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We all have history, we come from somewhere. Most likely there is someone back in your family tree that was notable. Maybe it was your parent maybe you've done something amazing. Lets talk about cool stuff in our family lines, past and present. David Crockett is a great something grand father of mine. He is famous of fighting Andrew Jackson on his anti native American actions. Going down to Texas with Daniel Boone (edit for my dumbass) and running hit and run tactics through the southern Texas bush against the full force of the Mexican Army. My grandfather was a b-17 "flying fortress" pilot during WW2. At his funeral over 300 people, I never met, came out in support of his service. All of them in their 80's and I still don't have the whole story. I was told by these old guys "Your grandfather was a hero." They just left it at that. I know he piloted 28 missions starting 2 months before D-Day, and ended in a Nazi camp. All of the information I've been able to collect is that he flew under another bomber and took flack after he realized he was the last living person in his bird. Bailed right off the ground with just enough time for his shoot to open and woke up 180 miles from Berlin. He lived and got out of the camp. He never spoke about how he did that. Came home got married had 6 kids and I'm his first born grandson. He took a lot of that story with him. He wasn't able to tell his wife or his kids or his grand kids after he got back. We have small parts of the story but he burned his journals before he died so my family will never know for sure. Lets tell each other some true stories to the best of our knowledge of the people we came from. edit: sorted its James Bowie and David Crockett Aye-Aye fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 06:20 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 03:44 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 09:34 |
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I dunno if I can top the partial recollection of your war hero grandfather.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 03:54 |
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My grandpa told me several of his stories about WWII, but literally all of them involved gambling...
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 03:56 |
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Not incredibly life-changing but one time I was talking to my grandma in a restaurant about music and she was talking about Johnny Cash. Anyway, she started talking about biographies and stuff and I was half-listening when she said something about Johnny Cash and kissing. "What, a book?" "Johnny Cash kissed me." "Who's that one by, is it a book?" "No, Johnny Cash kissed me"  I guess he came to my city way back before he got really big and my grandma met him. He gave her a big ol' kiss and they took a picture together, which he signed. So we get back to my grandparents house and I asked to see the picture... "I threw it out." "No, what, grandma, you didn't." "Yeah, I threw it in the garbage." "Why would you do that?!" "I didn't like the way I looked in it." "It was a picture of you with Johnny Cash grandma, the man in black!" "Yeah but I didn't think he'd ever be famous. Oh well." That's my dad's mom anyway. My mom's parents had a pretty rough run at life. My grandpa was born into a family of 16 kids, 12 making it into adulthood. This guy was my grandpa's great grandpa: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.co...1/UHP-0060.html His family is a long line of Metis fur traders who have been in Canada for a long, long time. My grandmother had a rough life as well, she lived mostly in poverty, her house burnt down, as a teen she was incredibly smart but had to forgo a university education to stay home and work on her family's farm. I don't know much about my dad's side of the family, it's a bit sad but there doesn't seem to be anyone who knows all that much. Toriori fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 04:05 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 04:01 |
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My parents were born in 1950 in South Vietnam, so their generation fought the war. My dad avoided getting drafted because he was college educated, but this education didn't get him far once our side lost. Mom and Dad were getting edged out by new guys, buddies of the new regime being placed in powerful positions. Though my family were never strongly political, they were seen as sympathizers of the old government and the US. They lost their jobs and tried their hand at farming, but as successful city folk they weren't cut out for it. They bought sickly piglets that never seemed to grow up into sickly adult pigs. They'd have to abandon their education to be poor farmers for the rest of their lives. It was this, or their only other choice: risk their and their 2 toddler sons lives by escaping. I've always loved hearing their stories of trying to leave Vietnam via the ocean on a fishing boat and failing, being thrown in jail with the kids, trying again and braving the ocean storms, facing polite pirates, landing in Thailand only to be robbed again by police, surviving refugee camps, then finally making it to America going from living in extreme poverty (think 15 to a 2 bedroom house) to everyone finding success. I ask about it practically every time I see them and I never get sick of it. I'm also thankful none of my family died to sunken boats, violent pirates, or disease. The same cannot be said for my boyfriend's family, but these stories could fill books. Thanks to my parents, I grew up in California instead of planting rice in Vietnam!
