Remembering

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Chet18013

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I wonder how many folks remember something their grandparent(s) told them when they were growing up that totally shocked them.

One day when I was high school-1950's era-, one of my friends and I were discussing dating and the convince of having a car as compared to my grandmother's youth when all they had were horses for transportation. Grandma (born in 1889) agreed with us that having a car to go on a date was great, but you always had to be alert went driving, whereas "the horse knew the way home". This comment from my 70 year old grandma stopped us both with absolutely no comeback.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?
 
Not my grandparents but a great aunt and uncle.  She still cooked on a big old cookstove with the water reservoirs when I was little and they never had running water or an inside toilet.

But she told me her mom was a little girl in the civil war and about them hiding all they had, a 5 dollar gold piece under a board in the mud to save it from the Yankee soldiers.  They were from the Kentucky hills.  I wish I had been old enough to have asked more, they lived till I was in college.  But I learned a lot from them, but imagine having a connection back to the civil war, they lived into their 90's.  Neither could read or write, and they were big people, I took after them, I'm talking big bone structure.  They died still having their own teeth, were not overweight, and were healthy.  They were like my grandparents, they never had any kids and I guess I was their grandkid.  I loved them dearly.
 
One of my Grandmothers was quite crass and to the point. Her descriptions of life in the "old days" were quite descriptive and colorful. More times than not she would describe things that were extremely shocking by any standards.

The stories of what we would today call hardship were in her eyes, everyday living. The things that we take for granted, she could not even dream of...
 
PatrioticStabilist said:
Not my grandparents but a great aunt and uncle.  She still cooked on a big old cookstove with the water reservoirs when I was little and they never had running water or an inside toilet.

But she told me her mom was a little girl in the civil war and about them hiding all they had, a 5 dollar gold piece under a board in the mud to save it from the Yankee soldiers.  They were from the Kentucky hills.  I wish I had been old enough to have asked more, they lived till I was in college.  But I learned a lot from them, but imagine having a connection back to the civil war, they lived into their 90's.  Neither could read or write, and they were big people, I took after them, I'm talking big bone structure.  They died still having their own teeth, were not overweight, and were healthy.  They were like my grandparents, they never had any kids and I guess I was their grandkid.  I loved them dearly.

When I was about 4, we visited one of my grandmothers aunts. Grandma made a big deal about it and had me sit on her lap. It was drilled into me that my grandmothers aunt had been present and heard Lincoln give the Gettysburg address. I was reminded of this many times for the next few years that actually had talked to and sat on the lap of someone who had heard Lincoln speak in person. It was stressed that I should remember this. Even at that time, they made a big deal of it. The aunt had to have been in her 90's. All I remember was, she was incredibly old. Now I think it's neat that I can say that I actually was in the presence of someone who personally saw and heard Lincoln.
 
When we visited my Grandmother in about 1968, she was in her 90s-93 I think.  She told my kids about her traveling from England to Canada and then by wagon to Alberta where her brothers were homesteading.  After they were established she traveled on to BC and caught another sailing ship to New Zealand and another brother.  From there she traveled back to England some on sailing ship and some on a "steamer" with sails. 

Later she came back to Canada and eventually the US when she got married.  Then she told about her travels since by bus, car and finally airplane so she did them all.  She was thrilled when the moon landing happened.  She died in 1977 just shy of her 102nd birthday. 

The kids, and me, were thrilled to hear her stories about the trips.  Her family lives a long time, a sister was 103, and a niece was also 102 almost 103.  My mother was 97 and an aunt is 98 and still going.
 

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