Saturday Challenge- Occupations

From Randy Seaver: For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:

1)    Geneablogger Diane Gould Hall posted WORKDAY WEDNESDAY – What kind of work did your ancestors do? on her Michigan Family Trails blog last year, and I thought the topic could be used as an SNGF post.

2)  Please go back several generations (say parents or grandparents or great-grandparents) and list the occupations that they had in the records you've found for them.  You could do this, say, by ancestor table number.

A field overlooking Owasco Lake

I wondered how to go about answering this Saturday challenge. I can answer the question for most of my male ancestors with just one word: “farmer”. My father left the farm, worked as a mechanic/tow truck driver for a short time.  Then worked for his uncle for a while as a salesman for a Sinclair oil distributorship before taking it over from him. He then ran this business as his own for the rest of his working career, but was always a farmer at heart.  My maternal grandfather was a carpenter by trade, although in later years he also worked for the school district as a janitor. The women for the most part were housewives, supporting their husbands in their careers; especially those who were farm wives. My maternal grandmother was a Registered Nurse. There is not much variety to write about.

Then I read a blog posting from Michael John Neill where he took exception (and rightly so) to somebody saying that an ancestor was just a farmer. That made me think about the fact many people may not realize what the occupations of farmer and farmer’s wife entailed, and often still do today.

The farmer is the one that gets up while its still night to milk the cows and feed all the animals. He may not have had much sleep, as he had been in the barn just a short while before checking on an animal that was sick or about to give birth. Maybe there were new baby animals of some sort to tend to already that morning.

He is the one that gets all the crops planted while checking the weather for storms and cold spells that will hurt the tender plants. Have you ever watched a haying crew scramble to get the hay from the field on a hot summer day when a storm is brewing? They are working at a frantic pace, but organized and knowing exactly what to do.

I use the pronoun “he” above. However, not all farmers are men. And did you notice what was happening right along side that farmer when there was a crisis going on or any type of extra work needing to be done? Yes, that is the farmer’s wife jumping in and helping where needed. When I posted a picture of my grandparents’ barn a while ago, one comment was made by my older brother about something that was missing from the scene. The ’48 IH pick-up truck pulling up to the barn with a load of hay to be unloaded-- driven by Grandma.

The farmer’s wife’s traditional sphere was the kitchen. Getting meals on the table, washing the clothes and keeping the house. Preserving the harvest for use next winter, mending clothes or sewing entirely new outfits. All the time while keeping an eye on the children and making sure they were safe. It was also helping and getting everything done that her husband might not be able to get to. They were a team.

At other times a farmer is doing many other chores around the farm. The job, if a written description were made, would go on for pages and pages and scare any sane person away. The farmer is part veterinarian, part butcher, part mechanic, part electrician, part carpenter, part meteorologist, part business person, part bookkeeper, part salesman, part store clerk, part horse-trader, part blacksmith, part cooper, part herbalist… part many more things I have missed. Whatever needed to be done on the farm needed to be done by him his wife or children, often at a moment’s notice, without a chance to call for help unless it was to his nearest neighbor- another farm family.

So, yes most of my ancestors were “just farmers” and I’m proud to say that I descend from many, many generations of farmers. None of the current generations farm other than a small garden or such, but many of our cousins still do.

FGS in Springfield Illinois- Registration

Collage from their website

The FGS (Federation of Genealogical Conferences) will hold its annual conference “Time Travel: Centuries of Memories,” in Springfield, Illinois in late summer.

Here's a link to information about this exciting conference:
https://www.fgsconference.org/

The conference is August 31-September 3 at the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield, Illinois and registration for it is now open.

If you're going to attend, get registered while the early bird specials are going on, of course, and then drop a comment on this post and make all the rest of us jealous! So many great speakers and so many great topics while being surrounded by a great group of people. Alas, I only have so much, time, money and energy so will not be able to make this conference this year. I'm hoping in the next 2 or 3 years to be able to make another NGS or FGS conference, they are so much fun!

Happy Memorial Day!

As we approach Memorial Day do you know how it originated? Or where it originated? Although many places lay claim to a decoration day after the Civil War in which they decorated graves in their cemeteries of the war dead, Waterloo, New York is officially the first to have started a yearly tradition throughout the village.

