Family Stories

[archmaker]

Ok, I know I am not the only one that has some great family stories about parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents. :)

So I will start!

(Told by my Mom) - In the late 50's my grandmother was going through a bout of depression, walking around and not doing much and wearing the old mother hubbard dresses. My mom was just over 16 at the time. Well my grandfather walked up to my mom and told her to take her mother to town and buy her clothes; bras, panties, skirts, and blouses. Stuff you would see in an office environment, and handed her $300 - a good sum of money back then. So when my grandfather TOLD you do something you did it no questions asked. So they headed to town to buy the stuff. When they get back in the front yard there is a pile of clothes burning. It was every stitch of clothes my grandmother owned. Well my grandmother jumped out of the car and walked up to my grandfather and said "VERN, what the H*!! are you doing!!!" And his response is the stuff of legend . . . "I have a new truck, you have a new car, we are in debt over our assess! I suggest you get a job!"

She did get a job and did get out of her depression, and they were married for over 55 years. :)

[BrassMagnet]

Ok, I know I am not the only one that has some great family stories about parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents. :)

So I will start!

(Told by my Mom) - In the late 50's my grandmother was going through a bout of depression, walking around and not doing much and wearing the old mother hubbard dresses. My mom was just over 16 at the time. Well my grandfather walked up to my mom and told her to take her mother to town and buy her clothes; bras, panties, skirts, and blouses. Stuff you would see in an office environment, and handed her $300 - a good sum of money back then. So when my grandfather TOLD you do something you did it no questions asked. So they headed to town to buy the stuff. When they get back in the front yard there is a pile of clothes burning. It was every stitch of clothes my grandmother owned. Well my grandmother jumped out of the car and walked up to my grandfather and said "VERN, what the H*!! are you doing!!!" And his response is the stuff of legend . . . "I have a new truck, you have a new car, we are in debt over our assess! I suggest you get a job!"

She did get a job and did get out of her depression, and they were married for over 55 years. :)


I love this story!

[Echo]

I'm fortunate to have known 3 Great-Grandmothers. One came west in a covered wagon, from Tennessee, to settle in Texas north of Dallas. She taught me to play 'Ante Over'. Another tended her siblings while their father drove a buggy around as an itinerant MD and minister, all on the Nebraska prairie. One time when he was gone, 3 indians came into the sod house, lay down on the hearth, went to sleep, got up before dawn and left, never looking at the kids. She was 14 at the time...
Looking back, they were treasures - unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to mine that ore. I did help 2 of them, and my grand-mother, with their quilting, carding the raw cotton for them to sew in as filler. I was 3 at the time...

[WILCO]

Great story!!!

[Pipefitter]

My grandmother (mom's mother) grew up in Belgium, she was 4 or 5 when WW1 broke out. My great grandparents were considered rich at the time because they owned 10 acres, a cow and a mule. When the Germans advanced through the area they lived in the German soldiers confiscated the cow to feed the troops. Later when the Germans retreated through the same area 2 German soldiers came to the door begging food. Grandma told me her mom chased them off with a meat cleaver shouting "There isn't enough food to feed the kids, let alone you two."

[JWFilips]

OK Not my Family story: But this one is about my dear friend, Steve Collward ( I often post book sales by him on this forum).....


He and his family are from small town in upper state NY Near lake Ontario.
The day his Mother went into labor with him.... His Dad drove his Mom over to the Doctors house to pick him up and head for the next town where there was a hospital with Maternity Facility, so Steve could be delivered. When his Dad stopped off to pick up the Doc, he said "take your rifle" just in case!
It was quite a rural drive to get to the next town and they passed a lot of farm fields loaded with spring Ground hogs. The Doc knew just how far along the "to be mother" was and said they had some time!.... so they hunted chucks on the way to the hospital! Now that is a family story that I have always enjoyed! Steve is my best friend and I know he always loves sharing it with folks....yes another day and age!

[CastingFool]

My grandfather came home from work one day, and found his wife embroiled in an argument with her brother, who had been drinking. He grabbed a machete and started hacking on my grandfather, who fended off the attack with his arms. I remember seeing some scars on his arms when I was little, but never found out about them till much later. The BIL did end up in jail, and that side of the family never had anything to do with my grandfather (as if it he was to blame) The attack happened way before my mom was born and she's 93 now.

