46. My Mom told me they used to smack her left hand with a ruler.

She had infantile paralysis(polio) as a tot and it weakened her right side. They sure didn't attempt to understand or have compassion in those days.

[hunter]

42. My great grandparents were fairly well-to-do in San Francisco.

A big house, Irish housekeepers and cooks, a Chinese laundry man... They skated through the earthquake in fairly good shape. They owned land in Los Angeles and houses in San Diego too.

They didn't manage to hold onto but a fraction of it through the Great Depression. I suppose my great grandfather was a dreamer and had borrowed against everything.

They didn't end up poor -- more like middle class.

I suspect the nation is going to take a turn like that again. I know people who were "flipping" houses, and otherwise borrowing against real estate when the bottom fell out, and now they are sweating bad, if not already in forclosure.

[IDemo]

43. My Grandfather sang in a Vaudeville group

They toured for a while with Houdini. My grandfather and the rest of the guys often drank with Houdini while my grandmother and Beth Houdini kept each other company.

[Lethe]

44. yeah

my grandpa was born in 1910, then spent the next 95 years of his life cotton farming in spite of the dustbowl and corporate farms to provide for his family :D

[Connonym]

45. My grandmother was the nanny to my grandfather's 3 older children

His first wife died of TB leaving him with 3 young sons. My grandmother was hired to nanny the children and they ended up marrying and having 3 more children together. :eyes: needless to say my dad and his full sibs were seen as somehow inferior because their mother had been a domestic

[kwassa]

48. My great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, and ....

while wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness, recovered, survived the rest of the war, lived a long life, and went to the 50th reunion of the Battle of Gettsyburg in 1913.

At the reunion in Gettysburg he had a heart attack and died.

He had been in the First Maine Cavalry. I've visited the part of the battleground where he fought.

[Joe Fields]

52. My great grandfather owned ten saloons before prohibition.

[bikebloke]

53. Grandfather in the Great War

He fought in the Ardennes and was gassed and caught a German bullet in the foot. The foot healed, and as he was a runner, won a local foot race after the war. Unfortunately, the gassing killed him young at 38.

[Midlodemocrat]

56. My Grandpa was gassed as well.

Towards the end of the war. He wasn't well enough to travel back to the states, so an old German couple took him in and cared for him until he could travel. Isn't that an amazing thought?

Died in 1977. He was a wonderful, wonderful person.

[Maine-ah]

54. Anneka Jans is my umpteen times great grandmother.

I only found that out a couple of years ago. If you don't know the story:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ghosthunter/Anneke/page2.htm


basically, she owned the property that Trinity Church is on, which turned into a rather famous lawsuit.

My husband's family is rather unfortunately related to both Bab's and W.