Tempus Fugit

[Stu2630]

When I was 8-years old, I got to know a very elderly neighbour, Mrs Crawford, a lady who was approaching her 100th birthday. I had very long hair at the time and she used to love to brush it while telling me tales of her youth. She told me that she came from a very large family who originally came from France, and she lived with her siblings, her parents and her grandparents in a huge house just outside Paris. When she was an eight-year-old like me, her great grandmother was also alive and she was also approaching her 100th birthday, but didn't quite make her centenary. It was extremely rare for anyone to reach such an age back then, so she was something of a local celebrity.

I remember her telling me that her great grandmother had brushed her hair just as she was brushing mine, and telling her stories of her own childhood and teenage years. She remembered being given a graphic and horrendous account of a very unpleasant time in Paris, when people were being killed in the streets and the roads were flowing with blood. They were executing all the rich people and even the rich people's servants, and including children - it was terrible and her great grandmother witnessed this dreadful spectacle, including almost wading through the blood running down the street and having to wash it off her boots when she got home. Being an 8-year-old, I naturally found it horrible and shocking, but it didn't mean much at the time and my older brother told me to take no notice of this "batty old woman".

A few years ago, as I got older, I reflected on the conversations I had with Mrs Crawford and I started to wonder what events she was talking about. Was it the Germans in World War II, when they occupied France? Didn't sound like it. So what was she describing? Then I did some arithmetic.

I worked out that I must have had this conversation in 1965. That means Mrs Crawford would have been born somewhere around 1865/1866. But she was talking about when she was eight-years-old, so that was around 1874. Assuming her great grandmother lived to be 98, that would mean she was born around 1776 - wow! So she would have just reached her teens in 1789 - the year of the French Revolution and the Great Terror, when they were guillotining aristocrats and others on a daily basis (about 200,000 people in total).

I have spoken to someone who has received a first hand account of the the French Revolution in 1789, and that really does make me think of history, and even the passing of time, in a completely different way.

Stu

[Mosquito_Bait]

Thanks. I enjoyed your post.

[naturalmanwa]

Very interesting story, thanks for submitting it. Reminds me of my own grandmother and her talking about tne midwest in the latter part of the 1800's. Her parents knew Jesse James very well, and her uncle was an outlaw with a huge price on his head!

[Skinview]

Thats a good post Stu. My grandmother was born in 1899, and lived to be 104. I have wondered who the people that she knew knew. (That sounds confusing...) She was eight in 1907. If she spoke to a 104 year old when she was eight, that person would have been born in 1803. Adams and Jefferson died in 1826. My grandmother could have known someone who knew them as an adult, with a few years to spare. But there weren't many 104 year olds in 1907.

[David77]

My mother was born in 1888. She states that in grade school when they recited the states in the US, they were required to add at the end, "and Indian territory".

[ibrahim]

My advice to those whose parents and grandparents are still alive - ask them to tell you their memories. Later it is too late.

[ohjay26]

In 2004 the last Confederate Civil War widow died at age 97, 140 years after the war ended. Alberta Stewart 21 married William Martin 81, a Confederate war veteran on Dec 10, 1927. Ten months later they had a son. William Jasper Martin died July 8, 1931. Two months later she married Williams grandson Charlie. Charlie Martin died in 1983. Her youngest son Willie Martin lives in Elba.

[78828892]

Can you imagine us in old age, telling our grandchildren about Black and White television, or no television, just one telephone in the house and you couldn't take it with you, so if you left the house you were "uncommunicated". We had to do our math using pen and paper (and our fingers), no A/c in Summer, and it didn't even cross our minds the idea of owning a computer in our own house, and VCR, or DVrs, or CD, DVD, etc. were not in our vocab. (they probably won't be in theirs by then, so no big surprise there). So they will think that it was us who, surely, lived the Age of Terror.

[Kouak]

and families had only 1 car, no microwave, prepared food from raw food, popcorn was made by heating corn in oil, you got spanked if you were bad, and you played games outside with other kids.

[OZJames]

That was a great story Stu, thanks. I am nearly 70 and have been researching my family history for 20 years, not just the “tree” but the stories. A family tree going back hundreds of years is about as interesting as reading a road map - UNLESS one also has the stories, memories of happy times, the tragedies, the anecdotes, the gossip. Scandal is what life is all about, just take a look at the content of books everyone reads. It’s not much good writing things down unless they are interesting.

We all think life is hard, many think they have been served the blunt end of life but just take a look at what our ancestors went through, 2 world wars and many other wars, genocide, economic depressions, drought, flood, poverty, murders in some cases, the horrors are all there. Then there were the marriages often unhappy, the illness.

In the main people born after WW2 have lived through a wonderful period. Economic prosperity and medical science in the last 60 years has revolutionized health care. However there are also terrible times, the Chinese revolution, the Iranian revolution, the collapse of the Berlin wall and the end of the Soviet Union etc. There are so many stories, one of our Australian TV stations puts up a logo – “6 billion stories and counting”.

In the family stories that I have uncovered are letters describing being shot at by the Japanese in the Philippines WW2, arrest by the Gestapo, genocide of most cousins, suicide, illness letters written by my 100 year old grandmother in 1902, tragedies in WW1, bankruptcy, but on the other hand long happy marriages and good health, prosperity and wonderful times. These stories need to be written down so NOW is the time to talk to your grandparents , other older relatives, find out about family members lives and don’t leave anything out. There are hundreds of web sites where free and/or relatively cheap information can be discovered, it’s all so much easier than it was when I started 20 years ago.

We can learn so much about life looking at the lives of our ancestors, it makes one feel better. Perhaps we will discover the “meaning of life”. Think what my descendants will make hearing the stories and seeing a few pictures of me in the nude around the farm, killing snakes in the nude, hunting in the nude, gardening and mowing in the nude, walking and picnicking with friends, lying at night nude in front of the wood fire through winter, our outside shower which we use every day despite frosts on the ground in winter – for some it would be a laugh a minute – that’s great.