In another thread—I didn’t want to search and tie up the hamster!—one Doper mentioned that his grandmother had seen the Wreck of the Old 97. Have any of your ancestors, parents, friends, etc., been present at any historic events? I guess I’m the only one in my family, having seen the WTC fall with my own peepers.
This goes way back, but supposedly my maternal grandfather’s family can be traced back to someone who fought with the Norman’s at the Battle of Hastings and who received a substantial land grant for his trouble.
I once told this to a history professor at the university I attended and was met with a very skeptical guffaw so I take it with a grain of salt.
Not a family connection, but I have heard first hand from various veterans in my hometown what the beaches looked like on D3. Still brings tears to their eyes.
Two fo my great grandfather’s brothers participated in Pickett’s very ill fated charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. Both were captured and spent time in Union POW camps.
My father was a manager of a pineapple plantation in 1941. He was having breakfast on his porch when the attack on Pear Harbor began, and he watched it from there.
I’ve thought of that many times, and I wonder, now, how much life has changed as many of us saw the second plane hit the WTC in real time.
My BF saw the space shuttle Challenger explode.
The potato famine? The Korean war? First contact? okay, Uncle Nate is kind of an oddball.
One of my ancestors was at the Battle of Hastings (knighted on the field of battle, historical record backs it up as well as can be managed at all). Guess that qualifies as witnessing it. An ancestor of epeepunk’s MIGHT have been at the battle, but looks more probable that he came over afterwards (same year though), given where his landholdings were located (way out in the boonies). (D18, this is probably the reason for the prof’s laughter - MOST of the land grants given in 1066 were actually well after the battle, when boatloads of supporters showed up and were handed land grants right, left, and center… the really peachy spots were given to the people in the battle, the rest were handed out to every family that came in to help keep the power in the right hands. And the number of ancestors from all those folks at this point is astronomical - many many many people can count one or another of these families as ancestors, and a land grant just means they showed up sometime and were on the winning side, not that they fought.) Herveus (“Harvey”) was the ancestor in question on that one. Can’t remember the name on my side.
Another of epeepunk’s ancestors was William Brewster, who was one of the people who formed the breakaway church known as the Puritans or ‘Pilgrims’. He’s a founding member. Loads of descendants of his on the Mayflower, founding Plymouth, etc., and leading down the line to epeepunk.
If I have the story right, one of my ancestors witnessed the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac. (dang, did I spell that right?) One of the family cows got killed by a stray cannonball, apparently. The think skipped like a stone across the water and bashed into the side of the ill-fated cow. Now there’s a claim to fame! (Your ancestor died in the the Battle of Britain? Well, MY ancestor’s COW was killed …)
Don’t know if you can count Lady Godiva as witnessing her own ‘historic ride’… but she’s an ancestor of epeepunk’s, too. (can you tell there’s been some extensive genealogy work done on that side?)
My mom and dad witnessed a lot of the first aerospace efforts - more of a span of world-changing development than a single event. My mom knew the original seven astronauts, though she wasn’t working at Edward’s Airforce Base anymore by the time they made it to the moon. (I think it was Gus who used to sit on her desk and bang his heels on her file drawers, which annoyed her intensely.) They both witnessed a lot of test flights, some of them historically important, I’m sure, but the individual events are hardly whole chapters of a history book. (the general category qualifies, though!)
Epeepunk’s mother worked on generation zero of computers. The computer she worked with in college is now in the Smithsonian. (that news caused an :eek: reaction from her.)
Funny, with the degree of media coverage that exists at this point, it took me a moment to differentiate ‘seeing with my own eyes’ and ‘experiencing’… I kept thinking of things I’d experienced (Challenger explosion, say), and then would have to nix it on the grounds that I’d been watching on tv, not actually there.
A maternal great-grandfather was one of Gen. Sherman’s soldiers during the March-to-the-Sea. Mom even has his discharge papers.
My dad and his brother enlisted in the US Navy a couple weeks after Pearl Harbor. My uncle died before I could ask him about his war stories but I got the impression that Dad’s destroyer escort was involved in the attack on Iwo Jima.
