Family past

[Mom-ninja.]

Do people in your family talk about the family's past? Do you know things about your ancestors? Do you know things about your grandparents even?

 

 

I find myself astonished, bewildered, and miffed at times with my parents. My dad will every now and then say something casually about our family history that I had no clue about, and yet find fascinating and wish I had known sooner.

 

Just recently I learned that my grandfather (recently turned 93) at one time in his life played in the Seattle Symphony. He played the cello. I had no idea.

 

Yesterday, my dad was visiting and again dropped another :w00t: bomb. He mentions that in the airport the other day he was standing in front of Ma and Pa from The Egg and I. He said the couple reminded him of the couple in the book. I had never heard of the book. He says it was written by Betty MacDonald the same woman who wrote Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. I told him I just read that book last week to the boys. Then he continues in on off hand way, "Oh, yeah. Mrs. MacDonald was really nice. We had a lot of fun at her house." Wait. What?!

 

He then tells me that when he was a kid they lived next door to the MacDonalds. My grandmother (also named Betty) was good friends with Betty MacDonald and they were together all the time. Both their husbands had been Marines, and they had lots of other things in common. He said they were always at each others' houses a lot. He told me I should read The Egg and I because it is about when she lived next door to my grandparents.

 

I'm floored. Floored! Why was I not told this before?!

 

BTW, The Egg and I is available for Kindle at $2.99. I have to read it now. I can't believe my grandmother was friends with her. I wish I could have talked to my grandmother about this before she died.

 

 

Oh, I did know that my grandmother once dated Charles Schulz, but it obviously didn't work out as she married my grandpa. :001_smile:

[Dory]

Our family made a conscious effort to pass on the stories. When we had family get togethers, one person would tell a story, which would set off another person with their story, and the older kids would egg it all on with questions. I don't know as much as my older siblings, but I feel I have a pretty good understanding of my family on both sides.

[marbel]

I loved The Egg and I!

 

But, yes, my mother would casually mention things that to me were significant and I'd wonder why I never knew them. But they weren't significant to her and it never occurred to her that it would be interesting to me.

 

Like the story that her father was opposed to electricity in the house (she was born in 1916) and there was a big fight when her oldest brother paid to have it installed (or whatever the right term would be). Wow, that was huge to me. But to her it was just no big deal.

 

I suppose there might be things that I haven't thought to tell my kids that they will find fascinating and wonder why I never told them.

 

We should all blog or journal our daily lives more. ;)

[justamouse]

I know how you feel. I wish I could ask my Nana about the family secrets. Cause there are a few.

[Chris in VA]

Both my husband and I made a point to ask a lot of questions about family lore. We have some neat stories, and I wanted to make sure it got written down. My parents don't like talking about difficult times (alcoholics on both sides, mental illness, etc.) but they do like some reminiscing.

 

My husband's mom wrote down some of her memories for us and put it in a cookbook, with family recipes. It's one of my dearest possessions. She just put the good in, and most of it is childhood memories. It's called Glimpses of Joy, and I just love it. My bil took some old photos and doctored them up in artsy ways and put them in as illustrations. They made books (used black, binder notebooks and page protectors) for all her kids.

[hillfarm]

I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was growing up. She grew up in rural Appalachian Kentucky in a very poor family. One fascinating story she told me was the first time she saw a plane in the air. She said she was outside and she heard this great noise. She dropped to her knees and started praying because she actually thought it was the Second Coming of Christ, right then and there!

 

Granny was a wonderful woman and my dd is named after her.

 

On my father's side, I remember my great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Gildea, telling us lots of stories about relatives in Ireland, plenty of ghost stories, and lots and lots of ones with health and hygiene morals :confused:. Perhaps we were too grubby for her when we were young.:D

 

Because one of my aunts is very interested in genealogy, we have learned of many more stories of our ancestors, including how one Cherokee woman managed to get out of the southeast not long before the Trail of Tears and how another earlier pioneer survived an Indian attack and partial disembowelment.

 

Unfortunately we don't really incorporate most of this information into our daily lives. I do occasionally remember a story from Granny, or about her, and relate it to dd. It always makes me smile to remember her.

