Being American


Back in the day....

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Post Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:19 pm

Being American

I was just thinking about my heritage and where my Grand Parents came from. It was just around the turn of the century, 1900, I'm talking about. Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, had just opened in 1892 and it soon became the busiest port of entry for persons wanting a new start in a new world. About a decade after this time, my grandparents, on both sides immigrated to USA through Ellis Island.
My wife and I stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, in NY, for a week so I had time to make inquiries about any records of my relatives. Sure enough they are listed.
It was shortly after 1910 that both sides of the family moved to Canada and were given free land in a homestead deal from the Rail Road and the federal government. Neither family knew the other.
They came into North America as single persons on Dad’s side and did not meet their spouses until later. Dad was born in Alberta in 1917 in a grain storage bin, in a farmer’s field. His mother was pregnant and it was one of her duties to drive a horse drawn grain wagon into the nearest small town to drop a load of wheat at the elevator. The rough riding wagon brought on her delivery and she delivered her baby by herself. She was not 20 years old. Grandma told us that she tore off part of her dress and to wipe and wrap the baby after she tied the umbilical cord with some of the cloth, she made the cut with some broken glass.
My mother’s parents arrived in USA as a married couple then stayed in USA for some time before they took the deal of free land and moved north. Mom was born in a small town not too far from where Super John lives and works. They went to church with the man who invented the Petersen Vise Grip. This grandfather was a blacksmith, then a farmer. It is in my DNA to mess with metals.
Maybe some of the many Vise Grip styles might make an interesting subject for what’s in your tool box . I have about 150 pair of PETERSEN VISE GRIPS, now and it is unlikely that I will say not to another. Thanks to lbesq I have an unusual pair of VG, in a leather case, that I did not know about.
Last edited by nikkinutshop on Sun Sep 22, 2013 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Post Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:22 pm

Re: Being American

No pioneer stock left. I can't imagine me or my kids dealing with those things.
1933 IHC Bus. Cpe
1933 IHC B-3 f
1935 C-1 IHC pickup
2 x 1936 IHC C-30 Fbs
3 x 1938 IHC D-2 Pickups
1938 IHC D-30 fb
1941 IHC K-1
2 x 1947 IHC KB-1 Pickups
2x 1953 IHC R pickups

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:50 pm

Re: Being American

I guess that you are correct about the pioneer spirit. Our countries have changed and with the changes much of the do or die spirit left on the first ride out of town.
We did not have rural electrification until 1951 and the first thing Dad did was to get a new fangled television. The only station we were able to get was Great Falls, Montana. CFCN, Calgary was next. We have over 250 station options, now, and nothing to watch On Friday evening.
Those early years brought so much change, many people welcomed it and some our neighbors rejected it out right.
Even in this age of information and access to so much, I know many persons who have refused to get involved. Obviously this does not include any one on this forum because it is online. Just don't tell anyone if you needed help making the connection.
I have a few relatives who kneel by candle light and refuse to have a TV or computer. I caught one of them with a box of Tide laundry detergent. He was embarrassed to admit that his wife refused to make her own soap anymore. Both of my grandparents made their own soap,at home. I used to love the smell of clean clothes and sheets that were washed in Grama's soap and hung outside to dry.
Grama's washing machine was in the back porch and it was driven by a flat belt attached to a hit and miss engine just outside. There was a dog size door in the wall for the belt.
I never developed a taste for homemade soap even though I was forced to wash my mouth out with it many times. I've been told that I talked like Billy Connelly back in the day and still do, as a matter of fact.
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive
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Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Post Fri Oct 02, 2015 6:37 pm

Re: Being American

A Great story of family history.

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Post Fri Oct 02, 2015 8:01 pm

Re: Being American

Well, well, after just over two years before someone responded. Thanks HARVEY.
Dad would have been 98 this year. Dad liked the new stuff and I know he would have taken to the internet. One of his favorite sayings was, "Don't tell Ma." I don't suppose Dad would have checked out any of the "adult viewing", but, Don't tell Ma would certainly apply if he had.
Dad had more than a few well worn sayings, and coincidently my wife and I were laughing at a few of them today. "Waiting for the other shoe to drop" was one that I get until I was in my thirties. Another of his favorites was, "Sorer than a frog's a$$ in fly season. I got that one and thinner than a flies butt stretched over a rain barrel was easy.
While we were having coffee at Tim's this afternoon, a very attractive and well turned out 60 something lady walked by and greeted the two of us. Her eyes were strikingly beautiful. My wife suggested that my Dad might have said, " She has that come hither look" then followed up with, "Don't tell Ma."
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive
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Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Post Fri Oct 02, 2015 8:40 pm

Being American

Whollly post holes !
Your pa and mine would of been good chums !
Dads motto in life was "always give a full basket"
My son and proudly carry a basket every day.
Thanks for conjuring up your fond memories.


Be safe
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Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Post Fri Oct 02, 2015 8:44 pm

Re: Being American

Harvey wrote:Whollly post holes !
Your pa and mine would of been good chums !
Dads motto in life was "always give a full basket"
My son and I do our best to carry-on his motto.

Thanks for conjuring up your fond memories.


Be safe

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Fri Oct 02, 2015 11:13 pm

Re: Being American

" conjuring" I did Google the word. Sleight of hand? magic tricks? To summon the Devil or an evil spirit? I don't know about that.
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Site Admin
Site Admin

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Post Sat Oct 03, 2015 12:22 am

Re: Being American

How about knocking loose the cobwebs of the mind?

AZD

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Golden Jubilee
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Post Sat Oct 03, 2015 12:24 am

Re: Being American

Well, it’s an interesting story, or bit of history, or both. I always like to hear about older times. Probably a good number of us have something like that in our history. I can still remember my great grandmother. She died peacefully and with a clear mind at age 96, having been born in 1888, back when we were still a territory and not a full-fledged state.

Our first generation in America is kind of quirky and came by way of the first round of Scandinavian converts to LDS church circa 1850. They arrived via New Orleans and St. Louis, then walked and rode wagons to Salt Lake, then little more than a frontier town.

Good old Brigham Young decided that the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes would do well in the brutal winters common in central Utah at that time. Probably to keep warm, he let the men, including my great great grandfather, have extra wives. At least that’s how I figure it. I love my wife, don’t get me wrong, but there is no force in the universe powerful enough to convince me to marry any more like her – except possibly the cold.

Frontier life was rough at times, what with the tensions and skirmishes between the U.S. government, the native population, and all the wives. It could get downright oppressive. When the gubmint came around trying to rid the territory of polygamy it was not possible for a man to live with more than one wife. The others had to live in separate houses, and legally they owned the deeds to them.

Poor Great Great Grandad had to set up two of his three wives this way. Well, the third wife figured she ought to have her own house too, without him, and set to getting it. He tried to explain that it was just a legal necessity, a loophole of sorts. She explained that she didn’t particularly care. She got her house. One gets the sense that she was no fan of the institution. Perhaps, then, it was she who gave me my heathen DNA.

For all his troubles, the law eventually caught up. Great Great Grandad was sent to the Territorial Prison for a spell. There is a well-known series of photographs from this time. Recently I saw one hanging on the wall of a local restaurant and had to show the kids their dear ancestor, immortalized in a prison photograph. There he is, third from the right, the dapper fellow with the vest and watch chain:

Untitled.jpg

This is the same prison where, a generation later, the famous labor organizer Joe Hill would meet his end at the wrong end of a firing squad. Today the acreage it once occupied is a large and beautiful park, where one can spend a pleasant Sunday with just one wife and no firing squad.
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