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 04:21 |
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David Bowie, huh? Ziggy Stardust, the time traveler. E: And to contribute. You and I have a couple things sorta in common, OP. I am related to Daniel Boone (Alamo) and my grandfather was a WWII pilot war hero, as well. He flew a ton of rescue missions. Fly in, get the injured fly out. Waltzing Along fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 04:29 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 04:24 |
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My ancestors go way back. On my Dad's side, they were Mennonites. The originally left Switzerland to avoid religious persecution around 1680, floating down the Rhine on a raft. They stayed in the Netherlands for a couple decades, and eventually shipped off to America, arriving as part of the Pennsylvania Dutch in about 1720. Apparently, the homestead they built is still standing. Anyway, they were Tories, and after the American Revolution they moved to Canada so they could remain British subjects. They settled around Hamilton (St. Catherines, specifically) for the next couple hundred years, as boring Mennonite farmers. My grandfather was orphaned as a teenager, and joined the Canadian army at 16 to help feed his siblings. He ended up serving the bulk of WWI in a trench in Belgium. His opinion was that the Germans could have Belgium on the condition that they then had to live there. One night on leave, they went to Paris to visit this big nightclub called "The Red Mill". He wasn't impressed. It was only later that he discovered that the French version of the name was "Molin Rouge" and was rather shocked that he'd been somewhere so famous and didn't realize it. Anyway, after the war he knocked around on various jobs and had a very rough time of it during the Depression. My Dad was born in '31 and remembers that there was an entire month that they ate nothing but boiled cabbage, because that's all there was. If he wanted a comic book at the grocery store, his mother would start putting stuff back on the shelves, because she had her costs figured to the penny, and a comic book meant buying less food. He learned to do without comic books. He didn't feel particularly poor, though, because everybody else was in the same boat. Anyway, Grandfather eventually caught on with Ford in Buffalo. During WWII, they relocated to Michigan so he could help build B-29s. He died before I was born, but I do seem to have inherited a heart condition from him that managed to skip over my Dad's generation. As far as famous ancestors goes, through my grandmother it turns out I'm descended from William Bradford of Mayflower and Plymouth Colony fame, and I would be eligible to join the Sons of the Mayflower society if I was sufficiently interested. My own life is unremarkable and boring, but I come from a long line of unremarkable bores. Deteriorata fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 04:49 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 04:46 |
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My parents were also born in Vietnam during the 50’s. My father only had a high school education, he joined the South Vietnamese Army, in part to show solidarity to my paternal grandfather, whom held a military and political position in a small town in South Vietnam and because of his political beliefs. My father was eventually captured a few years before the US pulled out of Vietnam, he remained a POW and was eventually moved to a re-education camp, he spent almost ~10 years combined in both of those. He’s told me stories of how he survived off of lemons and rodents for weeks on end. My paternal grandfather suffered a stroke during a strategic meeting with some higher ups in the local government and passed a few years afterwards, my father was still in the POW camp during this time, and never got to see him. When the war ended, all my paternal grandfather’s possessions and property were seized by the North. My mother lived in a town 123km from my father. She was an elementary school teacher. My maternal grandfather was the town translator for the French diplomat. After the war broke out, he was beaten severely by northern sympathizes and left for dead. He was brought to a local French doctor, and nursed back to health, he’s still alive today, and was recently recognized by the Vietnamese Government as a centenarian, although he even admitted himself that he’s not that old (all official documents were seized after the war ended so he lied about his age), but hell, he got a parade and a bunch of random government gifts out of it. Thanks to my parents, I was able to grow up in Northern Virginia, although after several visits back to Vietnam, I wouldn't mind planting rice back in my homeland.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 04:53 |
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Growing up I sort of thought my family had always steered clear of the armed forces, but that was just because my father's line tended to have children later in life and my grandfather was too young for WWI/too old for WWII and my Dad could have technically been drafted for Viet Nam but he was a doctoral student at the time so they just kind of ignored him. But then I found out my great-great grandfather was one of General Sherman's lieutenants? on the infamous March To The Sea during the American Civil War, where that part of the Union Army did everything it could to destroy the state of Georgia--knowledge that would probably get me punched out in the wrong parts of the South even today. My great-great-great-great grandfather not only served in the Revolutionary War for its entire duration, but was shot multiple times and recovered from his injuries to get back to serving again. And he was in his 70s at this point. Dude. I hope I am that tough when I am in my 70s. The relatively few generations removed for each story is itself sort of interesting to me; every man on my father's side had children no earlier than their 30s, 40s, or even later, even back in the 1700s. That seems like quite the unusual streak (that I am evidently now proudly upholding, assuming I do have children that is). I think one of them had one child in his late 20s but that was not my direct family line. Why did you wait so long, fathers'-side? Did you not realize poor people had children at like 15 in those days? Were we always aloof quasi-weirdos even before academia came into the picture to justify that behavior? Oh, and possibly only entertaining to me because I am an immigration scholar, my great-great-grandfather on my paternal grandmother's side all came from Germany ... with the same forged documents that they would enter the country with and mail back to be used by the other four brothers, one by one. I BET THEY TOOK ONE OF YOUR ANCESTOR'S JOBS!!!!!
