ForumGarden

share what you have heard about your grandparents , the way they lived..



i know my grandmother told me about growing up without electricity..when both parents worked the farm all day. my grandmother remembers they took sponge baths during the week and hauled a tub in the kitchen on saturdays to take a hot bath..everybody used the same water..of course , it was so they would be clean for church on sunday...and families got together afterwards to socialize...my mom remembers the very first tractor they ever got..that replaced the mule that pulled the harrows..her name was betsy...the first tv show she ever saw was in black and white and it was the mickey mouse club...:pI know back in the day when my grandmother was a child ..one of the neighbors drove his wagon into town once a week for the mail..twenty miles away...and she grew up wearing a skirt and it was very unladylike to be seen barefooted. my grandmother was a rebel of sorts..she took her friends and their kids to the local creek and taught her friends how to swim...something that just wasnt done to much then..my grandmother also lived through the depression..i have some ration books that were used for bread and stuff then..



can you imagine how far we have came in only three generations..and how much we will change in three more..its mindboggling...

I love to hear my Grandfather tell stories of when he was young....It just seemed more simple-er then....He had a paper route and made 9 dollars a month....and he was rollin' in the dough!!

I'd share more, running out the door for work, thought I'd comment real quick....I love to talk about my Gradparents, they are so very precious to me, my grandmother just turned 83 last week and my grandfather will be 87 in may, they are amazing and wonderful people.:-4

guppy;770605 wrote: share what you have heard about your grandparents , the way they lived..



i know my grandmother told me about growing up without electricity..when both parents worked the farm all day. my grandmother remembers they took sponge baths during the week and hauled a tub in the kitchen on saturdays to take a hot bath..everybody used the same water..of course , it was so they would be clean for church on sunday...and families got together afterwards to socialize...my mom remembers the very first tractor they ever got..that replaced the mule that pulled the harrows..her name was betsy...the first tv show she ever saw was in black and white and it was the mickey mouse club...:pI know back in the day when my grandmother was a child ..one of the neighbors drove his wagon into town once a week for the mail..twenty miles away...and she grew up wearing a skirt and it was very unladylike to be seen barefooted. my grandmother was a rebel of sorts..she took her friends and their kids to the local creek and taught her friends how to swim...something that just wasnt done to much then..my grandmother also lived through the depression..i have some ration books that were used for bread and stuff then..



can you imagine how far we have came in only three generations..and how much we will change in three more..its mindboggling...


Never mind when they were young, when my grandparents died they had the galvanised bath out on a Saturday night and we all used the same water. It was an outside toilet and a Po under the bed. The fridge was a bucket of water outside the back door for the milk and a larder on the yard wall for the meat.

I remember the first TV we had, it was black and white and my parents bought it when ATV built a transmitter to reach our area.

I still have my ration book from after the war when times were tight.

My wife still tell tales of the first car to come through her village - made the road a death trap :wah:



Never mind three generations, the changes in my lifetime are mind boggling and I cannot conceive the changes my mother in law has seen (she's 91 - both when Franz Joseph and the Tzar were still on the throne when she was born and man had still to fly the Atlantic).

Saving wrapping paper, tin foil and catalogs. Rinsing out cans to be used again. Hot potato in the pocket for the walk to school to be eaten later with salt, for lunch. These, and much more, were the stories of my grandparents.

My parents were allowed to use cocaine and marijuana without breaking any laws, could legally drive and drink by eighteen and were the harbingers of rock-n-roll only to become aging beatniks longing to fit in with the new hippie age.

I was born before the blacks had equal rights in school, on the bus and to vote. I was born the year televisions came out. I watched men walk on the moon and the birth of Star Trek and it's babies. I watched music production move from vynil disk to plastic dvd, computers from massive processors in a room that calculated numbers to my sweet little lappy.

Viet Nam, Death of the USSR and Terrorist attacks on our home soil.

And I'm only fifty-two.

Great thread!



My nan is 91 in a couple of weeks time. Her home during the war had no indoor toilet and the bath was hung up in the coal shed. My grandad was intially in a reserved occupation but he did join up in the latter stages of the war, he missed death by my dad being born - his unit was sent abroad and slaughtered...



Nan had to share her house with a family who were evacuated from London, she still remembers them as 'dirty buggers' who didn't wash much.



Grandad was a drayman for Whitbreads beer and was awarded the BEM. He used to drive the Lord Mayor's coach in the parade every year and took part in the Horse of the Year Show. He used to plait my hair like he did the shire horses! I remember as a little girl licking the fag paper on his rollies!



My dad remembers going to a neighbours house to watch the coronation in their tv, my grandad was driving one of the many carriages that day.



I know their lives weren't easy and they never had much money but they brought both their sons up well on good home cooked food and traditional values.

Bryn Mawr;771168 wrote: and man had still to fly the Atlantic.


All these years I've been puzzling where the world took the wrong track and it's finally come to me.

thank yall for posting..i love reading these strories...:-6



and spot...:p

guppy;771490 wrote: and spot...:pThis would have been a very confusing thread for me to have posted anything about how my grandparents lived, believe me.

spot;771498 wrote: This would have been a very confusing thread for me to have posted anything about how my grandparents lived, believe me.
Why? Because they came from Alpha Centauri and there was no water, and the only liquid refreshment came from the blood of abducted humans?:D

No, but it would expose my relationships to slightly more public scrutiny than I think I'm prepared for at the moment.

spot;771514 wrote: No, but it would expose my relationships to slightly more public scrutiny than I think I'm prepared for at the moment.
Fair enought, I was just joking..

Going back a little further, my Great-great-great-great Grandfather was a Cordwainer (Shoemaker). Born in the 18th Century, he had his own shop in Savile Row in Nottingham. His son carried on the family business. I'm not talking a load of old cobblers by the way.

Uncle Kram;771526 wrote: Going back a little further, my Great-great-great-great Grandfather was a Cordwainer (Shoemaker). Born in the 18th Century, he had his own shop in Savile Row in Nottingham. His son carried on the family business. I'm not talking a load of old cobblers by the way.
Sole you say..