Memories from the Oldest person you ever knew?How far back?

[Springbok]

A well thrown Gauntlet, Jap,

What a wonderful character your ggranpa sounds, but then,they all were,to survive those early conditions

I have family in NZ and to go round some of the settler museums with their old photos is an education:especially many women working alongside the menfolk mining  and bringing up their rafts of children
I was about to change the heading for this thread to ask for  "Any tales from the past," but reckon it's doing quite well folks. Keep 'em coming please

Springbok

[JAP]

Springbok, I'm sorry about the gauntlet and just (only just) pipping you on the year front.  And he wasn't my Ggpa - he was my Gpa!   I just wish that Grandpa had talked to me as your husband's Gran did to you about her wonderful memoriesl  Though his memories wouldn't have meant as much as they would have been about 'boring' local places.

While, unfortunately, I don't have Grandpa's scrapbooks, I do have articles written by his brother Charlie (#1 ticketholder of the Wagga Wagga Shearers' Union) in 1936 in the Australian Worker on the 50th anniversary of the AWU (the AWU - Australian Workers Union - was derived from the ASU - Australian Shearers Union; yes I quoted the wrong decade in my earlier post).   Life was harsh in those early shearing sheds.  Charlie wrote, inter alia, of some squatters giving them forks made from twisted fencing wire!  But that wasn't all of the story; Charlie wrote too of the joys of nature and compared his early days - when he and his older brother, my Granpa AJ, went to their first shearing job as teenage lads in the 1870s - with Trollope's dedscription of life in Oz as one long picnic. 

Let's hope someone comes along and pips me!

But, as the stories on this thread show, there are just so many wonderful stories and memories out there.  So let's forget about the year and bring on the stories.

JAP

[Springbok]

No Probs.Jap That's what I hoped in the beginning /Bit of a challenge and lots of interesting things where we have to use a lot of imagination to envisage.

Just remembered Sue B, the Bread man who used have a box (shaped like an old Sedan Chair) with shafts in front and which he used to pull around the streets.Only a tiny,wiry man ,I always wondered how the weight of the bread didn't have him dangling in the Air One day he let me try and although I manged to get the shafts down,it took all my strength to keep them down, let alone pull the box.

Springbok

[Erato]

My grandfather passed on a story from his grandfather, one of the first settlers in Marquette County.  In their first year in the log cabin, gg grandma had a yen for bread so gg grandpa walked 40 miles to the nearest town to buy flour.  He bought a 50 lb sack and a pint of whiskey.  He poured the whiskey in his boots to disinfect his blisters and carried the flour home on his shoulders.  As my grandfather said, "B.H. was a lifelong teetotaller."

[stonechat]

My mother (who is alive and relatively well at 85) remembers her grandmother well.
This is Ann Lee who married 1) William Aldous 2)  Edward Jackson

She was born in 1848 in Upperthong near Holmfirth.

Her father was a cordwainer (shoemaker)

She related how she walked across the moors delivering shoes.

If it was cold she would have a hot potato in her muff.

I'm not sure if the moors were in yorkshire or Derbyshire, as the family had moved to Glossop by 1861. It could be this was in response to the Holmfirth floods of 1852.

She had an eventful life, marying twice.

My mother's father was born in 1898 when she was forty in her second marriage.

In later years when they lived in Littleton, Sheppterton, Middlesex near the film studios, minor films stars would lodge with them.

She lived until 1940, the first of three deaths in the household in a few months

[maidmarianoops]

bee,let us all know if you do


or


maybe we could help
sylvia

[Kissimmee]

Can't go back as far some folk but my grandparents were both born in 1875 and I almost lived in their pockets but sadly I wasn't interested in family history in those days but my mother in law was born 1895 and didn't die until she was 97.  She had a wonderful memory and gave names and dates which have all turned out spot on and told stories of her father born 1867 but even so never got round to asking all the right questions.
Kissimmee

[smeghead]

My grandmothers cousin Hilda Downton is aged 104 born in 1901 I met her through doing my family history earlier this year. have attached pic of our meeting. I remember my Gr Grandmother who was born in 1883 and died in 1980, She would often tell me about her time in India as she was their with my Gr Grandfather and spend about 10 years their living a lavish life She used to love telling her stories and they used to sound good wish i had taped these as some of this would have been very usefull to my family history. I wish i had started when she was still alive hence i did not start anything for many years  My other Gr Grandmother born in 1879 and died in 1978 She lived in chichester but i did not see her so much about once a year did not tell me anything about her early years but she was still working aged 97 and was presented the cbm for being Britain's oldest working woman. PS Both  of my Gr Grandmothers smoked    Jim

[JAP]

Jim,

Thank you for sharing the fantastic photo - what interesting lives your people led.  I can't believe that your beautiful cousin is as old as you say she is!  It's a lovely Xmas present to read your message and to see such a delightful photo.

All the best for your Xmas day (ours is close to finishing - just after 11pm here).

JAP