The background photo of Calvin Crane’s father is a dead (sorry) ringer for my great-grandfather. Although my relative was born in 1861 the ‘stache and garb are pretty much the same as when great-grandpa was about 30 or so. I have a similarly-framed photo of him that really looks like the one of Mr. Crane, Sr.Something to ponder indeed. I find myself in the middle of five generations of people I know/knew personally. Grandpa was in The War To End All Wars, and one of my most cherished possessions was a letter he wrote to me just three weeks before he died. I married into grandkids (The Queen Of The World's side). All these memories are carried around in me, memories of people covering over a century of time (1899-2019). I doubt I'll see Dick's seven generations but have hopes for six.
I was fortunate to know great-grandpa as he lived to within a month of his 100th birthday, when I was seventeen. He had served as “town marshal” of his small hometown in Missouri, and I have his little nickle-plated .32 revolver from that adventure, but no tales of “serious” use thereof.
It has recently occurred to me that I find myself in the middle of six generations of our family. If my grandchildren “get with the program” it would be seven generations. Something to ponder.
Family anchors us in our place in time. I'd have to imagine what life would have been like in the first decade of the 20th Century, except I know what life was like (well, to an extent) for Grandpa growing up on the family farm in Kansas.
It's said that the Past is a foreign country, because people behave differently there. That's not true for family, at least those you remember.
We ARE a product of our families, and their collective memories. Some of them good, some of them not so good. Thankfully, it seems yours are mostly good.
ReplyDeleteOne of the benefits of genealogy research is that it can connect you in a real way to family you never could have known. The lived/died stuff helps make a chart but they become people when you read something they wrote or when you see something they signed, even if it was only with an X. In some ways the X is actually more interesting. I've read the journal of a 2nd great grandfather's experience in the Mexican War (died 1901) and the Revolutionary War pension application of a 4th great grandfather (died 1833) as he tells of trying to rescue his mother and sisters after they'd been kidnapped by Shawnee Indians. (Yes for the sisters, no for the mother). Such things make them real people and their past becomes my past.
ReplyDeleteI knew my great grandmother who was a small child at the end of Civil War One. My attitudes are informed by hers. We really don't want to do this again but we are headed there.
ReplyDelete