Your grandparent's stories

[backhoeboogie]

Caustic's 1911 post got all sidetrack and I enjoyed it.

One of my grandads was born in 1903. He was telling me a story about borrowing a cousins horse to go to a wedding. After the wedding and festivities, he saddled up and headed home. The horse broke off into some woods and raked him off with a low tree limb. He looked for the hose for hours before deciding to head on home. He got home about daylight and ran in to all his siblings up and down the road looking for him. The horse came in to the barn about midnight.

 

[Dave]

My grandpa (Dad's Father) was born in 1893 in a Swedish community in Finland. That made him Finnish by birth but to the day he died you wouldn't want to be calling him a Finn. He was a Swede and he made sure to tell you that. He worked log drives on the rivers back there and was a market hunter to make money to come to this country. In 1910 he emigrated to this country. He worked in logging camps. Back them they treated the pigs better than they did the men. Grandpa said they provided straw for bedding for the pigs. The men just had rough cut lumber for bunks that were three or four high. The men would go out and cut ferns and boughs to stack on the boards for a mattress.

 

[Bigfoot]

My grandfather was born in 1896. Past away in 1980. He stuck with old ways. No running water. One. Light bulb in each room. No television, just radio. Farmed his whole life. Just tobacco and cattle. Enough corn to grind for feed.

I distinctly remember telling him once I wanted a big house, and an office job. He said you'll be miserable with both. I should have listened.

 

[chippie]

My grandfather was born in the later part of the 1800's. He would drag race with his horse and buggy and survived some spectacular wrecks.

He also had a Jersey dairy and was active in the American Jersey Cattle Association. He took a prize winning cow to the annual convention (I don't know what year, but believe that it was before the World Wars). The convention was held in New York at a famous hotel (I think that it was the Waldorf Astoria.) He took the cow up to the ballroom in the freight elevator.

 

[cross_7]

My grandmother was born in 1880 ?
Her Dad was a cowboy for the big ranches back before barbed wire went up everywhere.
They slept out on the ground in the different cow camps.
One night he got bit by a skunk and they thought it had rabies, back then there wasn't a lot that could be done.
They had a mad stone they put on the bite to draw out the rabies.
After it was on the bite a while they would take the stone off the bite and soak it in milk then put it back on the bite.
She said when they took the stone off the bite and soaked it in the milk that it would turn the milk green, that was the poison it drew out

 

[Caustic Burno]

My Great grandmother was born in La in 1856 and lived to 1960 almost 61.
Her family moved to East Texas after the Civil War.
She was one of the last surviving widows of the Confederacy. She married my great grandpa in 1870.
He was in the Texas 7th Calvary she still had his uniform and sabre.
The grankids and great grankids would sit on the porch bug-eyed with her telling us stories.
Never did know what happened to that sabre.

 

[john250]

My grandad (paternal) was 1901. Died at 97, still holding a valid Indiana driver's license. He would want me to mention that. He had an amazing talent of remembering what the weather was on this date 50 or 60 yr. ago.
Tied it to birth's, deaths, etc. Old enough to appreciate the art of telling a story. Remembered why cousin fred was cousin Fred at the family reunions.

 

[Angus Cowman]

I never knew my grandparents on my Dads side and my grandpa died when my dad was 12 and my gramma passed away a moth before I was born

My grandpa on moms side was a horse trader until up into his 40s he would travel from southern Missouri into Arkansas,oklahoma annd kansas with a string of horses and mules for sale and trade it would take several months to complete the circle
he met my grandmother who was 22 yrs younger than him and married her he traded horses and mule after they were married but quit roaming out as far and being gone as long
He was 41 when he married granma and a few yrs later they moved to oklahoma where he raised horses and worked for a farmer
He was born in 1886 and passed away in 1980 he liked less than a month of being 94 when he passed
He taught me how to chew tobacco
I am not sure when they moved to town but he always had a few horses on some ground at the edge of town and he was still trading knives and tools and what not until he died

 

[cow pollinater]

