RexTalionis: Whenever I want to feel a connection to the past, I pull out a small yellowed book with parched binding and open it to the 3rd page. It was printed in 1731 and was over 40 years old, as a book, when the first shots of the American Revolution rang out.

*Like*

oooooh, those Russians.

As I get older, and see things that I remember from my childhood taught as history, I begin to feel that a few hundred years isn't really that long of a time, it's just a handful of generations. This is a cool article.

the video of the guy who saw Lincoln shot is astounding

/oblig

That was a pretty cool article.

Fascinating article!

I remember talking with my dad when my grandma was still alive. She grew up in Wales. And my 12 year old self had just discovered Mozart et al. I spent a few conversations with my dad pondering the fact that my grandmother, as a child, could potentially have known an old person who knew Mozart. The generational age was that close. Just simply blew my mind. Just the fact that it was actually scientifically possible.

JSieverts: the video of the guy who saw Lincoln shot is astounding

And that blonde lady was hot.

scottydoesntknow: 4. Civil War Widows Live...

[petticoatsandpistols.com image 203x300]

...and still won't get over the fact that their husbands were on the losing side

She married an 81 year old when she was 21... and he only live until he was 84. She also had a child 10 months after they were married. Wonder if the kid was his or not.

I was trying to explain this to my son just yesterday when we were working on his American revolution history. We have family lines from the NY area that fought in the revolutionary war. It helped make it a bit more personal for him. Now I have to get with my uncle and pull out all of his documentation.

My great grandfather related to me stories of his father, who started/led a revolution against the czar. (did not go well. Thankfully, and by virtue of the fact that I exist, he had enough clout to live through it.)

Day_Old_Dutchie: oooooh, those Russians.



It's 'cuz they eat so much yogurt.


/obscure?
//lawn, etc.

Calling those women Civil War Widows is very misleading. They all married men who were veterans of the Civil War long after the Civil War had ended. None of them were even born in the 19th Century. If they had been born in 1865 (the last year of the Civil War), they would have been 135 years old in the year 2000.

The Abe Lincoln assassination eyewitness blew my mind a little bit though.

This cartoon captured exactly why I decided to stop work on my time traveling theories.
Link (new window)

My dad, recently deceased, was an asshole in a lot of regards.
I still loved him in the end, because I realized what MADE him an asshole.
He was a child during the Nazi era in Germany. His father, a WWI hero for Germany (Iron Cross, the whole shebang) was thrown in a concentration camp because he was a Jew. My grandma had to find proof of his loyalty, and he was probably one of the last ones "excused" by Hitler's crew.

Anyway, Dad would pendulum between making grandiose claims about how they live the life of Reilly, but then juxtapose it with tales of "we had to steal coal from a railroad car just to keep warm," and then put a "I saw some German soldiers and they saw me and gave me a sandwich." Dad never told me, my brother, or even my Mom and stories about what it was like for him and his family. No anecdotes involving anyone but him.

When his Mom died, his sister pretty much swooped in and made off with a bunch of stuff, leaving Dad sort of high and dry. They were always competing like that. When Dad's sister died, I guess he sort of got left in the cold AGAIN, because her husband died a few weeks later, and the son from that other family swooped in and....

So Dad died in July, and he had just started to show me bits and pieces from his childhood and teens this past Spring. I really enjoyed the fact it seemed like he finally realized I wanted to know because I cared. After he died, my brother, who never visited them, and couldn't even be moved to visit Mom in her time of greatest need, started to insinuate his way in, taking a sudden interest (by proxy, he said his daughter was interested, like hell) in Dad's family and childhood and the Holocaust and all.

I'm like, fark that noise, and spent the summer with Mom, my pet project being putting the artifacts in new page covers and filing them neatly in new albums so they'd stay intact and clean. There are the passports, my grandfather's with the big "J" for Juden on it, there's his Iron Cross certificate, signed by Hindenburg himself; there's all the birth certificates and diplomas from school, all in German, and then there's this handwritten letter on heavy paper, dated 1609! The letter is totally unintelligible to me...I don't speak German, and I think even Dad couldn't make heads or tales of it.