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 04:58 |
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My grandfather had fought with the Germans in WWII before jumping sides and fighting with the Americans. Apparently, he was shooting off his gun when a higher officer bitched him out about it. He said he saw some enemy soldiers in that direction. Of course, when the officer took out his binoculars and saw enemy soldiers cowering in the distance, my grandfather was praised for his eagle eyesight. He didn't see those soldiers. He was just covering his rear end. When he was much older, he had serious bloating issues and my dad told him to drink distilled water. The distilled water worked and after getting out of the hospital, he felt so good that he brought out his old brewery. In the next 2 weeks, he drank himself to death. From everything else I've heard, he was a horrible person who wanted England blown off the map and was emotionally abusive to his wife and sons. Glad I never met the man. My Oma, on the other hand, is pretty amazing. She was young and in Prussia when WWII broke out. Her father left for war and never came back. Her family was then forced out of their home as the Russians came in. She witnessed many people brutally attacked and gunned down by Russian soldiers, but believed that nothing ever happened to her because she had treated Russian POW soldiers kindly by giving them bread and cigarettes. She had to steal fruit and bread to help feed the rest of her family. Her mother died from shrapnel poisoning after getting too close to a grenade. Her sister died not long afterwards from a heart disease. Her heart had grown too large for her body. My Oma then went to Berlin for a while, but the bombing was so terrible that she eventually fled to her grandparents in Western Germany. She soon had to bury them both as well. Supposedly, I had a great great grandfather who was a Russian Count. My Oma said that he didn't want to go to war, and so he fled the county in a hay cart and settled in Prussia to raise horses. I would love to find out who he was and how true the story is, but the family tree was written in a bible that was destroyed during the war. Nessa fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 05:15 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:11 |
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My Father's side of the family has been in pretty much every war that you can come up with, going as far back as our family can be traced, so there's all sorts of strange and amusing stories from every generation, unfortunately stuff gets kind of hazy before World War 1, though during the Revolution apparently many of my ancestors got pretty pissed that they couldn't just be left alone to go hunting/fur trapping/looking for hot Indian women. That side of the family is pretty much 100% French Canadian, coming from somewhere specific in Normandy, France that I can never remember. My great great grand uncle (or something just as fittingly weird.) got saved from going into a frontline meat grinder in ww1 simply because he was sitting on a troop transport boat and an officer saw him reading a French paper that he'd scrounged up from somewhere and asked him if he knew much French. Without looking up from the paper he replied in the weird ghetto French that I can even speak some of the equivalent of "Of course I know how to speak French, now fuckoff" He was immediately reclassed to become a translator. Somehow he managed to lose an eye in the war and I have a truly badass picture of him in his uniform with a black eyepatch, he looks awesome, he was fairly huge for his day (6'3) he's grinning a grin that can only come from debauchery and some good wine. I just wish I could remember my old livejournal account name so I could get ahold of that damned picture again. A cousin disappeared during the initial phase of the Battle of the Bulge, he was last seen manning a .30cal mounted on a jeep. Pretty sure he didn't even last one day into the battle, but his last actions observed were pretty damned heroic and selfless. His body was never found, and I am truly, deeply curious about what went down in the last few hours of his life, and if there is somehow any Germans that survived that saw what he did, though probably not. They were the first wave too, not many of them survived. There's a monument for ww1-ww2 dead in the middle of my town, and I think it's funny as all hell that his last name is mispelled- The same thing happened to me when I deployed, my last name was mispelled three different ways on my uniform, it's not like it's an exotic last name either, but there's so many variations of it that people just assume I don't know how to spell my own damned last name. My uncle was a weird huge mutant that happens in the family every few generations (like the ww1 guy.) my Dad and my other uncle are built fairly stereotypical for the oldschool French people around here- short dudes kinda built like weird lightweight bulldogs, but this uncle was built like a 6'2 gorilla, he'd think nothing of putting a couch on his back to lug it up four flights of stairs to help a friend move. He decided that it was his duty to join the military and get involved in Vietnam,..He had a really strange career. He started off in a motor company as a driver (back then one of the lowest, most menial jobs you could get.) then became a cook (which is fitting, the family was best known for being generous, badass cooks, and badass musicians. In no particular order, somewhere in there was military service too.) then decided to go infantry, did a couple of tours, and became a drill sgt for a few- He almost beat the snot out of some kid who somehow found out that he'd been a cook and hollered out "YES GRILL SERGEANT!" when my uncle was busy putting on the hardcore drill sgt charade. Apparently he was really tough on them, but it was because he really cared about trying to give them the skills to survive, he knew what they'd be seeing shortly. He wound up living in a horror show after his duty as a drill sgt was up, he went back to Vietnam as a staff sergeant I think and was tasked with leading platoons of green troops through the jungle