I live on ground that used to be part of my paternal grandad's farm. I never met him as he died before I was born but the Elberta peach was discovered on his ranch and when the okies came to get out of the drought he nearly went bankrupt giving people jobs that he didn't have to give. He died poor and my dad and I have bought back what we can of the original farm.
I did know my grandad on my mom's side but he never told me any stories... He just taught me about gardening and chickens and then shook my hand the day he died. I was eight or nine. It wasn't until after he died that my grandma told me that he was raised in the thicket by a relative of the James gang at one of their hideouts and his uncle aranged for him to be kidnapped and taken to California to escape the beatings being dealt to his mother and him. He worked in the road camps that built the general grant highway that connects sequoia and kings canyon national parks. According to my grandmother he served as a backcountry perimedic for awhile when the strategy was to have six guys run all the way to the injured party(this is at between5-8000 foot elevations in STEEP country) and carry them out on a stretcher.

 

[M5farm]

paternal grandparents lived about a mile apart. My grandmothers dad was a traveling preacher and farmer. Granddaddys dad died when he was young and they farmed also. My granddaddy and 2 of his brother's married 3 of the preachers daughter's. I have a slew of double first cousins. They married real young 16 and 15 is what they told me. He would leave early on Monday moring to walk to meet a ride to work and wouldn't be home till late Friday night. My gma ran the farm. Tobacco corn hogs cows. When the farm was running good he came home full time to farm. I spent every minute I could with them growing up and live in the house they built in 54. Wore a suit on Sundays overalls every other day. My mom told of when I was 5 or 6 she asked me what me a bigdaddy did that day and I told her we messed with them bastard pigs all day. she had to explain that they were just pigs

 

[Isomade]

Isom (the original) was born on Thanksgiving day in 1923. His mother died when he was four years old. His dad married 9 different women in total and he had 8 siblings. On three different occasions he would go to school in the morning and come home and the family had packed up and moved to another town not telling him where they went. The third time that happened he was 12 years old and had his younger brother with him who was eight at the time. He gave up chasing after them and struck out on his own. He and little brother Bob worked for different ranches for "three hots and a cot" for the next few years. Isom was drafted to the U.S. ARMY and served in WWII. He was on the front lines of battle for three years. He returned home to my grandmother, Madie, after the war and worked and saved to buy land so he could run cattle. In addition to running cattle he was at one time the largest chicken farmer in Oklahoma.

My grandfather and I were very close. He didn't talk about the war, but family was very important to him. When I was in the 8th grade I had to do a report over "My Hero". I took a tape and a cassette recorder and asked him to please tell me about his time in WWII. It was the only time he ever talked about it. I turned on the recorder and he filled up a 60 minute tape with the most riveting tale I have ever heard. When I was in college the movie "Saving Private Ryan" came out. The movie got national headlines for its accurate depiction of the war. I went home and asked grandpa if he would go with me to see it. We were sitting in chairs in his work shop and he was in his 80's. I'll never forget his response as he starred out the window "Son, I've spent my entire life trying to forget about the war, why would I want to see something that's actually realistic about it?" At that moment I realized just how hard it was for him to make that tape for me. Of course I still have the tape. Isom passed away in 2003. I miss him every day.

 

[Aaron]

My grandpa (Dad's Father) was born in 1893 in a Swedish community in Finland. That made him Finnish by birth but to the day he died you wouldn't want to be calling him a Finn. He was a Swede and he made sure to tell you that. He worked log drives on the rivers back there and was a market hunter to make money to come to this country. In 1910 he emigrated to this country. He worked in logging camps. Back them they treated the pigs better than they did the men. Grandpa said they provided straw for bedding for the pigs. The men just had rough cut lumber for bunks that were three or four high. The men would go out and cut ferns and boughs to stack on the boards for a mattress.

Dave, what was the name of the community? It would be the same area as my grandfather and one thing about Finland is that everybody is related to everyone else on some level.

 

[3waycross]

My paternal Grandfather was born in Grimaldi Italy in 1886. He landed in America in 1899 without a pair of shoes to his name. He spoke no English and carried with him a hunger for success that never dimmed till the day he died in 1966. By the time he died he owned over right at 10,000 acres of ranch land and several farms.
I remember a lot about him but the two stories that stick with me always were i asked him how he irrigated so much land with so little water and he told me that for over 10 years when he bought the home place that every day that he had the water in the summer he would set it all night and then lay down at the end of the row and sleep till it ran out and got him wet and then he would change the set!
The other story that I will never forget had to do with the poverty they endured in Southern Italy he told me he had a milk goat and went door to door selling milk by the cup. Some time later i asked him what their recipe was in the Old Country for my favorite salami that we made and he told me "one old sow and one old donkey chopped real fine" I don't think anything ever made me realize what i came from more than that story. He was a man at 15 and carried us all into the 20th century on his shoulders!

