Family History and the Importance of Talking

Ezra Wylie's invention buckled cotton more tightly together.

Today I spoke with Heather Wylie on my I Remember podcast. Heather is an amateur genealogist who is tracing the family history of Wylies and Whites. She keeps a rather detailed and inspiring website An Unexpected Discovery as well as a terrific blog that would serve as a great model or mentor text for anyone thinking about writing and sharing their own family history.

During the interview, Heather detailed the life of her paternal great grandfather, Ezra Frantz, who was born and raised on a family farm in Illinois and who travelled the country as life-long inventor.

Browsing Heather's website and blog, and listening to her on this interview, one can't help but feel armed with the best advice of all when it comes to discovering your family's past: start with yourself.

One of the things that sticks most with me from my conversation with Heather is her stressing the importance of talking. It seems silly to have to remind ourselves to talk to one another, but Heather makes a strong point. So often, we have to get over ourselves and pick up the phone or go for a visit, and make the effort to talk to our older relatives. They are a wealth of knowledge, experience, and stories that will never be tapped unless we ask them to share. And so many of our older relatives are not on social media and need the benefit of our speaking with them face to face.

People are also shy--especially people in our own families. But if take Heather's advice, and start with ourselves, then we can be the ones who get up, leave the house, and keep our family narratives alive.

.
 

The "I Remember" podcast featuring Heather's interview can be played directly below or downloaded for free from iTunes.

Finding Narrative in Numbers

Nosing around online for information about my maternal grandfather's family--a part of our family that neither I, nor my mother, have known--led me to the family 1940 census record. 

This is a great lesson is trying to find a story in the numbers. I'd never tried to find a story in math before today, but I imagine many amateur genealogists find themselves faced with this challenge as well. It is part of the fun of the puzzle.

My brain took me immediately to the fact that seven adults and one child shared a three bedroom row home on Wharton Street in Philadelphia. Shuffling the possibilities in my head, I can put my grandparents in one room, possibly three or four siblings in another (Thomas, John, Francis, and Sam), and a step-sister (Sanina) and her 4 year old son in another room. Knowing the small dimensions of those bedrooms, I can't imagine four young men sharing one room. Some must have slept in what would otherwise be the dining room or living room--perhaps the young boy--putting three in one bedroom and two in another. Still, everyone must have been climbing over one another in the one bathroom home.

Another number leapt off the page: 0. My grandparents, Joseph and Lillian, reported making $0 in 1939. Born in Italy, they were 65 and 58 respectively. Reporting as laborer and housewife, and having just come through the Great Depression, I can't imagine much savings.

While census records, on the surface, may not be able to confirm the details my mind immediately gravitated to--where did everyone sleep--the records do tell me another angle of the story. The records remind me about the culture of sharing these generations fostered. 

My grandfather, John

I forget that...and I forget how drastically we've changed. For better or for worse depends on your perspective.

From what I can gather, the average American income in 1939 was $1,368. Among the three reporting income and working, John, Thomas, and Sanina, my grandparents' household made $1,960 in 1939. That comes to just under $38 dollars a week when everyone is working and income is consistent. However, only one of the three wage earners, Thomas, a shipping clerk, reported working a 40 hour week consistently...and my grandfather, John, worked a range of hours week to week driving a truck, while Sanina reported working only five hours a week as a tailor.

In 1939, a gallon of gas was estimated at 10 cents a gallon, a loaf of bread was 8 cents, and a pound of hamburger meat was 14 cents.

This was the first census that attempted to measure the social and economic situation of the country. Never before had someone been asked to declare how much money they earned--the previous models of the census were built mostly around population shifts and growth. By the end mid 1940s, it was common to find editorials bemoaning the census changes as an invasion of privacy. 

Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly, April 24, 1944

The numbers leave me with questions that I know I will never answer. For instance, I am left wondering how my grandparents' household managed when my grandfather enlisted on August 7, 1942 and shipped off to the Pacific theater in WWII. While my grandparents household depended on the $780 my grandfather made in 1939, I wonder how much of the estimated $468 he made as a private was sent back home.

In the end, the numbers leave me thinking about the moral of an often rewritten story--rewritten and retold for good reason: the families of the greatest generation took great care of one another. And I wonder in what ways we search for ourselves in their example.

The Hunt for Calvin Figgins

The spirit of my podcast, I Remember, rises from family stories. Sometimes the stories are bittersweet memories and sometimes they are thrilling accounts shaved from the pages of history.

So far, my participants have shared a range of stories from ancestors chasing Pancho Villa to the impact of the Armenian Genocide to the importance of a library card in a home that many families shared. 

And as we talk, I can hear the excitement as people share the answers they have found--the answers that have provided another anchor to hold onto the past with--but these answers only stir up the need for more questions to answered. 

We can never have enough anchors in our life.

Photo courtesy of Gary Anderson

My December 26th, 2014 interview with Gary Anderson teased out one of my favorite stories in the podcast series to date--a Civil War soldier who vanished (AWOL?) while one duty. So many questions surround this tale of Calvin Figgins who disappeared (fled?) and who resurfaced as Charles Mills. When Gary told the story, I was riveted. And to hear that much later in life Charles Mills visited a man named John Figgins...and a photograph existed...well, my head popped. It brought up questions and thoughts of fear and honor, fight or flight, family and secrets...and I wondered how Gary followed this trail, how he came across the photos and the details, and I wondered how that must have felt to discover something tangible about your family, something no one is left to talk about, no one who knows for sure. 

You have to listen to Gary tell the story to appreciate the full scope of the mystery and the hunt for answers that he engaged in with his father.

Sooner or later we all go on a hunt for our ancestors. Some of us are lucky enough to still have people alive to ask questions of, but even if we don't, Gary's stories are an example of the kind of detective work possible today.

It excites me to be able to share in, and share, Gary's story. I hope it inspires others to keep digging into their family histories. And if anyone needs a forum to share their stories, you can always contact me at bjk925@gmail.com or @_briank_ to set up an conversation on an upcoming episode of I Remember.