basically just to spring booby traps and find out what the enemy was doing,...After about five months of this pointless carnage he couldn't take it anymore and took a massive dose of heroin that should of killed any normal person. Obviously he'd been self medicating with all sorts of the stuff that was around, and his body refused to be killed that simply. He was shipped back to America and spent a few years living quite wildly,..I am fairly convinced that my first memory (which is really hazy and weird) is of him holding me in his hand as he laughed his rear end off at being proud of his lil brother's son. He died a strange death in Florida, most likely because of coke and fast living. He slammed into a telephone pole going 90 or so, he hit the brakes so hard when he noticed the pole that his foot went through the floor panel of the car. It's truly unfortunate he couldn't deal with what he saw/his demons, when I'm being tormented by the stupid pointless bullshit I saw in war, he's the only person I can think of that I'd want to talk to, he'd get what I have on my mind, and would have some insight. My Dad managed to wind a lucky spin on the Russian roulette wheel of fate and instead of being an infantryman in Vietnam, he was deployed to Germany, but this was during the part of the war where black people were understandably PISSED at the draft and the way it was skewed, and all the rampant rascist discrimination. There were race riots all over his base all the time, he heard one of his best friends get his throat slit just down the hall from where a room of him and his friends were taking shelter, it got so bad that he was thankful that he was issued a .45 because he was a confidential documents guy. They also trained a German Shepard they bought from the Germans on the base to guard against any black people,..It sounds horrible, but that's the way it was for a period of time, and that's pretty much the tip of the weird iceburg for him, I'd tell more but it just sounds so way out there that sometimes I almost doubt what he says, but I'm in the same boat. I hope I live long enough to tell my son's grandchildren about some of the weirder things I saw, I'm also just patiently waiting for my son to get old enough so that I can sit him down and tell him about a few of the things I don't feel like typing out from ancestors, and a few of the things I've seen so that maybe he can sit back and be one of the lucky generations in my family that opt out of war and do something else with their intelligence. His sister (different Father.) is already starting to sort of get why I am the way I am because of how I was effected by war junk, she's just starting to sort of get past the "Did you shoot anyone!" phase of questions and knows finally not to ask that because I'll just look at her and tell her I don't know and I won't talk about it,..She's now more interested in knowing about the culture of the Iraqis I met and how I tried to help them out, and hearing funny stories about their weird quirks and stuff, or checking out my old gear and hearing about stumbling around in massive sandstorms. It's nice to know that maybe someday when I'm gone a few of my stories will be passed on, just like the ones I took (way too damned long) time to write out.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:16 |
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Meh, the best I've got is that my grandfather was a medic in the Korean War and said it was nothing like MASH.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:23 |
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My great uncle landed on Juno Beach on D-Day along with the rest of the Canadians. It was extremely emotional for my mother (who was close to my great uncle) when we visited there back in 03. Normandy was a total tourist trap (though I still respect those that landed there) but Juno was the total opposite (quiet and free of loud tourists) which made it more intimate. Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 05:43 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:40 |
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There are stories told of my maternal grandfather that are pretty amazing. Some parts can be verified, others can't. When he was a young man, Grandpa was one of the early Golden Gloves boxers in Chicago. The story is told that he killed a man in a bar fight, but got off because it was considered self defense. He was then recruited by Al Capone's organization as hired muscle and driver for guys collecting the protection money. After Capone went down, he moved west, met my grandmother and settled down. Grandma told me that he had come clean about his past at some point and told her that he was the driver for the car in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, but he took no part in the actual killing. Gramma wasn't too sure if she believed this bit or not, but grandpa seemed sincere. Grandpa eventually became abusive, gramma filed for divorce, and grandpa went to prison on unrelated charges. When he got out he became a drifter and disappeared. About 10 years later his skeleton was found in the desert and the mystery of his whereabouts was solved. The coroner determined that the cause of death was murder, but nobody was ever charged. Gramma hypothesized that it was either a prison enemy or possibly an old grudge from Chicago.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:43 |
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Alan Arkin once looked disapprovingly at my mum.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:47 |
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Aye-Aye posted:Going down to Texas with David Bowie and running hit and run tactics through the southern Texas bush against the full force of the Mexican army. That would be Jim Bowie, not David Bowie. Of relevance to this thread, Jim Bowie was my grandmother's great grandfather. He's famous for his last stand at the Alamo, and his involvement (the extent of which is unknown) in the creation of the Bowie knife.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:48 |
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Waltzing Along posted:David Bowie, huh?