[xs11jack]

My grandparents on my mothers side emigrated to Canada up around the area where Choiseland Saskatchewan is today, back just about the turn of the 20th century. The nearest town was more than 50 miles by horseback or buggy. My Mom was born up there in 1913. She witnessed my Grandad getting gored by a bull in the barn yard and went screaming to get her Mom. Grandma went running down there and chased the bull off with a pitchfork and somehow dragged Grandpa up to the house and stitched him up with darning thread after washing his intestines with warm water and stuffed them back inside. He lived to be 83 years old. Took that terrible scar to the grave with him.
Ole

[waksupi]

OK Not my Family story: But this one is about my dear friend, Steve Collward ( I often post book sales by him on this forum).....




He and his family are from small town in upper state NY Near lake Ontario.
The day his Mother went into labor with him.... His Dad drove his Mom over to the Doctors house to pick him up and head for the next town where there was a hospital with Maternity Facility, so Steve could be delivered. When his Dad stopped off to pick up the Doc, he said "take your rifle" just in case!
It was quite a rural drive to get to the next town and they passed a lot of farm fields loaded with spring Ground hogs. The Doc knew just how far along the "to be mother" was and said they had some time!.... so they hunted chucks on the way to the hospital! Now that is a family story that I have always enjoyed! Steve is my best friend and I know he always loves sharing it with folks....yes another day and age!

That reminds me of one of my relatives. He took his wife to the hospital to deliver, with his car full of hounds. Once he dropped her off, he went coon hunting all night. Made nearly enough from hides to pay for the birthing!

[BrassMagnet]

That reminds me of one of my relatives. He took his wife to the hospital to deliver, with his car full of hounds. Once he dropped her off, he went coon hunting all night. Made nearly enough from hides to pay for the birthing!

I'm so confused by this story.
Could coon hides really be that valuable?
Could the fees at the hospital be that low?
Were the Doctor's fee that low?
How much was malpractice insurance back then?
No inflation here. Just walk right on by!

[Fishman]

My grandparents on my mothers side emigrated to Canada up around the area where Choiseland Saskatchewan is today, back just about the turn of the 20th century. The nearest town was more than 50 miles by horseback or buggy. My Mom was born up there in 1913. She witnessed my Grandad getting gored by a bull in the barn yard and went screaming to get her Mom. Grandma went running down there and chased the bull off with a pitchfork and somehow dragged Grandpa up to the house and stitched him up with darning thread after washing his intestines with warm water and stuffed them back inside. He lived to be 83 years old. Took that terrible scar to the grave with him.
Ole

that is a heck of a story. Some tough stock, the both of them.

[waksupi]

I'm so confused by this story.
Could coon hides really be that valuable?
Could the fees at the hospital be that low?
Were the Doctor's fee that low?
How much was malpractice insurance back then?
No inflation here. Just walk right on by!

Back then, coon hides were averaging around $85. Small town hospital, I think back then you could drop a calf for under a grand.

[cga]

The ongoing saga.

For years I owned an auto parts store and glass shop. One night I was at a friends body shop B S'ing, when an elderly lady came in with a box of rags. In that box was a large, W.W.ll jap flag loaded with signatures. (names and addresses) They didn't want it, so I brought it home with me. I let a friend hang it on the wall of his army & navy surplus store. My wife wanted me to get it back so she could research the names. Well, after hounding me for quite some time (years), I got it back. So far, she's contacted the families of most of the men who's names were on the flag. She's even talked to some of the men. But sadly, most are gone now. There are 189 signatures on the flag.
The flag has, and still is, being sent across the U.S. to the men, or their families, that want to see it first hand. It just left Colorado, and on it's way to Washington state.
Here's the facebook link for the flag. https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Names-on-the-Flag/301833906686472

[w5pv]

You can look this up in the Rains County News,in 1907 or 1908,my ggrandfather and two of his sons burned the jail/couthouse to get one or two out of jail.My ggrandfather was reputed to be a bootlegger and more than likey was the one in jail and his two sons burnt the jail/couthouse.I never found out how it went down.This ws in Emory,Texas

[JSnover]

My uncle Bob told me the story of how he left his wife. She was half American Indian and half Irish and was absolutely crazy when she drank. One afternoon after a few shots they had a big argument so he grabbed his pool cue and went out to shoot a few games, give her a chance to calm down.
He said, "I came home around midnight, the house was all quiet, she was under the blankets. Went to put my wallet in my top dresser drawer and I saw my big hunting knife was gone. So as quiet as I could I got some clothes together, snuck out of that house and never went back."

