I don’t know if she’s still alive, but a couple years ago a former slave’s daughter voted for Obama. Interestingly, she was born before the last Revolutionary War widow died.
A friend of mine is 45. Under Race on her birth certificate it says “Negro.” Probably not unusual for 1965 but it looks weird now.
Both my parents were born in 1923, before the Great Depression started.
My father was in the 13th armored division of the 3d army. My mom worked in an aircraft factory in the engineering division as a blueprint runner for the x1 jet project.
the farm my mother was born on did not have electricity until after ww2, and my mother in law’s family farm did not get electricity until 1964 [well after she had moved out] and neither farm had indoor plumbing other than a hand pump in the kitchen until well after ww2.
Born in 1961, was forced to use my right hand in catholic school - I have shitty handwriting in both hands.
One science teacher at the public school my brother went to in the early 70s was forced to retire because he tended to use a wooden paddle on the boys, and was also known to turn them upside down and slam them into a garbage can as punishments. He was a wrestling coach, and was pretty much as abusive as that jackass coach in The Punisher.
It’s shocking to me how fast wars move out of living memory - it seems when I was a kid there were WWI guys all over the place. Now we’re running a bit low on WWII guys. When my dad was a kid, there were Civil War dudes still around and there were tons of Spanish American vets.
My dad (92) remembers horse drawn carts that delivered ice to private homes when he was a kid, so of course half the time he still calls the fridge the ‘ice box’.
Local New Jersey history: He used to splash around in the Morris Canal (Jersey City end). You would never know water ran through that stretch now.
My mother was born a year after the Titanic sank, and her earliest memory was watching the parade at the end of World War I.
My grandfather was a draft dodger from pre-Soviet Russia; he came here, because he refused to fight in the Tsar’s army.
My father was also born in 1923. As a Boy Scout, he met Civil War veterans.
My dad was born in 1925. Just last year, he told me the story of his(our?) family moving from Mississippi to Arkansas.
About 1930, my grandparents were share croppers. A man with land convinced them to move to Arkansas to work his land. They moved from Mississippi to Arkansas in a covered wagon. It was 1930 but my family couldn’t afford a car or truck. My father’s brother was about 18 years old at the time but he died from meningitis. My grandmother was devastated by his death and got the family to move back to Mississippi. They sold most of their belongings and took the train back to Mississippi.
My dad recently traveled to Arkansas and was able to find the grave easily. He was only 5 at the time but 75 years later he still remembered.
My husband delivered milk by bicycle as a child. They didn’t have indoor plumbing until he was in high school. He’s 42.
The 40s? That shit went on in the 50s and 60s, probably even the 70s. Ever hear of Emmet Till? Emmett Till - Wikipedia
A friend of mine watched the Chicago Cubs play in a World Series.
I remember when you had to call the operator to make a call. Also, when the UHF band was not on TV sets; you only have 12 channel choices. I also remember comic books for a dime and candy for a nickel. We also had milk delivered to our door, and the flag had only 48 stars.
My parents remember Pearl Harbor, of course.
I remember when it was a Big Deal if women and girls wore slacks instead of dresses, and that was simply Not Done most of the time. In the coldest weather we froze our legs. Little girls would wear warm leggings but we high school girls wouldn’t do that. My first teaching job in the mid-sixties it was strictly prohibited to wear slacks.
I couldn’t wear pants to school at all, and even culottes were scrutinized to make sure they didn’t look too much like shorts. Meanwhile, the athletes on the basketball team (boys, of course, there was no such thing as girls’ sports) wore shorts with about a 3 inch inseam. McDonald’s didn’t hire girls to work. We had one rotary phone, hard-wired to the wall, and it was in the kitchen. I had cancer and was treated in the early 70s and have had medical students look at me to see how the now archaic treatment affected me. I’m in my 50s.
My mother & every single woman her age I’ve asked have the same memory of going to school in the winter with long pants on underneath their dresses and taking the pants off as soon as they got inside. When the girls’ PE teacher at my HS first starting teaching (in the late '70s) she was not allowed to set foot outside the gym without first changing into a dress (yet the male PE teachers didn’t have to put on slacks & a tie). The only exceptions were during fire drills or if she was holding class outsite.
My French teacher started teaching about the same time. Her first school’s dress code technically did allow female teachers to were trousers, but they also had to were a tunic or coat that went down to an inch above their knees. :dubious: So showed up in a pantsuit on her first day, got called into the prinicpals office and told him that her coat wasn’t any shorter than hers and dared him to do anything about it. He backed down and nothing more was said.
She also mentioned that she wasn’t allowed to use “Ms” because she wasn’t married or divorced; district policy was that all single women had to use “Miss”. Married women could only use “Ms” if they kept their maiden names; divorced women could use either. When she did get married she kept her maiden name, but used Mrs at school because she was tired of correcting people. Naturally in class we all just called her “Madame”.
These stories are fascinating! What a great thread idea.
I have a lame-o contribution. As a child, I lived with my family behind an older couple named Grace and Al. I was reading the Little House books, and one day I arrived at what I thought must be an incredible discovery. I politely asked Grace if she had had older sisters named Laura and Mary and Carrie…
Grace laughed her head off and assured me that she wasn’t that old.
This happened to me. I’m 50.
I was forced to learn to write with my right hand. I still do, and I play guitar right-handed, probably because my guitar teacher assumed I was right-handed. I can’t remember, but I probably did too.
I play hockey left-handed. I can write fairly well with my left hand. I wear my watch on my right arm, like a lefty, because it’s more comfortable that way. There’s a few other things I do like a lefty, too, but basically I’m right-handed now.
I’m a bit older (50). In high school, seniors were allowed to smoke. Maybe juniors, too - can’t remember. Not only could we smoke in the senior lounge, but if the teacher smoked, he would smoke in class, and we could too.
I’m 39 and when I was in high school the central courtyard was the designated smoking area and during the four minute break between classes it was usual to see hundreds of kids and a handful of staff grabbing a quick puff. I remember sharing a casual smoke break with the principal. An Australian exchange student who was a friend of mine was completely shocked by all of this.
On a related note, I always think it’s absolutely mind-blowing that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter lived long enough to be a Vietnam War correspondent.
I’ve said this here before, but I think it’s worth repeating here. My father’s still living, and a grandfather of his was a Civil War veteran. My great-grandfather had been born in 1842, so he wasn’t much more than a kid when he fought.