I know I’m the only one in my family to witness a smoking Pentagon.
So did my father—wonder if they knew each other?
A small bit of history.
My great uncle was a tank commander in WWII and served under and with Gen. Patton. One Thanksgiving, the movie “Patton” came on the tube whilst at my grandparents waiting for dinner. When it gets to the part where the plane comes in and strafes the base and Patton pulls out his revolver and shoots back my uncle chuckled and said “Shit, he was diving for cover like the rest of us.” Granted, maybe this happened more than once and one time he really did stand up and shoot with his
pistol, by uncle didn’t seem to think so.
Later, he was one of the first Americans to arrive at Dachau (He didn’t talk about that too much though).
I don’t know if this counts.
My great-grandmother, Charity, lived during 3 centuries and 2 millenia. Born 1899 - Died 2001. I always think that sounds impressive.
She was a farmer’s daughter and spent most of her life pretty cut off from society as a whole. She never went to school, and only learned to read because she loved the bible so much. So basically, she never really got to be a part of history.
Still, she’d seen a lot. To think about all the things that have been created and discovered since she was born just baffles me. Also, she’s had an offspring in every major war the US has been in since 1900.
Again, I know that’s not exactly what you were asking for Eve, but I don’t get a chance to talk about her very often, so I hope you don’t mind.
My grandparents were coming out of a speakeasy in Chicago and my grandmother had to make a phone call. She went into a phone booth and while she was making her call, a gangland battle erupted and a gangster got shot and fell in front of the phone booth. She had to sort of shove him out of the way and step over him to get out of the phone booth. It isn’t like, BOOK history, but I think it is historic nonetheless.
Then you would probably really dislike my best friend who’s great-great-grandfather was Gen. Pickett.
My grandmother always maintained we were related to General Winfield Scott, hero of the Mexican-American War, and who also served briefly in the American Civil War.
If this is true, then one of my ancestors actually made history.
My great-grandfather was a close friend and roommate of David Ben-Gurion. He was extremely active in the pioneering efforts in all sorts of ways, many of which are still opaque to us today. Sadly, he died mere months before Israeli statehood.
My great-great-great grandfather, Charles Willden, was a friend of Brigham Young. He was a jerk, too, but that’s a different story and not so historical.
I only know of two that could maybe fit the topic:
A great-great-gradfather (maybe a few more greats) was an officer for the Union in the Civil War. Apparently due to some casualties he was briefly promoted to General. I’m sure he saw something historic.
The other was during the first modern Olympics in Athens, Greece during 1896. Thomas & Sumner Paine were relatives of mine. They were brothers from Massachucetts that did some of the shooting events. They brought back 2 silver & 2 gold medals. My grandmother still has one or two of the medals and ABC even consulted with her for facts when they made a movie about the 1896 olympics.
My family’s first US ancestor came to America because he deserted from the Prussian Army. Just before Napoleon invaded Prussia.
My Civil War Ancestor hired a substitute.
The unit the substitute joined went straight to Shiloh. :eek:
So, my ancestors went to great lengths to avoid witnessing history, for which I am duly grateful
As the family legend goes, my great-grandfather was a wagon driver for the U.S. Army. He and a companion were following Custer’s 7th cavalry with wagonloads of supplies at Little Bighorn. When they heard the sounds of battle ahead, they paused in a sort of hollow behind a small hill and listened for awhile. Apparently, they could tell which way the battle went, because they turned their wagons around and headed back whence they had come. Discretion was the better part of valor in that case, or I wouldn’t be posting now!
My great-great grandfather was a Confederate soldier, who bravely, er, surrendered at Pensacola. Well, it wasn’t really a surrender; Fort Pickens was under Union control and when some of the Confederate troops had to leave to mop up after some defeats in Tennessee, it was decided to just sort of back off and let the Union keep Pensacola.
My neighbor when I was a kid in Jacksonville, a Mr. Stephens, had been a student at Georgia Tech in the 1910’s and actually attended the legendary football game in which Tech, coached by Johnny Heisman, beat Cumberland University by the record score of 222-0.