[archmaker]

Some good stories, some interesting history that never makes it into the books, but helped shaped who we are today. :)

[JonnyReb]

Great thread and i enjoyed every story.

The best one i can think of comes from my wifes grandmother who passed away in the early 90's and was born right at 1900. She grew up and lived her life on the N.C. family farm her great grandfather built in the early 1840's.

She said she personally heard the stories from 1st hand observers of when the Yankees came through her town, She could point to the spot on the creek when hundreds of them camped and that when they came to the farm they were preceeded by several black children who forwarned the family (all women as the men were off to fight) that the "Yankees were coming". This warning gave the family time to "hide the silver" under cow manure in the barn. She also said that while the house was searched and partially ransacked, that no one was harmed by any troop. That when one of the soldiers came out of the barn with the families only horse, he was told by an officer to return the horse to the family as "they need it worse than we do".

My wifes grandmother would then point to a large display of plain looking but highly polished silver plates, dishes and implements in an old wooden hutch and say, "and there it all is right there".

I wished i'd paid more attention to all the stories i've heard from various family members over the years..they were all treasures but i just didn't realize it at the time.

[Charley]

My maternal Grandmother (German, a Schultz) whopped my grandfather a couple times during their marriage. Back during the depression, they were sharecroppers, and didn't have much. She raised chickens and sold eggs and chickens to the local store, and the store owner would credit them towards their account. They would settle up after harvest, when more people had cash. My Grandfather would buy tobacco, on credit, as well. When my Grandmother went to settle accounts, and was looking forward to actually picking up some cash, it turned out my Grandfather's tobacco purchases just about canceled out her profit from the chickens and egg sold. She was a bit "put out". Punched him in the face, and gave him a black eye. He caught all kinds of grief from his friends, from his wife giving him a black eye.

Later on, during the 50s, they had company over for lunch. Grandfather looked at his plate, and said, "there's ants on here". She threw a plate of biscuits at him.

[w5pv]

Here is another shorty that did happen to me.My daughter in law is from the Phillipines and was new over here when I walked in the house with my gun in hand and she started screaming that he has a gun,my wife looked at hear and said so.Them explained to her that people in this household had a weapon nearby most of the time if not in hand.

[lbaize3]

My mother was the main source of family history stories. The one I remember best was about a cousin that lived in central Texas in the 1850's. Seems that his house was besieged by Comanche Indians. He, his wife and daughter, had managed to close the inside shutters and were keeping the Indians at bay by shooting through the gun ports in the shutters.

When a loud braying of animals came from the barn the husband told his wife he had to go to the barn to check on the animals. The barn at that time had no roof. While he was inside the barn, an arrow came flying over the wall and buried itself in his chest. He managed to calm the animals and put out a small fire started by the Comanche Indians before making it back into the house. With his wife and daughter, he managed to drive off the Indians.

The husband was helped to the couch where his wife told him that the arrow had to come out. Since the Comanche used barbed arrows, he told his wife that he would die if the arrow was pulled out. She told him that he would die if the arrow stayed in. So he told his wife and daughter his last wishes and holding his daughter's hand, told his wife to pull out the arrow. She managed to pull arrow out and a great gush of blood followed. The man died almost immediately.

[Echo]

My Grandfather Sanford was a Deputy Sheriff in Harris County (Houston). He was the guy that would go out on the court house steps and auction off property that had been seized for taxes. But he lost his job in a unique way.
The Sheriff was having a meeting with his Chief Deputy and several others (GP was not among them), took offense at something the Chief Deputy said, and stormed off to his office, with the CD chasing him, saying "That's not what I meant, Sheriff", and following him into the Sheriff's office. A shot rang out. Usually, a shot in the courthouse will draw a crowd, and this did. One witness said the CD was lieing on the floor, with the Sheriff standing over him with a pistol in his hand. The CD was heard to say "Don't shoot me, Sheriff, you know I got babies", and the Sheriff shot him again, killing him.
Well, the Sheriff lost his job, and since all the deputies were appointed, they lost their jobs, too. GP went to work in the Tax office...

