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[Bentley]

I have no idea why, but the older I get, the more interesting I find something like this.  Now both my parents would have been small children when this was made.  I think of my grandparents, they were born in 1890 & 1892...that seemed like a long time ago...But when I see men on film that were in the Civil War!  That is surreal for me!  Most of these people were born before the Civil War, you were alive and would have read about The Battle of Little Big Horn, not in a History Book, but in a newspaper.  You saw the invention of the Telephone, Radio, Television, Automobile, Airplane, Motorcycle...And the kicker, you were born before Abraham Lincoln was President!

Like I said, surreal!


1929 - Interviews With Elderly People Throughout The US

[Ralphie]

I enjoyed watching that. Thank you for posting it.  I’ve always been interested in civil war history and Lincoln. Been to several battlefields between North Carolina and Pennsylvania as well as Sumter. And actually just finished reading “Manhunt: The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer”. Fascinating account of Lincoln’s assassination, it’s planning, and then the pursuit of Booth and his co-conspirators.

It never occurred to me that civil war vets would have been around long enough to be captured in video interviews. Just awesome. 

[Bobitis]

Fascinating...

Thanks for the post 

[Canadian John]

 Good post Bent! A lot of what's in the film I can relate to. My wife knits in her spare time just like the ladies show, and has made many items for friends, family and and people in need..

 A lot of the topics covered I have seen or can relate to such as the locomotive. Those coal fired engines were dirty.The clothes we hung out to dry (no clothes dryer then) ended up with small cinders on them.

 We lived a couple of blocks from the tracks then. When diesel locomotives replaced coal/steam, the game changed dramatically. No more cinders.

 When visiting a museum I often see things I grew up with or remember as common place such as a scythe, hand cranked grind stone, horse drawn implements... Then there was a milkman that delivered

milk in glass bottles; round then converted to square. Crank telephones in the Summer house where one would lift the receiver, crank the handle to ring a bell, then an operator would answer.  You gave the

number you were calling and the connection was made.. The list goes on...

[JoeGrilling]

Great post!  This reminds me of stories my father used to tell like walking along railroad tracks in NJ to pickup coal that fell from those locomotives.  Also, the arrival of the first automobiles.

The part I like the most were references to the Civil War.  I was born in NJ but moved to Hagerstown, Maryland in 1961.  I thought much about the Civil War prior to moving a half mile from the Antietam creek.  Most everyone in the area were preparing for the centennial of the Battle of the Antietam that was planned for the next year.  Most of my friends dad's were growing beards and working with reenactment units.  This area is so rich in history.  The actual battlefield was only 20 minutes from our house.  It's still called bloodiest day of the civil war.  Sharpsburg was a town of less than 1000 people where the battle was fought.  Guess who had to deal with the casualties.  It wasn't until the early 1900's that many of the dead were finally laid to rest in a cemetery in Hagerstown.  They don't seem to talk about this in history books

The were many small battles in the surrounding area leading up to the major battle.  One of those battles was found near Boonsboro, MD.   General Pleasonton was one of the Union Generals.  After the war, a small town in Northern California was named after him.  Guess what?  I live there now....Pleasanton, CA.  Did you notice the spelling difference?  The US Postal service misspelled his name.         




             

[dk117]

this hit a little close to home.  My grandmother is 87 (yes she was not happy to become a grandmother at 42, but times were different when she met my grandfather ... geez maybe at 13 and to be a mother at 17).     Today my grandfather is gone and she's lonely.   She talks like a lot of these folks, a little formal, a little stiff and ... old.  She's ready to go to the Lord, she tells me that in every email, every phone call, and every visit.   Which is painful to me because she's totally healthy and might very well be around another decade or two.