I regret a lot of things, but now that I know what I have, I'll be damned if it gets cheapened into some sort of side show for a son who held a grudge with his Dad for decades, and couldn't even drop it when he was no longer a factor.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center will get it before he does. It's too valuable!

sure haven't: Fascinating article!

I remember talking with my dad when my grandma was still alive. She grew up in Wales. And my 12 year old self had just discovered Mozart et al. I spent a few conversations with my dad pondering the fact that my grandmother, as a child, could potentially have known an old person who knew Mozart. The generational age was that close. Just simply blew my mind. Just the fact that it was actually scientifically possible.

That is the type of thing that messes me up as well.

Considering just 2 generations before me was born in the 1800s just shrinks history all the more.

Grandparents were born around 1900 and their reference on race was that the guys that drove them around the farm when they were kids had been born as slaves and were owned by their grandparents. Fast forward to early 1990's and that made for some interesting stories and views, especially when they had an African American (is it black again??) doctor

kim jong-un: sure haven't: Fascinating article!

I remember talking with my dad when my grandma was still alive. She grew up in Wales. And my 12 year old self had just discovered Mozart et al. I spent a few conversations with my dad pondering the fact that my grandmother, as a child, could potentially have known an old person who knew Mozart. The generational age was that close. Just simply blew my mind. Just the fact that it was actually scientifically possible.

That is the type of thing that messes me up as well.

Considering just 2 generations before me was born in the 1800s just shrinks history all the more.

Incredibly mind-boggling.

Or even think of someone like Al Capone. Seems to be from another ancient history. Yet, if he had stayed healthy, he might have lived until the 80's. Imagine an eldery Al Capone living in 1987. CD players, Twisted Sister, etc.

Felgraf: It boggled my mind when I thought about what my great-grandpa had seen. He passed a few years ago about a day shy of his 102nd birthday. I mean, he'd gone from "Horse and buggy" to 'HUMANS ON THE MOON' and beyond .

I really, really hope I have his genes. Especially because it wasn't some sort of slow wasting illness or dementia that took him-he was still working , and was about as healthy as most 70 year olds-hell, he'd gone through some pretty major surgery 4 years earlier.

/CSB.


You forgot the invention of free porn IN YOUR OWN HOME!

Confederate welfare queens!

Unhip1: There are the passports, my grandfather's with the big "J" for Juden on it, there's his Iron Cross certificate, signed by Hindenburg himself; there's all the birth certificates and diplomas from school, all in German, and then there's this handwritten letter on heavy paper, dated 1609! The letter is totally unintelligible to me...I don't speak German, and I think even Dad couldn't make heads or tales of it.

Have you ever got someone to take a look at the letter? Do an internet search and see if there's any local historians that might provide some information.

My father had to get rid of an old harpoon converted rifle that my grandfather used to use. He had forgot to renew his grandfathered gun license (BC, Canada) and didn't want to bother taking the course to get a new one. He was just going to take to the local gun store to sell it through consignment. The brother law and I did some online work and ended up getting the Vancouver Maritime Museum to take it. Got a tax voucher and a my grandfather's name in the museum out of it.

i guess my only story like this would be one that my great-grandma told me when i was younger (i am 33 now). I was very close to my great-grandmother who was born in 1908 and i spent a lot of time with her when I was growing up and she grew up as a share cropper in the deep south. Her family and a black family both worked the same plantation and the black family had some daughters around the same age as my great-grandma and they were friends and played together some.

The "wow factor" for me was that those girls grandparents were former slaves. As a kid it just kinda blew my mind that my great-grandmother was neighbors with and had worked alongside former slaves.

Something similar happened to me once. I was a young lad of 8, give or take, and I was sitting on a bench waiting for my Mom. This really elderly man sitting next to me starting telling me that when he was my age, he saw Buffalo Bill in the flesh. I was amazed and fascinated at our living connection to history.

The best part of that video is the way the crowd gasps when they see the secret that he had witnessed the Lincoln assassination. I first saw that clip about 12 or 15 years ago and remember having my mind blown.

