Thinking about my grandfather today...

[MamaSheep]

We were prevented from seeing him at Thanksgiving due to bad weather, and he's been on my mind a bit lately. Grandpa was born in 1917. A lot has changed in the world since then. I wonder what the world will be like when my kids are the age he is now.

[mcconnellboys]

I regularly think about my grandmother's lifetime, too. She was born in 1908 and still lives in the house they built in 1954.... I keep thinking that we need to get back to pre-WWII lifestyles in many ways....

[Laurie]

We were prevented from seeing him at Thanksgiving due to bad weather, and he's been on my mind a bit lately. Grandpa was born in 1917. A lot has changed in the world since then. I wonder what the world will be like when my kids are the age he is now.

 

 

There's an appendix section in The Well Trained Mind about taking an oral history, and there are some good questions you could ask your grandfather. This might be an interesting family history project to start now if you haven't done something like this already.

[MamaT]

I think about my grandfather all the time. He was born in 1910 and died in 2007. He had lots of stories to tell and a very interesting life. I'm sad that my youngest children won't remember him.

[myfunnybunch]

:grouphug:

 

My grandfather is the same age, and I often wonder the same thing.

 

He owns a Wii to play Wii bowling. :D I wonder if he'd ever ever imagined such a thing would exist in his lifetime?

 

My father started a video project with my grandparents a year before my grandmother died. They talk about their childhoods...sitting on the front porch when the revenuers came, selling newspapers at the railroad track when my grandfather was 6, canning peaches on their homeymoon....

 

Cat

[Brenda in FL]

I've been thinking about both of our grandmothers today. Mine was born in 1917 and dh's in 1918. Today we are preparing a room for my grandmother's visit in about a week. Last year we were doing the same thing for Dh's grandmother. She stayed with us while she recovered from a fall. It was the best time for us and the kids! She passed away unexpectedly this past summer. I can't help thinking that we better make this a great visit with my grandmother in case its the last time we see her too. I love them both so much!!!

 

It is amazing about all the changes in their lifetimes. As I talk about historic events with my kids I will often say, this was when Grammie was your age.

[MamaSheep]

My grandmother on the other side of the family was born in 1903. When she was growing up her father always took the family to church in the white buggy with the matched white horses and all the ladies in the family wore white dresses and gloves.

 

My mother was born the year her family installed indoor plumbing. She remembers cleaning the wet sawdust out of the icebox and her mother cooking all their meals on a woodburning stove. When she was a little girl her blind grandmother lived with them and told stories about her family during Indian raids.

 

I think with technology developing so rapidly it's easy to forget what a short time ago it was that life was so very, very different.

 

My daughter found a cassette tape a few months back when we were cleaning some stuff out of basement storage and had NO CLUE what it was. Her brother very wisely explained that it was a thing we used "a long time ago" to play music and stories on, like a CD. She didn't believe him. I tried explaining to both of them one time that when I was a kid tv was black and white, we got four channels (and were happy about it!) and had to get up and twist a knob to switch stations. They thought I was making it up.