Do we ever admit how poor our ancestors were?

[digitS']

Sylvia, perhaps about the time she married in 1879. She was 18 years old at that time.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

What a wonderful photo. She was a beautiful young lady and the quality of the pic is amazing. A cherished keepsake indeed.

 

[so lucky]

Don't you love old family portraits? My DH's family has some interesting ones, but I guess my family was too poor to ever have a professional photograph done! I never even thought about that till now! Now I really feel poor. :/ lol.

 

[897tgigvib]

Ya know, you bring a good point. Having a camera, well, that seems to be one of the things that makes a person feel...wealthier?...I don't care that my car is almost always the oldest one in sight, and definitely the ugliest, but having that little kodak, yea, that feels good!

 

[baymule]

My Daddy's father was a sharecropper. They were poor or "pore" as us southerners call it. My Daddy was put to work in the cotton fields at 10 years old, chopping weeds with a hoe from the cotton with a gang of men. The men were paid 50 cents a day from "can till can't". Daddy, being a boy, was paid 10 cents. He saw immediately he was doing the same job as the men, so when they took a break, he kept chopping. He got two rows ahead by not taking breaks and at the end of the day, the foreman raised him to 50 cents too.
My Daddy was the 6th of seven children, the youngest being a girl. By the time Daddy was born, I guess his mother was out of names, so she named him JB. No intials, didn't stand for anything, just JB. My Daddy's family were all farmers or sharecroppers, nobody had much. As a young man, Daddy worked on gangs of men digging irrigation canals in the Rio Grande Valley. They men dug the canals with shovels. Daddy had one foreman who walked the edge of the canal being dug saying "hit me, hit me". The men slung their shovels so they could shower "the boss" with dirt.

I got my love of gardening from my father. He was an organic gardener before it was popular. Some of my earliest memories are of barely able to toddle, right behind my Daddy in his garden.

Now my mother's family came from wealthy planters who were laid low by the civil war. The old plantation home is still standing outside of Franklin, Louisana. It is owned by a retired couple who are restoring it to it's former glory. The link provided is from an online genealogy page created by a distant cousin.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mysouthernfamily/hickoryhill.html

My mother's family were never "dirt pore" but still did well for themselves. Her parents lived in the Rio Grands valley in the Depression, where all manner of vegetables were raised and literally no one went hungry. Her Father worked for the postal service, so he had a very good job.

 

[897tgigvib]

Digit, your great grandmother Sylvia was a very beautiful girl! Imagine how stunning she would be if she had modern shampoo and makeup. That photo was taken the year my father's mother was born.

 

[so lucky]

Did anyone else's dad join the CCC? (Civilian Conservation Corps) It was a work program for "poor unmarried young men" that was part of Roosevelt's "New Deal" from around 1937 to 1942. They built roads, planted trees, built park structures, etc. Dad worked in Michigan, but also spent a good deal of time near St Charles, MO, where he met my mom at church. She was 14, and Dad was 20 when they became mutually interested in each other, but waited till Dad went to war and came back before they got married. Now Mom is in an assisted living facility, and just recently realized that one of Dad's buddies from CCC is also a resident where Mom lives. They have spent many hours reminicing about those fun times back then, around 1939. It's too bad that Dad couldn't have lived to meet up with his old friend again, after over 70 years. They missed each other by about 8 months.

 

[seedcorn]

My Daddy's father was a sharecropper. They were poor or "pore" as us southerners call it. My Daddy was put to work in the cotton fields at 10 years old, chopping weeds with a hoe from the cotton with a gang of men. The men were paid 50 cents a day from "can till can't". Daddy, being a boy, was paid 10 cents. He saw immediately he was doing the same job as the men, so when they took a break, he kept chopping. He got two rows ahead by not taking breaks and at the end of the day, the foreman raised him to 50 cents too.
My Daddy was the 6th of seven children, the youngest being a girl. By the time Daddy was born, I guess his mother was out of names, so she named him JB. No intials, didn't stand for anything, just JB. My Daddy's family were all farmers or sharecroppers, nobody had much. As a young man, Daddy worked on gangs of men digging irrigation canals in the Rio Grande Valley. They men dug the canals with shovels. Daddy had one foreman who walked the edge of the canal being dug saying "hit me, hit me". The men slung their shovels so they could shower "the boss" with dirt.

I got my love of gardening from my father. He was an organic gardener before it was popular. Some of my earliest memories are of barely able to toddle, right behind my Daddy in his garden.

Now my mother's family came from wealthy planters who were laid low by the civil war. The old plantation home is still standing outside of Franklin, Louisana. It is owned by a retired couple who are restoring it to it's former glory. The link provided is from an online genealogy page created by a distant cousin.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mysouthernfamily/hickoryhill.html

My mother's family were never "dirt pore" but still did well for themselves. Her parents lived in the Rio Grands valley in the Depression, where all manner of vegetables were raised and literally no one went hungry. Her Father worked for the postal service, so he had a very good job.

I believe that is a southern thing as my dads name was RC and stood for nothing. He also worked cotton and tobacco fields

 

[Ridgerunner]

Did anyone else's dad join the CCC? (Civilian Conservation Corps) It was a work program for "poor unmarried young men" that was part of Roosevelt's "New Deal" from around 1937 to 1942. They built roads, planted trees, built park structures, etc. Dad worked in Michigan, but also spent a good deal of time near St Charles, MO, where he met my mom at church. She was 14, and Dad was 20 when they became mutually interested in each other, but waited till Dad went to war and came back before they got married. Now Mom is in an assisted living facility, and just recently realized that one of Dad's buddies from CCC is also a resident where Mom lives. They have spent many hours reminicing about those fun times back then, around 1939. It's too bad that Dad couldn't have lived to meet up with his old friend again, after over 70 years. They missed each other by about 8 months.

Yeah, Dad planted a lot of trees in the dry part of Oregon with the CCC's. He talked about that a fair amount. He enjoyed the experience and boy could he and his parents use the money. I don't think he enjoyed Oregon all that much though. Too dry.

Dad also did not get married until after he served in WWII. He was 29 when he got married, almost 30. Mom was exactly one week past her 18th birthday.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll try a story about being poor, not from my ancient ancestors but about my Dad. He was a starting guard on his high school basketball team. He was senior class president. After he graduated from high school he started college at a small local university that probably no one on this forum has ever heard of. He was on a work program to pay for college. Dad was the only one of seven kids in his family to even attend college though I think all graduated from high school.

He developed an absessed tooth his first semester and had to go to the dentist. The dentist fixed the tooth and told him the bill was $10. Dad did not have $10 but he paid his debts. He dropped out of school to earn money to pay that debt he owed and never returned to college.

This was in the mid-1930's. Some people might know that times were kind if rough about then. Money was really scarce. The job Dad got to repay his debt was helping a guy make moonshine. Dad took a lot of pride in the quality of the moonshine he made. Nothing slipshod about that. If he did any job, he did it to the best of his ability.

He was living at home during all this. About three months after Dad started, his father found out and gave him an ultimatum. Quit making moonshine or move out of the house. He quit making moonshine.