My maternal Grandfather was born around 1900 and orphaned before he was 10 he was born in Indiana and grew up on a farm in Kansas. He loved to tell me stories about his childhood. The funniest was climbing up to look into a vulture nest and the vulture puking up dead meat all over him.
He would also tell me stories about following the wheat harvet all the way into Canada in his teens they were great stories and most were not fit for publication even now.
I guess the saddest story he told me was how when he was 19 he lost his sister Flossie to a goiter. She left behind 2 little kids and after about 2 months of mourning the loss of her only daughter his mother had dressed up in her best dress and coat and walked off the dock of a nearby lake and drowned herself. He never got over that, it haunted him for the rest of his life.
A footnote....he and i would cultivate corn together when i was a little kid and he would always tell me that when he retired we would buy a team of mules and a little place in Arkansas where we could farm the old fashioned way. I always think about that when i see the posts on here from the Arkies i always want to ask Jed and Red Bull Breeder if they have seen an old man workin a team of mules down there somewhere.

 

[dun]

Don;t know much about my maternal grandparents.
Paternal grandfather was born in 1869, emigrated to the US in 1882 dies in 1948 and was a master cabinet maker. My oldest brother remembers him cause he's 12 years older then I am.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Isom (the original) was born on Thanksgiving day in 1923. His mother died when he was four years old. His dad married 9 different women in total and he had 8 siblings. On three different occasions he would go to school in the morning and come home and the family had packed up and moved to another town not telling him where they went. The third time that happened he was 12 years old and had his younger brother with him who was eight at the time. He gave up chasing after them and struck out on his own. He and little brother Bob worked for different ranches for "three hots and a cot" for the next few years. Isom was drafted to the U.S. ARMY and served in WWII. He was on the front lines of battle for three years. He returned home to my grandmother, Madie, after the war and worked and saved to buy land so he could run cattle. In addition to running cattle he was at one time the largest chicken farmer in Oklahoma.

My grandfather and I were very close. He didn't talk about the war, but family was very important to him. When I was in the 8th grade I had to do a report over "My Hero". I took a tape and a cassette recorder and asked him to please tell me about his time in WWII. It was the only time he ever talked about it. I turned on the recorder and he filled up a 60 minute tape with the most riveting tale I have ever heard. When I was in college the movie "Saving Private Ryan" came out. The movie got national headlines for its accurate depiction of the war. I went home and asked grandpa if he would go with me to see it. We were sitting in chairs in his work shop and he was in his 80's. I'll never forget his response as he starred out the window "Son, I've spent my entire life trying to forget about the war, why would I want to see something that's actually realistic about it?" At that moment I realized just how hard it was for him to make that tape for me. Of course I still have the tape. Isom passed away in 2003. I miss him every day.

Isom my Dad and Uncles never talked about it either around us. Holiday's if the men were sitting off and we snuck up we would here talking about the war. Before my last uncle died in 2000 he pulled a shoebox out of his closet, it was filled with pictures of Iwo and Okinawa. Had some were they had piled dead Japs up and were sitting on them eating C ration's
He and I were very close as he had no boy's and was like a second grandpa to my kid's. I alway's called hin Uncle Travis, he was named after Travis at the Alamo, William Barret Travis.
Dad was in the North Atlantic and North Africa, Uncle Melvin was at Pearl on Dec 7, 1941, Uncle Travis made the beach landings on Guadual Cannel, Iwo and Okinawa, and Uncle Dan was in the European theater.
That said I know were you are coming from when you say my Hero I just had several Hero's.
Lost Dad in 02 not a day passes that I don't miss him. Dad was the youngest and last to go.
I have one aunt left from my mom's side and she is 98 they have all left.