[JSnover]

My favorite was when my cousin Don sold a car to my father. The deal was to be done on Friday afternoon, "I'm going away for the weekend so be here at four with cash in hand."
Dad gets down there as agreed, pays, signs, drives home. Don had seemed agitated but he had always been the Problem Child so dad didn't think much of it.
Twenty minutes after he gets home he's surrounded by cops.
Turns out Dons master plan was to rob a bank, burn up the back roads to his house, then ditch the getaway car by selling it. A description of the car led the police to my dads house. It didn't take long to figure out what happened. Don was in custody within a couple of hours.

[lancem]

My fathers side of the family seemed to have the best stories. When my great grandfather immigrated here with his family from the Ukraine at the turn of the last century he like many others had a hard time finding work. So he took to making and selling bathtub gin, which my grandmother would help bottle. Of course the downside is that the revenuers would come knocking, and my great grandfather would take flight out the back door and hide out with relatives, my great grandmother would be arrested but then released because she had children at home. My understanding was that this happened more than once.

Then there was the time where grandma fell through the rotten floor of the outhouse...

[Moonie]

My Grandfather had stories. He was one of the 7 Defensive linemen at Duke during the 1938 season, they were called the Iron Dukes as they were unscored upon until the rosebowl game. They were leading that game 3-0 against the USC Trojans when with 40 seconds to go USC scored the ONLY points (a touchdown) against Duke the entire season. My Grandfather also went on to play professional football until half the team quit to join the military during the beginning of WWII, putting an end to his professional career.

An interesting side note, the owner of the pro team he played for was a professional boxer that got my grandfather into semi-pro boxing and introduced him to another pro boxer that my grandfather became a sparing partner for...Joe Lewis.

As I said, that man was full of stories, he was my hero and has been gone for almost 25 years now. I can't wait to see him again.

[Harter66]

I grew up around aviation in what was then a small town . The local radio station owner had dozens of stories from before WWII and had flown the 1st airmail run from Fallon Nv to Winnemucca among his other accomplishments.

He related a story about a flight instructor at Needles Ca in June of 47 that he swore up and down wasn't him . But there was so much subtle detail that 1 was suspect.

At any rate 4 gentlemen arrived on the airfield about 9 am in a black Chevrolet sedan and approached this instructor saying that there was a gentleman that needed to be in Long Beach for dinner that night and that they needed him the fly there. The instructor says "I have a student up now and another after lunch, I can't go today but we can leave at day light and be there for a late breakfast " . The gentlemen were very insistent and 1 reached into his pocket to produce a roll of bills and proceeded to peel off a $100 saying we really need you to do this ..NOW.... and peeled off another . The instructor says " I've got to tell my wife get a bag and there's my other student " before he was done off came another $100. With $500 now hanging out of the "gentlemans"hand the instructor called his student down and wrote 2 notes,1 for his wife and another for his other student. He tended to the oil and fuel and said he was ready to go . These "gentlemen" went back to the car and got a 5th guy out that had been dozing in the back seat . He was dressed in a rather expensive looking suit and carried an over coat and a small bag to the airplane and they departed . We'll the 1st hour and a half was fine but it was getting late by then after 6 pm . They topped the coastal range to find fog ,knowing that the fog generally broke up at the coast and that Long Beach was on the coast they continued on holding a course . We'll as th sun was getting pretty low the fog started breaking up to reveal the ocean ..... and the fuel was down to the last quarter meaning that there was about 45 minutes until they landed whether or not there was an open space to do so. They made a course reversing turn and in about 20 min the instructor spotted 2 rows of lights that looked like a lighted field and said to himself ,"that's a runway and if it isn't I can ride the bus home". Just before the wheels touched ,more like 20 ft straight up,he discovered that it was not a runway but a bridge but at that point he was out of gas and ideas . Just moments after his landing a cop showed up and helped the instructor push the plane off the roadway and make a call to the now well rested gentleman in the pricey suits drivers . They arrived in just a few minutes with 2 cars . 1 of the non-drivers thanked the officer and as he approaced the instructor and his passenger extended his hand saying "dammit Bugsy ya ad' us worried it's getting late. Sir the 2nd car is for you they'll take you to your hotel and get you some dinner . A couple of the boys will take care of your plane and get you fueled or whatever you need . Just sign for anything you need ,looks like you could use a shirt and pants".