[nono]

Yes, I can tell you tales of people who were dead before I was born. Our family tells stories about each other, I guess, instead of gossiping. :D

 

It's been very disconcerting to have my MIL n-e-v-e-r talk about the past. It's like she's in the witness protection program, except I think they'd develop a better backstory than she can come up with....:tongue_smilie:

[Ibbygirl]

I would feel the same way you do! hehe My family fortunately, are pretty good about passing down the old stories. I think I know all of them pretty well. :)

[J-rap]

I know some, but I'd love to know more. My dad spoke at his big brother's funeral yesterday, and I learned things I never knew about his childhood. My dad doesn't speak about his past much. (It was very sad, even though he is a very joyful person himself!) I do know that my grandmother was born in the U.S. soon after her mother and father immigrated here from Norway. When my grandmother was 10 years old, her mother said she wanted to take her on a trip back to the "homeland." Apparently it was to pick up her mother's two other children -- my grandmother's brothers -- who she didn't even know she had! Stories like that are fascinating to me.

[Hoot]

My family doesn't talk about the past... EVER. My grandmother won't answer questions about her past so we all stopped asking. When I was in school I had to do some sort of ancestry study and I chose to research her, but even then she wouldn't answer most of my questions. My step-grandmother, on the other hand, used to tell me stories about her past occasionally but I don't really remember most of them and she passed away 2 yrs. ago.

[Ibbygirl]

My husband's mom wrote down some of her memories for us and put it in a cookbook, with family recipes. It's one of my dearest possessions. She just put the good in, and most of it is childhood memories. It's called Glimpses of Joy, and I just love it. My bil took some old photos and doctored them up in artsy ways and put them in as illustrations. They made books (used black, binder notebooks and page protectors) for all her kids.

 

What a treasure! That is so amazing that she did that. :)

[OrganicAnn]

My mom's family is Irish and I always attribute all the family history that she has past down to us because of the Irish love of stories and history.

 

My father wrote down certain parts of his childhood and gave me and my siblings copies. It isn't his complete life story, but just different parts that he felt was significant.

 

My mom used to tell us lots of stories of her childhood when we were young and we were in bed trying to go to sleep. I go though spells trying to do the same. If you don't make time and effort to pass along your family history, it is easy for it to be forgotten.

 

I notice that in those tv shows about famous people's ancestors are like that. They often are surprised what their ancestors did or who they were.

[Dobela]

For some of my family I know lots, for others, almost nothing. I was playing around on Ancestry.com not long ago and found a census record where my grandpa was called Luther. Luther? That isn't his name. I called my dad and learned it was a nickname and lots of people from a certain community called him by that name. Huh? My grandpa lived until I was 32 and I didn't know that!

 

Another great grandmother, born in the 1880s, had a college degree and married my great grandpa who only had a second grade education and was a share cropper. Why didn't she marry a college man or one that at least wasn't poor?

[myfunnybunch]

My paternal grandparents had many stories to tell. Before my grandmother died, my dad took videos of them talking about their childhood. Each video had a theme: School, food, friends, family. They both grew up very poor. My grandmother told a story about her parents telling her never ever to tell the revenuers anything, so when a man in a suit showed up at the door looking for her dad, she refused to tell him her name. :D My grandfather tells about going down to the railroad station to sell newspapers when he was 6 years old.

 

My maternal grandmother rarely talked about her childhood. She, too, grew up in incredible poverty. She lived with a woman, an aunt maybe, who took in orphaned and foster children. They had no shoes and for all of her adult life my grandmother never ate cornmeal anything. She despised it because so many meals all they had to eat was some cornmeal mush. It was a hard life, and she didn't like to talk about it.

 

Yes, I can tell you tales of people who were dead before I was born. Our family tells stories about each other, I guess, instead of gossiping. :D

 

My mom and I were talking about this the other night. We loved sitting around the table playing cards with my grandparents because they just told story after story about their travels, their families, people they knew, people they kind of knew, people they didn't know ;-)....I think our modern screen-oriented culture has forgotten how to just sit around and shoot the breeze, as my grandpa used to say.

 

Cat

[Perry]

Those are great stories!

 

My mother never spoke of her family. I found out she had three brothers and sisters I'd never heard of after she died. Clearly, they were not a close family. :glare:

[Meriwether]

I was an adult before I knew my grandpa obtained his first car by taking it for a test drive from Indiana to Oklahoma. I recently learned he also did some time in the pen for knifing a guy in a bar fight. I knew that Grandma had run away to marry him. I can see why great-grandpa wouldn't have given his blessing. The real kicker is - they were Amish. I'm glad I didn't know about his past until he was dead. I know a fair amount of family history. We have family books and a fair amount of pictures for a Mennonite/Amish family. Mom was an adult before she knew her Grandpop had been on a Saturday Evening Post cover, because Grammy didn't like the picture, but I have copies for all my kids.

