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100 years ago

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gmik:
I read this somewhere...

100 years ago a woman literally "slaved" in the kitchen all day to prepare food.
Today, with all our modern gadgets to make cooking the easiest thing to do in all of history, we don't cook anymore!!


One of my hobbies is genealogy. It is very amazing what has transpired in the last 100 years.  However, people never change that much.  In my 8 lines (grandparents and great grandparents) there are divorces, abandonment, murder, adultery, deception and then bravery, love, charity, commitment, sacrifice, duty, honor.....

judith collier:
Ellie, loved it! I was born at home and my grandparents were immigrants as was everybody else in Detroit at the time. During prohibition they ran whiskey from Canada back and forth from Detroit. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do! Judy

hillsbororiver:
Hi Judy,

My grandparents on Mom's side of the family also settled in Detroit, Hamtramck to be exact, they emigrated from what was then called Prussia which is an area that has shifted from being a part of Germany, Poland, Russia at various times in history.

My grandfather and his brother built 2 houses on Harold (it actually doesn't say street, avenue, road, etc. on the sign) and my mother, her two older sisters and her brother were born in that house, only her youngest sister was born in a hospital. We used to visit there every summer (from New York) and the area always had an old world flavor exemplified by vegetable and flower gardens, trees painted white on the trunks and people sitting on their porches drinking cold beverages, eating watermelon, ice cream, etc.

During Prohibition my grandfather, my great uncles and all their friends were no doubt partaking of the illegal spirits but it wouldn't surprise me if they might of had a hand in bringing a bottle or two over the border once or twice.  ;)

My grandmother prayed daily for them at the Catholic church on the corner of Harold & Conant.

Peace,

Joe     

firefly77:
It is wonderful to read all the stories and history from your families.

I am a first generation immigrant (1976 to be exact). Hippie movement, flower power, love and peace, San Francisco... you get the picture. I went from a very civilized nation (Frankfurt, West-Germany), to living in a barn, 24 miles away from the closest town (Tonasket, WA), without indoor plumbing and running water; we had an outhouse made out of cardboard walls. We also had a barrel stove, cardboard walls, ceiling, and floor, sectioned off inside a huge hay barn.
It was February 10th, 1976... 28 degrees below. Using the outhouse was a very teeth shattering experience :o. I was never so constipated in my whole life  ::). A city girl became a "pioneer woman" in no time at all. I had no transportation, my next door neighbor lived 2 miles down a gravel road. I carried water in buckets to our cabin and used an old wood stove to cook on. We had a creek about 10 yards away from our home; during spring and summer I would use my fishing line to get fresh rainbow trout for breakfast. There was this neat little fishing hole which replenished itself every morning with 4 or 5 eight inch trout. I was 24 years of age... lots of dreams, wanting to live on a farm, growing my own vegetables, have dogs, cats, horses, chickens and goats. I learned how to garden, bake bread, make goat cheese, can and freeze food, and essentially live very simply and naturally. The only contact to the outside world was my radio... and snail mail.
I do miss this simple life again and am trying to recapture some of those experiences one more time. However, I would not be able to live without BT, email, and a fast internet connection.

Angie

judith collier:
Angie I admire your spirit! I would have starved to death and died from never going to the outhouse.
Joe, yes, i know where Hamtramck is, my mother had a Polish girlfriend there and I remembered loving to eat at her house. Was it goulash, can't remember?  Trees being whitewashed from the ground up about 8 ft., I remember my grandfather, when moving to Indiana, where we had a tavern by the lake, and he whitewashed all the trees. I lived on the East side of Detroit, lots of Greeks, Italians, Germans, we were Belgium. What a great childhood, lots of freedom, translating for our parents or grandparents and lying through our teeth to them, confusing situations and then doing what we wanted. And a very devout Catholic grandmother who used to scare the beejeezies out of us with her tales of the devil.  Judy

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