I had never heard those two anecdotes about Oliver Wendell Holmes. John Quincy Adams just barely made it into the infancy of photography, and John F. Kennedy, subject of one of the most infamous pieces of color film, and he met them both. That's amazing.

I had heard and forgotten about Tyler's grandchildren until that story made the rounds about two weeks ago. I'm starting to think I should take a trip down to Virginny and take their guided tour of the Tyler house before it's too late. Then I can be the subject of one of these stories one day! It's not inconceivable that someone still alive in the year 2100 can say, "Here's a picture of me and Jim. He once met John Tyler's grandson." Or if you have a 5-year old son, you can take him there, and someone might say that about him in 2150.

/going to the DC area in April
//I'm definitely going to look into this
///subby

i have a 1779 piece of silver from the reign of king charles minted in the domincan that i really like. i think it is my oldest possession.

Blues_X: [flanneryisalways.files.wordpress.com image 363x338]

Rasputin is in my belly.



Reminded me of that, just had to draw it.

This explains why the Birthers think that Obama is using the SS number of a man who was born YEARS before they started issuing SS#'s...

sure haven't: Or even think of someone like Al Capone. Seems to be from another ancient history. Yet, if he had stayed healthy, he might have lived until the 80's. Imagine an eldery Al Capone living in 1987. CD players, Twisted Sister, etc.

My step grandfather sold Al Capone cigars.

My only claim is that my Grandfather's grandfather walked the Trail of Tears when he was a young boy. Cherokee Indians. It's terrible and heartwrenching whenever you study that in school and know that one of your relatives had to endure that kind of terrible treatment.

I'm in my 40s. But my grandparents were all born before 1900. One great-grandfather was born in 1865.

For some reason, or by just coincidence, I come from a line of people who only procreate in their 30s and 40s.

My grandfather worked for Rocketdyne (Formerly Rockwell) for many years, an aerospace company that was heavily involved in the moon landings. He helped to develop the lunar ascent rockets on the lunar lander and ran the engine tests for the Saturn V rockets in the San Fernando valley in the 1960s. By the time he retired in the 1990s, he was lead engineer on the test stand in Jackson, Mississippi for the shuttle engines. I didn't get to hear it first hand, but my dad told me my grandpa had met, and worked with, many of the key people you see in movies and documentaries surrounding the space race. The real kicker was to hear he had met Wernher von Braun and Albert Einstein during this time. Chronologically, it's not too hard to fathom, but to hear that really made the history that much more relevant and interesting. It made me an advocate for continuing to push the boundaries of human exploration into the unknown, and a general fanatic of the history of space exploration.

/CSB
//Only got to spend a little time with my grandfather before his death.

Sim Tree: An african-american man was telling stories of the south and mentioned that it was his grandfather's stories from when he was a slave that were the most interesting. I mentally did the math and was flabberghasted that such a thing was even possible. This person knew a slave!

The fact we're only one generation from that still blows my mind.

One of my high school classmates back in the 80's was the grand-daughter of slaves. She'd be in her 40's now.

My ex-wife's great-grandfather was a Confederate POW during the Civil War. Her grandfather had lots of stories his father had told him about the war. Prisoners of the Confederacy were not treated well at all. The grandfather still had an old Spencer carbine and a Colt 1851 Navy revolver that had belonged to his father. Always thought that was pretty cool.

gglibertine: I was two when we landed on the moon, and I actually remember bits of it -- watching the TV with my mom, and later that evening, my dad lifting me up onto the kitchen counter with tears of pride running down his face, saying "Do you see that, honey? We put men on the MOON!"

One of the most interesting days of my life was the day I got to sit down and have tea with my 101 year old grandmother. Just her and me, shooting the shiat for a couple of hours (for a very elderly lady, she still had all her marbles, and then some).

She was born in a log cabin 1896, before radio... before powered flight... before the internal combustion engine. Before her passing in 1998, she lived to see man land on the moon and the advent of the Internet (along with pretty much everything else we take for granted in "the modern world"). Also, as a young girl, met the train robber Bill Miner (^).


Best tea party I've ever been to.