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 05:49 |
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Great idea for a thread. My family history is filled with just about anything wrong you can think of. One such story came from my grandfather. He explained to me about the history of my great grandfather. My great grandfather was a Kentuckian. He was the only person in his town with a working phone in those days as he was the only one the government deemed trustworthy enough to put their emergency telephone in his shop in town. Anyway, the kids of his cousin decided that it would be a good idea to surprise sex his daughter. Before the carried out the act, my grandfather told me my great grandfather got wind of it. So he saddled up his donkey, grabbed his double barrel shotgun and headed out to kill one of his cousin's sons before the surprise sex could occur. Well someone tipped off his target. This led to his cousin's son hiding armed in the bushes with a cohort next to the road that my great grandfather was riding on. Anyway, after he passed the quietly got behind him on the path and shot him from behind, right off his donkey. This in turn orphaned my grandfather when he was two or three years old and forever changed the family etc.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 06:04 |
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Quixotic posted:Haha, it's Jim, not David. The OP's family history is also very similar to mine. I'm even a Crockett descendant (out of Pennsylvania). I would almost ask if you're my cousin but there were five kids in my Mom's generation, not six (as far as I know). The portait of Crockett in the Alamo bears a strong family resemblance (looks like my aunt wearing buckskins, really). My mom's side is the Crockett side and they moved out of Crockett Valley WV in the, I want to say 1840's, and towards the James River in VA. On a different note I get the Mayflower Quarterly from my dad's side. Its a little book with obituaries and pictures of old white people. If you can prove one of your ancestors came over on the Mayflower you too can own this wonderful quarterly book that asks for money and pimps bake sales. Aye-Aye fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 06:27 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 06:22 |
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My grandmother on my mom's side's first husband was found murdered in a field not long after cashing his check. He was stabbed in the back. One of my ancestors was supposedly Micajah "big" Harpe, One of the Harpe Brothers who were America's first true serial killers. My great aunt was shot by her husband while sitting at her kitchen table, talking to a man. Her husband decided during the conversation that she had feelings for the man, whom she had just met that day, and decided she needed to die. According to the man, he was a salesman, and she was planning to buy her husband a new brush, as a surprise. There's more, a lot more, but I'll save those stories for when I'm not posting on a tablet.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 06:26 |
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Unfortunately, the only side of my family I'm familiar with is the Hawaiian one; the rest are all forgotten (my third-generation Japanese American maternal grandfather swears up and down we're related to Mitsuhide Akechi, but I'm pretty sure he just watches too many Taiga dramas), mundane (the other side of my Japanese family is boring-rear end merchants), or disowned (following). Apparently, we're related to Kamehameha I, that part of my family's genealogy is pretty well-kept. King Kalakaua was my great-great-great-great grandmother's baby daddy. They're big names, but that's about all they are; Kalakaua did try to take care of my great-great-great grandmother by giving our family, like, half of Oahu, but most of it was stolen in the days leading up to statehood. The estranged, rednecky part of my clan still jointly owns a good chunk of Punalu'u to show for it, but they're, y'know, "Let's bomb the SS Missouri to show we're serious about sovereignty" types, so we haven't associated with them since I was three or so. And Punalu'u is like the fuckin' Oklahoma of Hawaii, so it's no surprise enterprising land barons stayed far, far away from it. My great-great grandfather was a bootlegger who made whisky from ti leaf roots and ran a speakeasy in downtown Honolulu and was apparently a big loyalist. He was murdered by industrialists in an arson! My great-grandfather was an old money German American from the NE United States, but we don't have any of it because he was disowned by his family for marrying a "friend of the family," as they called her. That's about all we know about his side of the family, but apparently there's a mouldering castle involved back in the DE. Of course, whose European family doesn't have ties to some dilapidated fortress somewhere, right?  There's actually a photo of my great-grandmother--his wife--who appeared in a chic clothing ad in Playboy in... somewhere between the 60s and the late 70s. Not in the capacity you'd expect; I've seen the photo, it's basically a picture of a dude in a fancy red suit standing next to an old Hawaiian lady for that "tropical" feel they wanted to capture in the ad.