He closed the story with "so there it is the last cop and likely the last citizen to see Bugsy Segal ,and he nearly drown himself and or ruined a good airplane for $500,a full tank and a room." Les Pierce could tell a story about flying like nobody else I ever knew.

It's funny I could never get my grandmother to talk about the her time in Chicago from 1926-28' . She always said "I was too busy raising my little brother and step son to see anything going on especially after waiting tables from brunch to closing everyday but Sunday " . She was 89 when she confided that the reason she never had an Indian card was because in 1912 it wasn't fashionable to be an Indian especially from the south. Oh the story's she could have told if she only would have.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Not everybody can say he knew a man who knew a man who fought at Waterloo, but my maternal grandfather did, when his age was in the low single figures. But he was afraid to ask any questions, and told me "Laddie, aye ask the questions." So I will never know if his acquaintance saw The Man Himself on his white horse.

He became a First World War field artilleryman when he was old enough, as a farmer with children, to have got out of it. He had a relatively safe war in the Balkans, unhurt but for a permanently bent finger sustained teaching Bulgarian prisoners to play leapfrog. But his ancient cronies told me stories you couldn't read in books for adults then, which would get a child put into an institution nowadays, before it did him damage. There was a book in the house which had belonged to his sons, "Heroes of the Great War", and he didn't really approve, saying "I never did ony o' thae things." But then he realized he had to be fair on himself, and said "Mind you... I went."

My mother was nursing in a hospital in Leeds, and on night duty during the bombing. You can hear the stick of bombs from one aircraft getting louder, but moving left or right if it is going to pass you, and this one wasn't. She realized that the next one was her personal bomb, and it landed a few feet away, but didn't go off. She made everybody a cup of tea. Decades later I used to tell Saudi Air Force technical cadets that I was alive because an air force technician fouled up. One of my pictures is a postcard she used to draw and sell for a charity which helped servicemen's families.

The family said my grandfather never talked or cared to remember the war, but he did to me, and by his chair he had the West Point ordnance textbook for 1938. Many years later I identified the handwriting as that of my uncle Bob in Australia. He had taught in a military college of science, met and married an Australian girl who had been on vacation when some idiot started a war, and since the Australians were British then, joined the British Army. He got transferred to India, and they travelled separately to Australia on discharge. Even better, it must have been my father who brought the book from his own parents' home, sixty miles away, to give to his father-in-law, before he was lost at sea when I was two.

My sister told me Uncle Bob was still alive and active at 98, and reading every day, so I wrote and got the full story from his daughter. He was delighted to be getting his book back, but he had a fall and a stroke, unimpaired intellect to death in five days, before it arrived. I suppose that is pretty good when you consider the alternatives.

My mother was born just months before my grandfather's departure for the Balkans, so she was three when he came home. At the end of the evening they got up from the table, and she fetched him his army knapsack, because male visitors always left at the end of the evening. I don't believe it ever occurred to him that there could be houses where it was different. My picture has the self-same poster for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show which caused him to see it in 1904.

His sister-in-law married a Russian, who claimed to be an escaped aristocrat, and an officer in the Black Sea Fleet. But then they all did, and Martin didn't seem officer material, and was about as near as our family came to criminality. He described personally steering the ship through the Dardanelles, which a quartermaster would have done, and he was out of Russia long before the Revolution. So I think he was involved in the naval mutinies of 1905.

Anyway my grandmother hated him because he didn't wear any socks. That was quite normal for non-commissioned military Russians then. but it placed him beyond the pale of human society. Later they found that he was the father of an illegitimate daughter in the village, and later father of her child. But not even as much later as it might have been. The point is, my grandmother had used up all her holy artillery, and couldn't loathe and despise him any more than she already did for not wearing any socks. I have never forgotten the moral of the story, and think of it often on the non-gun boards of this website. Never let yourself hate anybody completely, because he might do something worse.

My grandfather saw a zeppelin shot down when he was near London, and also talked about seeing the Graf Zeppelin, which was a civil airliner of the 30s. I took that for a mistake. But recently I saw a photograph of the local military seaplane base, taken surreptitiously on the Graf Zeppelin's tour of the US - as I am quite sure the British did in Germany, of course. The farm was adjacent to a new military airfield about ten miles away, so I would be very surprised if he didn't see her.