 

[Limomike]

My Grandparents on my Dad's side came from around Dierks Arkansas, back in 1888. Grandpa was mostly Cherokee Indian, and my Grandma was mostly Dutch. They had 10 children, the first one died after falling off the wagon and getting run over. They moved to Oklahoma and mostly farmed, and worked the oil fields.
Didnt know too much about my Grandparents on Mom's side..Both were from Kansas, but moved to Colorado. Never met either one of them, both died before I was born. My Grandpa was full blood German and died out in Colorado. His greatest love was hunting and fishing.

 

[Dave]

My maternal grandfather was born in the late 1880's. He grew up on the waterfronts of the Puget Sound during the Alaskan gold rush. I didn't know him well. I do know that he always worked on the water. When I was a little kid he was working as the engineer on a tug boat running back and forth to Alaska. I remember him telling me how he rowed a boat from Seattle to Whidbey Island to shoot a number of deer which he brought back to sell in Seattle.

 

[LRTX1]

Wow, great stories from everyone.

I come from a family of farmers. My grandfather on moms side was from North Dakota, farmed beets, wheat, and raised sheep. Didn't really get a chance to know him much but dad said he was a good man.

My grandfather on my dads side I got to know real well. It's been told to me he had a mean streak a mile wide as a young man, never got to see it as he was in his 70's when I was born. He grew up farming mules until the 40's when he bought a John Deere L after selling a Mule. The mule he sold showed back up on the farm sometime later and he waited a while for the feller to come calling for him. He never did so he sold the mule again. It's been told he sold the same mule 3 different times and often joked about that one dang mule paid for that little Model L.

Another story told by my Great Aunt about him is he had a disagreement with another feller he needed to settle that lived a few towns away. Said they got word the feller was always in this bar, so granddad and his brother stepped on a greyhound to go see the guy. The driver asked where they were going, said they wanted to go to the bar. The driver said, we dont stop there. Granddad pulled his pistol out and said today you do. Supposedly the bus pulled up to the bar so close when the got off the bus their first step was on the steps of the bar. That would have been in the 1930's. I remember him being much of a man well into his 80's, strong as an ox and loved playing with us kids. It's funny to hear the old stories about him and it sounding nothing like the man I knew.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Wow, great stories from everyone.

Every one was a joy to read. When I was a kid I used to have out in the domino halls and listen to the old men.

I have some written accounts of things that are a treasure. One is a story about my maternal gggrandad. After the civil war they were migrating. They landed in a spot in northern Louisiana for a piece and hung there while one of the women gave birth. Each night the posted sentinel would get bushwhacked. All his gear and rucksack would be taken. So my gggrandad told everyone to stay at the tents and no one move until daylight and he would take watch. Just before daylight he fired off a shot. Everyone came running. "What'd ya shoot?" He told them, "Just an old hog rooting over yonder." They went to retrieve the hog and it was an indian under a fur. The old indian would crawl along and root in the ground with a knife. When he got close enough he had been jumping the sentinel and taking all of his goods each night.

 

[Ouachita]

My great grandad was born 1860. German emmigrants. Lived in Dakota territory. Moved to New Mexico after the blizzard of 88'. He fathered 20 children; 10 with the first wife, remarried and 10 more after age 50 with the second wife. Grandad was of the second litter, born in New Mexico 1914. Moved here to Arkansas in 1917.
When he was 6 years old (1920-21), him and great grandad got caught in a storm coming back from town. It was dark and they were crossing a wooden plank bridge. The creek had washed out a few boards and the wagon wheels fell down it it and it turned over. Great grandad cut the mules loose, but grandad was missing. He was swept down the creek and spent the night in a tree.
He was assigned clean up duty at Pearl. Never talked about that to anybody. Least not anybody that repeat anything. He talked of a drought in the 50's in which neighbors from miles around would draw water from his spring, because all theirs had run dry. We have a neighbor that recently told me that he ran out of hay one year, and ask grandad if could buy some from him. Grandad told him he didn't have any for sale, but gave him half of what he had left. It's a good feeling to hear good things about your kin.
They got the house electrified in 1968, but lived beyond Y2K with no indoor plumbing (or outdoor), and granny never cooked on anything except a wood stove. They always had bedroom size pantry full of canned food, full freezers, and it seemed enough fire and stove wood to last an eternity.
He just passed on Sept 2010. Had the alziemers (sp?) the last few years of life