The White Dragon fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 06:57 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 06:55 |
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My grandpa was once in a game of Pictionary and drew an elephant that looked like an emaciated coat rack. It's not really a story but he got really indignant about it and still defends it to this day. It was not a fine elephant.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 07:05 |
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An enduring story about my grandfather on my mother's side remains with us. When he was 12, one of his teachers intensely disliked him. She constantly berated him, and would make an example of him in front of the class, mostly due to his poor appearance.They were quite poor, and my great-grandmother was a devout Pentecostal who would tithe most of their income to the church, so really no money for much of anything except the basics, and no new clothes, just 2nd and 3rd generation hand-me-downs. Anyway, this particular teacher hated my grandfather for various reasons, and one day, after he decided he would not pay attention to her berating, she grabbed him by the hair in an attempt to get his attention. Apparently his hair was one of the few sources of pride he had, and he responded by shoving the teacher, who happened to be next to a window, out of said window. Luckily, the school only had one floor, so the teacher wasn't really hurt. My great-grandmother did have to come to the school and convince the principal not to expel my grandfather, but I think he was pretty soured on school after that anyway.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 07:33 |
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My grandmother knows how to cast Power Word Kill. She stood by the bedside of my grandfather who was on his deathbed from cancer, they had a conversation, she placed her hand on him and said softly (but firmly) "die now" and he just loving died instantly. Nurses came rushing in and he was completely gone. It was incredible. Also, there was a porcupine peeking into my fathers pram across the camp site years ago and she apparently (with many witnesses) just grabbed a hatchet off the picnic table and threw it across the campsite, killing it dead. The woman terrifies me.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 07:35 |
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One of my red headed ancestors was sent to Australia for stealing a goose.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 07:37 |
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Quarex posted:But then I found out my great-great grandfather was one of General Sherman's lieutenants? on the infamous March To The Sea during the American Civil War, where that part of the Union Army did everything it could to destroy the state of Georgia--knowledge that would probably get me punched out in the wrong parts of the South even today. As for a family story, my grandfather served in the Navy during WWII and spent most of his at sea, my grandmother worked as a secretary for the War Department. The government provided her an apartment, which had strict rules about visitations. Even though she was married to him, when he visited they had to stay in the lobby, be supervised by a matron, and weren't allowed any physical contact at all, couldn't even hold hands. Still managed to get her pregnant and my father was born before the end of the war.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 07:54 |
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kizudarake posted:My grandmother on my mom's side's first husband was found murdered in a field not long after cashing his check. He was stabbed in the back. All that paranoia over a new brush? Wow... Also, the Harpe Brothers story is intriguing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpe_brothers
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:06 |
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My grandpa was best friends with the guy that invented coca cola
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:06 |
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 This is a 1932 photo of my paternal great-grandfather in his Red Army uniform. He was born in 1903, making him 29 at the time of this picture and 14 years old when Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown and the Bolsheviks established in the 1917 revolutions. The family history is silent on the question of how much he was involved in all of this, but I like to imagine that he personally farted in the general direction of the Tsar, and only paused in his relentless downsizing of the bourgeoisie to take a shot of vodka or take a shot at a Nazi. As far as I can tell from poking around Red Army grognard fansites, the insignia mean he was some kind of combat engineer.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:43 |
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My father and mother come from Bangladesh, a country next to India that used to be part of Pakistan. In 1971, because the Pakistan government tried to enforce their language on Bangladesh which was then called East Pakistan, the country revolted. At the time, my father was about 10 and he lived through the war. The Pakistan soldiers were basically asked to try and kill anyone they could find and Bangladesh. I've never asked him about any more than that and I've never asked my mother about it either. Their families get off okay with no deaths in the family that I've heard of, but one of my dad's friends saw his family murdered in front of him as a child and he's never recovered. He doesn't speak and his mind is apparently stuck in those days. Additionally my paternal grandfather used to be a policeman in the area but he got shot and killed a bit before I was born so I don't know much about him either. So yeah. You hear those stories no matter where your family's from, huh?