He also always told me his side of my family came from Ireland soon after the Napoleonic Wars, and they changed their name from Redmond because it was politically unpopular in Ireland. I took this for myth. They are there in the census reports, born in Ireland, and one, aged 60 in 1841, could easily have been his informant about Waterloo. But while John Redmond was indeed unpopular, he didn't do his deal, home rule under the Crown on the close of war, until 1914, which was long after any name change. It is just like the Irish to fight and declare a triumph for what they were to be given anyway.

But then a couple of years later I made a quite eery discovery. The aristocratic branch of the Redmonds (we were more the farm-laboring end of the family) had turned Protestant and fought for the Crown in the 1798 rebellion. It made me more inclined to believe my grandfather's stories.

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[onceabull]

Here I am, fighting "the Urge" to regale y'all with a few stories re: my Sister's cousins,but realizing I'll have to face her in person in early June... Onceabull

[bear67]

This is a short version of one of the stories my wife's maternal grandmother used to tell. She was a red headed Irish girl who played practical jokes until her death at 86--Mama Bear was living with her grandmother and an uncle when I was courting her back in the 60's and Mama Katie would slip out to the barnyard behind the house where I usually parked when bringing her home and dress up as a ghost and scratch on the back of the truck were we were "sparking".

She came from Ireland on a steamship in 1891 and they took a train to Georgia where her dad ran a saloon. He got in a feud/ongoing fight with another saloon owner and they decided to move to Texas. He bought a Texas farm and saloon by mail and they started out by wagon. Seven kids, wife, full time cook and assorted horses, mules and 3 milk cows. They had a family wagon, a goods wagon with food and other necessary stuff, a wagon with supplies for the new farm like plows and Papa drove the largest wagon with whiskey and assorted spirits for the new saloon. He traded some of the saloon supplies for services along the route.
It took 9 months for the trip as he would set up a portable bar in towns they passed through. Katie, being the oldest was told she would have to drive a wagon, but she refused because she had two saddle horses and neither would let anyone else ride them. She rode the entire trip and shot small game to add to the pot--rode mans saddle as she said sidesaddles were just a way to get pitched off in the mud.

She worked in the new saloon in Texas and met her French immigrant husband while throwing him and his brother out of the saloon. They built a large cattle operation and she rode horseback until her mid 80's. The sheriff told her dad to sell the saloon before he was hanged for murder. It seems he had shot 3 people in his business for various misbehavior with a shotgun and rock salt. He was again in a bitter feud with another local saloonkeeper. He went to farming cotton and cattle and died in the 20s with 2 daughters and 5 sons all who became cattlemen, livestock truckers and cattle buyers.

She could spin this tale out to 2 hours and I really wish we had audio taped her stories. Quiet an Irish, Georgia, Texas gal.

[wv109323]

As a child I was in my Grandfathers apple orchard and discovered a double bit ax that was split down the side where the handle went. I asked my grandfather about the ax and got no reply.
After inquiring with several of my uncles I got the story of the ax.
It seems that my grandfather was drinking and broke the handle out of the ax. His solution was to shoot the broken handle out of the ax head with a shotgun at near point blank range.
The only shotgun I knew my grandfather owned was a Winchester Model 12 12 gauge with a 32" barrel full choke.

[Col4570]

My dad accepted assisted passage during the Great Depression on the Empress of France.On arrival in Canada he and others where turned loose to look for work.On every factory the signs said no job vacancies.He rode the rails in Boxcars,got chased and caught by Railroad Bulls many times,even ran out of Chinese Restaurants after eating and not paying.He did many menial Jobs such as a goffer at Lumber Camps etc.He eventualy worked his passage back to England on a Cargo Boat.Hard times the whole world was living on the Breadline.Come WW2 he joined up and served in Nigeria training Colonial Troops,his Regiment was the RWAFF (Royal West African Frontier Force)He came home and each year he had reoccuring bouts of Maleria, he died of Cancer aged 46 I was 16 when he passed away and just starting an apprenticeship.I would give my Ma my wages each week,I had Two younger Sisters and an elder Brother.We got by as best we could and eventualy became successful enough in our lives.

[Rhou45]

Well... there was the story of my grandfathers favorite childhood pet rooster.