 

OP: I was also an adult before I knew that Mom had youth meetings at Pearl S. Buck's barn and mom babysat her grandkids.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Meriwether

[TranquilMind]

Do people in your family talk about the family's past? Do you know things about your ancestors? Do you know things about your grandparents even?

 

 

I find myself astonished, bewildered, and miffed at times with my parents. My dad will every now and then say something casually about our family history that I had no clue about, and yet find fascinating and wish I had known sooner.

 

Just recently I learned that my grandfather (recently turned 93) at one time in his life played in the Seattle Symphony. He played the cello. I had no idea.

 

Yesterday, my dad was visiting and again dropped another :w00t: bomb. He mentions that in the airport the other day he was standing in front of Ma and Pa from The Egg and I. He said the couple reminded him of the couple in the book. I had never heard of the book. He says it was written by Betty MacDonald the same woman who wrote Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. I told him I just read that book last week to the boys. Then he continues in on off hand way, "Oh, yeah. Mrs. MacDonald was really nice. We had a lot of fun at her house." Wait. What?!

 

He then tells me that when he was a kid they lived next door to the MacDonalds. My grandmother (also named Betty) was good friends with Betty MacDonald and they were together all the time. Both their husbands had been Marines, and they had lots of other things in common. He said they were always at each others' houses a lot. He told me I should read The Egg and I because it is about when she lived next door to my grandparents.

 

I'm floored. Floored! Why was I not told this before?!

 

BTW, The Egg and I is available for Kindle at $2.99. I have to read it now. I can't believe my grandmother was friends with her. I wish I could have talked to my grandmother about this before she died.

 

 

Oh, I did know that my grandmother once dated Charles Schulz, but it obviously didn't work out as she married my grandpa. :001_smile:

 

Yes, I know all the history of my family that the previous two generations had. My Mom was the historian of the family and now I am.

 

Get them to tell it all to you now! Interview them.

[mommaduck]

I grew up with stories of my stepfather's family (his father grew up with the Van Dyke brothers and had some stories to tell on Dick) and they descended from a sibling of Francis Scott Key(es).

 

My mother's side of the family were immigrants on one side of the family and a total mystery on the other. My mother and I have both done genealogy and made connections with family members. On the Finnish side, we have Master Weavers, professional fashion wool knitters, a painter, and many other artists. One relative has helped build massive bridges in on the west coast. My grandfather was a bomber pilot in WWII and then traveled the US building the interstate system (my grandmother, my mother, and her sister used to travel with him in the early years). The best I can find on the mystery side is that the family are dairy farmers here in the US and the family in Europe (both currently and for generations past) have been a big name in banking (and funnily, my grandmother was an accountant and my mother used to be a military payroll accounting clerk...and I'm pretty good at basic accounting).

 

My dad's side used to be a complete mystery to me with my mother dropping little hints to big bombs while I was growing up. She hid me from his family, but encouraged me to go find them (but keeping to her agreement with sd by not really giving me info straight out). I have such a rich history on my dad's side (and many siblings!). I found people I could connect with. Some of my ancestors ran with Francis Marion. We used to own part of the property that is now part of the FMNF. We have had proclaimed members of the Hellhole Gang to well known Senators and Congressmen to a well known publisher. We descend down one line from Charlemagne. We've had notorious men to ship captains and merchants.

 

 

My husband's side has been difficult, but I've been finding some wonderful things. His family forgot the stories on one side and hid much of their past on the other. He has a cousin that plays/ed for the Colts. He is descended from the Campbells and also from the brother of Gen. Sumpter.

 

We both have NA in us. The stories there are incomplete, but I'm working on them and would take way more time than I have here to tell.

 

I'm one of the storykeepers in my family. I have had relatives that have written books. I'm considering the same.

Edited July 16, 2012 by mommaduck

[LoriK]

My Dad's side of the family is full of storytellers...made up storytellers. LOL My aunt told me all sorts of things about her father (my grandpa) and none of them are true, based on census reports, newspaper accounts from his childhood, and court documents.

 

When my Dad was dying, she came for a visit and told me several accounts of family history, but not one thing she said is close to being the truth. My mom always told me that my aunt was a bit of an exagerator, now I see that she was right. LOL