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 10:10 |
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My grandfather was in disagreement with the nazi regime. When he was drafted into the german army he stole an supply truck, deflected to russia, cut all ties with his past and was never heard of again. One of my grand uncles lost part of an arm and an leg in the same war through a grenade while he was taking a poo poo in some bushes, on european ground not long before germany surrendered. He told this story a lot. Interestingly allied medics and doctors saved his life. He was a very cheerful and down-to-earth person for being so maimed and going through something I can only imagine to be absolute horror. My grandmother was always a spiteful and mean person who was apparently involved in some of the administrative work with logistics of the train transports to concentration camps but I don't know many details and nobody really wants to talk about it. She's still alive but has been in a coma for years after having a stroke.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 10:14 |
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My paternal grandfather (b. 1917) dropped out of school when he was 15 or 16 and got work on a merchant ship and worked on merchant ships throughout the war. Being Swedish the ships were neutral, but it was by no means a safe job. One of the ships he had just left was sunk on the next voyage. One thing I remember my father telling me was that once when my grandfather and the crew returned to their ship (in Poland, I think) they heard noises from the funnels and investigated it. They found two men standing on each other inside hoping to escape the terrors of the Nazi regime. Of course they helped them smuggle them back to Sweden. It was safe to say that they weren't fans of the Nazis. Apparently they had to fly a Nazi flag when approaching German harbours, and they did so. A flag that had tobacco stains, piss stains, spit and was in a sorry state. Another story is that they were gambling with some other seamen and my grandfather and his friend had put a lovely watch as a bet. The watch was crap and wasn't really working, so they had to take turns to make excuses and distract while they shook it so that it would start ticking again. I think they won in the end. It's a shame that my father never had time to record all the stories (My grandfather had loads) before he passed away over ten years ago. 
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 10:44 |
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I've had relatives in every American war since independence. One of my uncles came over to the states on the Mayflower, one of my other uncles was John Brown the abolitionist of Harper's Ferry fame. More recently my grandfather was in a few of the noted battles of the Korean War, notably the Punchbowl. A great uncle served in the Marines from WWII, into Korea, and was an advisor at the start of the Vietnam War. My father was on the German line during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and my uncle was a tunnel rat in Vietnam, sending letters from Laos and Cambodia while Nixon was telling the country we weren't in Laos and Cambodia. I really need to trace more of my family back to Europe, but outside of one of my mom's grandfathers, most of my family has been in the US for over 200 years, some for 400.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 11:28 |
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My great grandmother worked at the Lexington when Al Capone was headquartered there and knew a lot of Capone's crew. She described them as "perfect gentlemen".
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 11:47 |
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My grandfather fought at Normandy in World War II, he was shot in the butt and had a big scar from it. He came back with pretty bad shell shock and used to beat me with a yard stick, so I'm not sure how I feel about him.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 11:48 |
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My PopPop got measles in the 60's and avoided getting drafted. 