Grampa had a habit of putting the rooster in the honey pot door on the back of the outhouse whenever a female went to the privy. Quite often the said female came running out bare from the waste down with a peed on/off rooster in chase.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

My dad accepted assisted passage during the Great Depression on the Empress of France.On arrival in Canada he and others where turned loose to look for work.On every factory the signs said no job vacancies.He rode the rails in Boxcars,got chased and caught by Railroad Bulls many times,even ran out of Chinese Restaurants after eating and not paying.He did many menial Jobs such as a goffer at Lumber Camps etc.He eventualy worked his passage back to England on a Cargo Boat.Hard times the whole world was living on the Breadline.Come WW2 he joined up and served in Nigeria training Colonial Troops,his Regiment was the RWAFF (Royal West African Frontier Force)He came home and each year he had reoccuring bouts of Maleria, he died of Cancer aged 46 I was 16 when he passed away and just starting an apprenticeship.I would give my Ma my wages each week,I had Two younger Sisters and an elder Brother.We got by as best we could and eventualy became successful enough in our lives.

He probably did a good job. In the early days in Burma, until other allied troops became familiar with jungles, and Field-Marshal Slim, who has a pretty fair claim to being the greatest of all Second World War generals, considered the RWAFF troops the best he had.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

This is a short version of one of the stories my wife's maternal grandmother used to tell. She was a red headed Irish girl who played practical jokes until her death at 86--

I have a collection of reprinted magazine articles about the Northwest Frontier of India, in the days before Pakistan got invented. One British general tells a story of meeting and getting into conversation with an Afghan lady on an incursion into Afghanistan. She turned out to be a red-headed Irishman who had married an Afghan outback camel driver, and although nostalgic about home, was thoroughly enjoying life as a tribal primitive. Natural enough, I suppose.

[doc1876]

Back then, coon hides were averaging around $85. Small town hospital, I think back then you could drop a calf for under a grand.

My birthing fee in 1955 at the hospital was $75.00

[doc1876]

I had heard some stories about the depression, and decided to confront my Italian born 89yr old gmother in 1993.
She responded with "yes,we made wine and whiskey right here on this table. We did what we had to to survive. That is the last I will ever say about it.

[gwpercle]

Granfather had a brace of 36 cal. cap and ball revolvers in black full flap holsters. We thought them to be 1851 Colt Navy 36 cal revolvers. His father and fathers father , etc. had been in the horse buying and selling business for as long as anyone could remember. Grandpa said he always had the finest horse to ride to school, all the other boys were envious. Most walked or rode the farm plow mule. He gave the girls rides home.

So the family story was one of our ancestors must have been in the Confederate Army, had been in the Calvary and wore the brace of pistols in the War Of Northern Aggression.

Did a little research. The revolvers are Manhattan Firearms (not Colt), they have patent date on barrel of March 8, 1864....that's good. BUT... serial numbers and construction details make them from the Fifth series, which dates them to....mid July, 1868 ! Well so much for that family story.

I've noticed this is a common thing with artifacts and family stories, sometimes the facts shoot your story all to pieces.

Gary

[Harter66]

My birthing fee in 1955 at the hospital was $75.00

Heck I think mine was only about 300 and they had to put in a zipper and forcibly remove me.

[bob208]

my twin uncles were delivered at the farm house in 1934. the fee the 2 rabbits my grandfather had hanging on the back porch.

[crazy mark]

I was told my Great Grandfather had a bullet in him that he carried to his grave. He was a moonshiner in WVA and him and his brother made a mad dash to the Spkane WA area. Was said he had heard revenoers had special bullets that could be traced. I have parts of one of his stills. Unfortunately he died when I was a little over 1 year old. I have a rounded glass picture of him in my front room with his cowboy duds on when he was around 20. My Great Grandmother came across on a wagon.

[PULSARNC]

great Grandad was the county sheriff .His daughter ,my grandmother was the first woman to ever appear in public in our town riding Astride a horse wearing mens pants instead of sidesaddle as a proper woman should have done .Seems mighty tame now but in early 1900s this was beyond belief.

[Frank46]

Was with my folks at an aunts place in florida. Well they started talking about different types of lightening that they had witnessed. This went on for sometime and I went to sleep. About 6am the following morning there was this terrific boom. I jumped out of the bed and promptly fell on the floor. After getting up my dad went to see what if anything had happened. Terrible thunderstorm was in progress so when dad came back he said a house two blocks was hit with a huge bolt of lightening and blew a hole in the roof. He had spoken with a guy who was having coffee at the time who had seen the whole thing. Needless to say sleep was the last thing on my mind after that. Frank