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I have one, actually, from my grandpa's generation. He told another family member about his time growing up in the early 1900s, riding trolleys and eating Waln

by Natsu 2y ago

I have one, actually, from my grandpa's generation. He told another family member about his time growing up in the early 1900s, riding trolleys and eating Walnettos (a strange Walnut-based candy bar). Then the Spanish Flu came around and the eldest sister just died at the breakfast table one day. Later, the family rallied together to care for each other after his father lost his job due to automation. He moved on to doing odd jobs, then later fell off the roof and broke his back, ending up as an invalid for the rest of his days. They talked about the cherry trees they used to feed themselves, which explains grandma's fondness for the cherry soup I hated so much, and how my grandma and grandpa got married and took care of great grandpa while he was invalid. They also talked about how Wonder Bread (the original sliced bread and origin of the phrase "best thing since sliced bread") came into town and the eldest son went to work for them to support the family after the local baker he had worked for folded, lost a finger to the machinery. At some point, he had some kind of heated dispute at work due to this, was beaten by security, and as I'm told, died from injuries sustained during that beating some time afterwards. It was a weird little window into bits of family history that would have otherwise been erased.

WalterBright 2y ago
I have some letters from 3 of my grandparents, but beyond that, it's pretty much nothing.
anovikov 2y ago
Interesting perspective! For us Russians, collective memory for almost all people starts with post-WWII era, usually 1950s. Old generation rarely told me about what was before - although i am old enough to vaguely remember some of my ancestors born around 1895 and spent a lot of time talking to those born around 1910. One might think that it was about memories being overly heavy - indeed there was Commie and for some, also Nazi terror, hunger, and the stuff - before ~1956 an average Soviet starved at least for several weeks a year, and before ~1951, once in a few years, some relative always died of starvation - that was the norm, but real reason as i understand it, wasn't that. The reason is that there was almost nothing to tell. These people were illiterate peasants living very local-minded lives, without formal jobs (kolkhoz serfdom), without electricity or money, and with very little worldview apart from primitive propaganda pushed once in a while by visiting agitators. Before WWII, there was almost nothing any of them could tell: only thing that could happen, was repressions, but those to who they happened, couldn't tell anything - they never returned - and their relatives usually forgot of them because it was too scary to remember. Apart from that, it was all the same - endless toil on a small plot of infertile land to produce as much food as possible to avoid kids dying next spring, and keep as much of it from kolkhoz eyes, and slacking off at kolkhoz forced work as much as possible to keep more energy to work on your own plot. Never leaving the village, unless forced out of it by Nazis or Commies (actually happened to my relatives - one day they were forced out of the village and it was razed, moved ~20km away, and left in the field, being issued some formal "compensation" in worthless money - had to dig a new earthhouse). That's the kind of stories i heard. I can understand why they were not keen on telling them. Stories of later generations had a lot more of "story" in them and i can understand they lived an actual life.

by Natsu 2y ago

WalterBright 2y ago

I have some letters from 3 of my grandparents, but beyond that, it's pretty much nothing.

anovikov 2y ago

Interesting perspective! For us Russians, collective memory for almost all people starts with post-WWII era, usually 1950s. Old generation rarely told me about what was before - although i am old enough to vaguely remember some of my ancestors born around 1895 and spent a lot of time talking to those born around 1910. One might think that it was about memories being overly heavy - indeed there was Commie and for some, also Nazi terror, hunger, and the stuff - before ~1956 an average Soviet starved at least for several weeks a year, and before ~1951, once in a few years, some relative always died of starvation - that was the norm, but real reason as i understand it, wasn't that. The reason is that there was almost nothing to tell. These people were illiterate peasants living very local-minded lives, without formal jobs (kolkhoz serfdom), without electricity or money, and with very little worldview apart from primitive propaganda pushed once in a while by visiting agitators. Before WWII, there was almost nothing any of them could tell: only thing that could happen, was repressions, but those to who they happened, couldn't tell anything - they never returned - and their relatives usually forgot of them because it was too scary to remember. Apart from that, it was all the same - endless toil on a small plot of infertile land to produce as much food as possible to avoid kids dying next spring, and keep as much of it from kolkhoz eyes, and slacking off at kolkhoz forced work as much as possible to keep more energy to work on your own plot. Never leaving the village, unless forced out of it by Nazis or Commies (actually happened to my relatives - one day they were forced out of the village and it was razed, moved ~20km away, and left in the field, being issued some formal "compensation" in worthless money - had to dig a new earthhouse). That's the kind of stories i heard. I can understand why they were not keen on telling them. Stories of later generations had a lot more of "story" in them and i can understand they lived an actual life.