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

[Springbok]

Just wish that I had asked more recent relatives Bee.

Erato, you have just reminded me of an elderly retired Gentleman we visited in the 1970's whilst we lived in Northern Spain.

He owned some very early N.American Maps (c. 1600's) these were proper surveyors maps. Great areas of White 'Unexplored'  lots of notations such as 'Friendly Indians', 'Good Water here' and   also showed the wagon trails.

He had 5 or 6 of these from the earliest to about 1750. I've looked on lots of US sites but can find  nothing like them. Always hope that he left them to be preserved.

Springbok

[Erato]

Speaking of maps, for anyone with relatives in Wisconsin, the original land survey notes and plat maps (about 1830-50) have been scanned and can be found at:

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SurveyNotes/

[ggrocott]

Much of the memories of the Elephant and Castle was about ways a young boy could earn money - catching birds on the Hackney marshes to be sold at The Cut Market at Waterloo, running errands, collecting the programmes from the first house of the local music hall and selling them to the second house.  It also covers the death of his sister aged about 5 - she set her hair alight on the candles of the Christmas tree and died as a result and the death of a brother who was run over by a tram - his mother died of a heart attack soon after the latter event - worn out by the stress to quote my grandfather.  Life was tough!

[Springbok]

Much of the memories of the Elephant and Castle was about ways of a young boy could earn money - catching birds on the Hackney marshes to be sold at The Cut Market at Waterloo, running errands, collecting the programmes from the first house pf the local music hall and selling them to the second house.  It also covers the death of his sister aged about 5 - she set her hair alight on the candles of the Christmas tree and died as a result and the death of a brother who was run over by a tram - his mother died of a heart attack soon after the latter event - worn out by the stress to quote my grandfather.  Life was tough!

Thankyou for those extracts. ggrocott,
Yes life was really tough, How wonderful to know such details though. Apart obtaining all their Certs. of Death how would have anyone have known how those poor children died. 

And how your Granddad raised extra pennies.  Just loved the reselling of the programmes.

Springbok

[davierj]

I remember meeting an old soldier in the sixties who joined up in the Zulu wars as a boy and finished in 1940.
No he was not Jones the Butcher
Cheers Dave

[JudyAnne]

My grandfather, who lived with us, was born in 1876.  Often, usually after Sunday dinner, he would settle down and say "did I ever tell you....?" and even if we all said "yes" he'd carry on with his tale. He had been in the Boer War and some of his tales were about that - not the fighting etc. but the big adventure of leaving Yorkshire for the first time in his life, going on a ship for the first time and mixing with foreigners (ie Lancastrians!) for the first time. They were usually funny like his friend, who after weeks on the ship, had spotted a fly as they were approaching Capetown and had informed everyone that he'd seen "an English fly" because he didn't know they lived in foreign parts as well.  He told us about his horse, which he'd had throughout, being shot from under him and how the only thing he could do was put it out of its misery.  His weren't the only eyes with tears in when he told this one.

He volunteered for WWI but failed the medical because they thought he had a heart murmur but he had the last laugh because he was 92 years when he died in 1968.

He also used to reminisce about his family and the amusing things they'd got up to.  Unfortunately, except for one brother they had all been dead for ages by this time and I suppose  because I never knew them, I didn't pay much attention.  I'll leave you to guess how many times since I've bitterly regretted this stupidity!!!

Jud

[loo]

I don't have any great personal items, but about 15 years ago I knew a woman who well remembered her own grandmother, who had been born a slave in the USA, before the Civil War.  I remember being quite stunned as she told me this, just looking at her, with her unusually dark skin (very dark, even for a black American) and trying to imagine what this must have been like, being close to someone who had grown up a slave.  (I am white.)  She often cited her grandma's wisdom and advice, none of which I can remember now unfortunately.
For myself, I always knew that I had a greataunt who had been a fashion designer in the 1920s and onwards, although I'd never met her and no one seemed to know anything about her after about 1935.  I assumed she'd probably died a long time ago.  Very much to my chagrin, I learned through my research, a couple of months ago, that she lived to be almost 96, and only died 10 years ago.  I would have loved to have met her.  If only I'd known...

[Sooziecats]

And Sue B. see your Nan and see what it was like at school and growing up.. Don't leave it too late

Springbok

My Nan has told me stories of the Chip man from when she was young - A horse and cart pulled a wagon through the streets of Cheltenham (approx 1920) with a large pot of boiling fat, heated by a wood fire, and chips were cooked in the fat.  Just imagine what could have happened if the fat caught fire or the horse bolted.  I think the Health and Saftey inspecters would have a field day now!

The only trouble is that I have heard this story about a hundred times now - so the novelty is wearing off !!!

Sue B

[JAP]

OK, let's up the challenge insofar as years go.

Ggma was b 1854 in Victoria, Aus.  I believe I met her!  Though I only have a dim memory of an ancient lady sitting in a chair in a darkened room.

But I certainly knew Grandpa very well.  He was b 1855 in Victoria, Aus.  He died in 1949.  Unfortunately, being a man of his generation, he was not remotely interested in talking to a prissy little school girl.  And a prissy little schoolgirl, while she would undoubtedly have been interested in his stories, wasn't about to force herself onto a scruffy old deaf (mostly a pretence) ancient Grandpa who, to her mortification, walked down the street dressed in trousers with braces, a grandpa shirt, and dirty runners!  He used to visit us after walking several miles from his home.  And a couple of days before he died in his 90s he dug a hole in his backyard to bury some rubbish!

Grandpa had a great history, I now find; apparently as a little tacker he wrote letters home to Ireland for illiterate immigrants, he started the first Shearers' Union (in Longford Tasmania); he was pivotal in starting the ASU in the 1870s; he worked in the Rutherglen goldmines with a chap who later became PM of New Zealand, etc, etc.  Gpa was also a lightning calculator (could tell you how many seconds you'd lived - well if you knew the exact second you'd been born) and gave demos especially in WW2 to the troops.  If only I had the scrapbooks he kept - conned out of my Gma by a well-known author ...

Some years after Gpa's death I met a (younger) friend of his - who had lived up in Ned Kelly country.  Donald McDonald told me that the Kelly boys were total larrikins but Mrs K and her daughter were very nice ladies!

Come on guys!  Who actually knew someone born before 1854/1855!

JAP