Community Chat

[brownie917]

The top three causes of death would ravage people in short order. --1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea

[jubilant]

I just read this to my husband. We both thought it was interesting. Thanks for the post!

[just bee]

My father was born in 1906 -- of course he died in 1970 -- but I always think about what it must have been like for him.

[MaggieToo]

Very interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

My mother was born in March of 1904 in Georgia, and was a twin. Her brother was around 1 when he passed away. Not sure exactly of what.

My dad, who was born in 1900, finished high school and went to work for the RR. I think that was the only job he ever had. He was an auditor.

[Linders Back]

1904 was the year my Father's Mother ran away and left him @ age 5 to be raised by his Grandmother and father. His father never remarried (took him over 10 years to track down my Grandmother to file for divorce.) I have all his weekly ledger books and to see what he earned and paid out is enlightening. ($1.10 to his Mother to buy groceries and 25¢ for the "baby" for shoes )

They lived in a multi-family house in Maine and had no indoor plumbing: barn had 6 different "stalls", one for each family! can't imagine heading out there in a cold New England winter.

When he was in HS and on the track team, they used to ice skate down the river to the next town for meets and then skate home after. Senior year, they took a class trip to DC and it was the first time he had been more than 50 miles away from home. They took a train to Portland, a boat from there to Boston, then another train to Washington.

He worked for the town doctor as a gofer in HS and the doctor paid to send him to Medical School. When he was a senior there, his ROTC unit was sent to Virginia to prepare to be sent to France in WWI. War ended before his basic did.

My Mother's Grandmother pulled the same stunt and ran away (from home in NH) at about the same time leaving her my Grandmother and Aunt to be raised alone by their Dad. He stuck them in an Orphanage and joined the NAVY and sailed around the world with The Great White Fleet in 1907. HE did reunite with them later after a vagabond life that included playing in a band on a Mississippi riverboat in the 1920's, but they never knew what happened to their Mother.

Interestingly, (for me anyway) is that after doing genealogy research, I found both my Dad's Mother and my Mother's Grandmother living in Boston within a few miles of each other in the 1920's Census.

Thanks for stirring up these old memories. The times sure were different then.

[ShowMe]

On 1/28/2014 Linders Back said:

1904 was the year my Father's Mother ran away and left him @ age 5 to be raised by his Grandmother and father. His father never remarried (took him over 10 years to track down my Grandmother to file for divorce.) I have all his weekly ledger books and to see what he earned and paid out is enlightening. ($1.10 to his Mother to buy groceries and 25¢ for the "baby" for shoes )

They lived in a multi-family house in Maine and had no indoor plumbing: barn had 6 different "stalls", one for each family! can't imagine heading out there in a cold New England winter.

When he was in HS and on the track team, they used to ice skate down the river to the next town for meets and then skate home after. Senior year, they took a class trip to DC and it was the first time he had been more than 50 miles away from home. They took a train to Portland, a boat from there to Boston, then another train to Washington.

He worked for the town doctor as a gofer in HS and the doctor paid to send him to Medical School. When he was a senior there, his ROTC unit was sent to Virginia to prepare to be sent to France in WWI. War ended before his basic did.

My Mother's Grandmother pulled the same stunt and ran away (from home in NH) at about the same time leaving her my Grandmother and Aunt to be raised alone by their Dad. He stuck them in an Orphanage and joined the NAVY and sailed around the world with The Great White Fleet in 1907. HE did reunite with them later after a vagabond life that included playing in a band on a Mississippi riverboat in the 1920's, but they never knew what happened to their Mother.

Interestingly, (for me anyway) is that after doing genealogy research, I found both my Dad's Mother and my Mother's Grandmother living in Boston within a few miles of each other in the 1920's Census.

Thanks for stirring up these old memories. The times sure were different then.

Wow Linders.....your post on here hit home with me. I was 5 when our mother walked off and left my sister and I with our father..... Oh how I remember that day..... We were fortunate enough that our father raised us, and sometimes with the help of Grandma, and aunts....... I finally got to meet my mother when I was about 18, but we never had a good mother/daughter relationship.

[RetRN]

Thank you for posting, I found this to be very interesting. It is so easy to forget what those before us had to endure day to day.

[Cats3000]

And in NYC, the first subway (the Interborough Rapid Transit {now known as the "IRT") opened for business in October of that year. It ran from the City Hall Loop Station to 146th Street. It changed the face of NYC forever.