Here’s a quote from the U. S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs website:

“Official Birthplace Declared In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “birthplace” of Memorial Day. There, a ceremony on May 5, 1866, honored local veterans who had fought in the Civil War. Businesses closed and residents flew flags at half-staff. Supporters of Waterloo’s claim say earlier observances in other places were either informal, not community-wide or one-time events.”

Now then, who’s good with math? For those that aren’t it was fifty years ago that it was officially declared and this year is the one hundred and fiftieth Decoration (now Memorial) Day.

Although many of us now commemorate the holiday as the unofficial start of summer with trips, camping and barbecues, this is what the original intent was. I was touched by how many people responded to my post from yesterday about still carrying out the tradition of decorating families’ graves. That was what I was taught as a child, to make sure that all the recently passed relatives had flowers or other decorations on their graves if at all possible. We also did other activities that usually included camping and cooking outside as well.

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I see that Waterloo is doing a big celebration as is fitting for such an occasion. There are many activities for people to participate in and enjoy. Personally, I will be staying away from there as it is becoming way too hot this weekend and I really, really hate crowds! However, you decide to celebrate the holiday--- Enjoy!

Memorial Day Flowers

Memorial Day.

Do people still do the tradition of putting flowers on loved ones graves at Memorial Day? I see flowers on many graves as I go about exploring cemeteries, but they often look old and faded. This could just be because with the exposure to wind and sun, the silk flowers fade rather quickly. A few places have live plants or flowers, but these, of course, die quickly unless you can go there frequently to water and tend to them which most of us don’t have time to do or are too far away from where the graves are.

I don’t remember when I made the first trip to the cemetery to put flowers on my grandparents’ graves. I’m sure it was some evening in the week before Memorial Day after supper. That was the way my parents would always do it. After the dishes were done, we would get in the car and head south to go around the lake and head to Scipio where my Dad’s parents were buried. They had died three years before I was born, so the routine would have been already established by that spring when I was a baby.

Did we go to Skaneateles to put flowers on my Mom’s grandparents graves? I don’t remember, but Grandma, her mother, passed away just before my fifth birthday and the following spring we definitely would have been heading that direction some evening in that week before the holiday. I remember Mom putting an arrangement on her grandparents’ grave as well, so she might have been doing that prior to her mother’s death.

Over the years as I was growing up, this was a yearly ritual for us. I took it for granted that everybody did this for their grandparents. As I got older, I realized that only some people do that. My mother continued on for many years. She added her father’s grave when I was ten. As I grew up and left the house, I no longer accompanied my parents, but knew they did this still. In my early 30s, my father’s was added to the list, across the driveway from his parents.

I rode along with my mother from time to time as she did this job alone over the years. When she stopped driving, I would make sure she got to the store and was able to select the flowers. Most of the time I took her as well. Occasionally  my brother would if I didn’t have a chance. As she got older, I took over going to Skaneateles for her. She still goes out to my father’s grave, but now just watches from the car as I arrange the flowers in the vases on either side of their stone.

And so the tradition passes. From one generation to the next. Remembering and taking care of putting flowers on the ancestors’ graves.

Find My Past has 1.8 records available and they are allowing you to access some of them for free until Monday! See the information at the bottom of this link.

Almost Wordless Wednesday- In Honor of Memorial Day

Just a few from my Wooster line that served during conflicts and that I have pictures of their burial sites.

Robert Tifft burial site. Revolutionary War

Orrin Wooster. Civil War

Marion Wooster. WWI and WWII.

Alice Wooster. WWI

Robert Wooster. WWII

Southern Cal Jamboree Live Streaming

Want to travel to Southern California's Jamboree, but can't get away or can't afford to? Here's a partial solution! They are live streaming some of the presentations. DNA day will cost you, but the other days are available for free thanks to Ancestry! The details are all in the funky looking link below. You do need to preregister even for the free ones. Also, if, like me, you're on the east coast or well, any time zone different from Pacific time, you need to adjust the times listed to what they are in your local time zone.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1103157486799&ca=731a1a73-d8e1-438c-a2ef-0ad93cc2fcbd