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 11:54 |
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My great-great-great Grandfather was an interesting man. He lived to be either 95 or 100 depending on which obituary you read. He was born in Norfolkshire England. He was a volunteer in the Rifle Corp of Reading. He did some bodyguard work for Prince Albert and for his services was presented with a sword by Queen Victoria. Then he moved to Philadelphia and got work as a carpenter. He related stories of his career to the Inquirer on his (supposed) 99th birthday..."'I helped to tear down the old station at 13th and Market Streets, and I helped to build Broad Street Station,' he tells them. 'I remember that an old woman lived on the property where we were to build the walls and she wouldn't give up her home. She made a terrible fuss about it, so finally we took the roof off of her house. That night it rained so hard, she decided she'd change her mind and get out. I was working on the old Masonic Building and saw the first shovel of earth dug for the City Hall foundation. When the John Wannamaker's Store was built, I helped to do it, and from a piece of old oak, I made a cabinet and presented it to Mr. Wannamaker for Christmas. When the new store was opened, I stayed with the firm for twenty-five years and was one of it's carpenters.'" Oh, he was also married three times and had 16 children between the three wives. So its very likely some of you Philly goons are also related to him.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 12:09 |
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I know next to nothing about my family history. The person I know most about is my Grandpa. From him, I know my great grandfather was from Yorkshire and was a carpenter, and my great grandmother was a German Lutheran. The part of Australia I'm from was settled by free migrants so this is nothing special. During the war, my great grandmother's church shunned her and treated her very poorly just because she was German and this broke her heart, leading to her early death (according to my Grandpa at least, anyway). So Grandpa became a sworn atheist. I remember him smugly telling the tale of how he avoided jury duty one time by refusing to swear on the Bible. As I was growing up, Grandpa made me read "Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell which I actually quite enjoyed. My Great Grandfather became a drinker and apparently cut all the tips of his fingers off while carelessly using a bandsaw. My Grandpa was also a carpenter and managed to avoid the war by doing woodwork for the local shipyards which were producing ships for the war. Aside from wood-turning, Grandpa's hobbies were geology, fossil hunting, fossicking, mineral collecting and lapidary. Along with Reg Sprigg, he was one of the amateur fossil hunters who discovered the fossils in the Ediacara Hills, which are among the oldest known fossils of animals. One of the fossils shares his and Reg's names, Spriggina Floundersi: A fossil  A museum recreation This animal lived around 550 million years ago and as far as I know, it is still unknown whether it is closer to a worm or an arthropod with plates. They only grew to around 3cm long, or just over an inch, which makes detailed study difficult. I don't think my Grandpa actually discovered it by himself since there were a few people in the group and lots of fossils were being found - just lucky to be in the right place, at an exciting time.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 13:00 |
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My great grandpa came to America from Sweden about 1915, 1916, and he immediately only referred to himself as "American" from that point onward he was so proud to live in the US (although I'm told he had a super thick Scandinavian accent til the day he died, which is understandable, but I imagine it must have thrown a few people for a loop). When America joined WWI, he immediately joined the military, and he was shipped back to Europe to repair planes, which always strikes me as a little funny (he could have just stayed there originally if he wanted to fix planes in Europe!). He came back, met my great grandmother (another Swedish immigrant), and set up shop as a mechanic. During the Depression, they had nine mouths to feed (including their own), so they started farming some as well. Once each of his sons were legal adults, he strongly encouraged them all to serve in the military due to his extreme pride for the US; he wanted to give back, so he joined the military, and he thought it was fitting his sons join as well. As a result, my grandpa and all of his brothers not only served, but served during war time (the older ones, of course, in WWII, and the younger ones in Korea). Despite his extreme pride in his new country, my great grandpa was not awarded US citizenship until a few years before he died (no idea why). I was told the day he was awarded citizenship was the happiest day of his life. Unfortunately, because of my great grandpa's extreme love of the US, we've lost a lot of family history. He didn't talk a whole lot about his family back in Sweden (in fact, all we know for certain is that he was named after his father), and he was firm his children would never learn Swedish, because they were all Americans. Both of my grandfathers served in Korea, but one was on the front lines with the Army, while the other was peacefully drifting at sea with the Navy. My grandpa that was in the Navy will pull out old Navy yearbooks and tell all sorts of stories about the war, but they're always charming and funny since he never saw combat. My other grandpa that was stationed on the front lines drank heavily after the war for quite some time, and he only ever told my dad about his experiences once when he was super hammered a few years before he died. My dad said the details weren't completely clear (my grandpa was slurring quite a bit), but he basically told my dad about how he lived in constant fear for the duration of his time in Korea, and how he thought every night would be his last. Where my grandpa was, there was constant gun fire. At one point, his best friend got a piece of his skull blown off, and my grandpa held him while he died (and actually named my dad after this guy). I can't even imagine the hell he went through.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 13:42 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 09:34 |
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My maternal grandfather worked in a factory and didn't do anything interesting during all his life. I don't know a lot about my paternal grandfather besides the fact that he was 2m tall and weighted around 150kg when he was 70 years old and since he was very tanned and he dressed impecably (suit, fedora, cane, red carnation on the lapel) everyone thought he was a gipsy patriarch at first and got him a lot of welcome presents to get on his good side. He returned them all, except for a ham (I wouldn't return a spanish ham either)
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 13:52 |
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