Saturday, September 10, 2016

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Interview a Relative who was at a Family Event

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) 
If you could go back into the time machine and re-attend one family event that you were present at as a child, and would love to return to interview your relatives, what event would that be?

2)  Tell us about it in a comment on this blog post, in a blog post of your own, or in a Facebook post.

My thanks to Jacquie Schattner for providing this challenge via email.

Here's mine:  

One of my earliest memories is from when I was 2 or 3 years old, and was probably at Christmas time.  I came into a room to say good night to everyone there, and the memory is of having to kiss a man with a bushy mustache.  I think it was probably my great-grandfather, Henry Austin Carringer (1853-1946).  

I don't know who else was in the room, but it was probably my grandparents, Lyle and Emily (Auble) Carringer, my great-grandmother, Georgianna (Kemp) Auble, and probably my mother.  There may have been others - the family visited occasionally with Georgianna's Kemp brother that lived in the Los Angeles area, and his children - visiting L.A. and hosting them in San Diego.  

My great-grandfather is the one I would love to interview because he lived 93 years, moved across the country - from Mercer County, Pennsylvania to Columbus City, Iowa to Boulder, Colorado, and finally to San Diego in 1887 on his honeymoon. He also saw technology improve from horse and buggy to railroads to automobiles to airplanes, and lived through four major wars (Civil War, Spanish-America, World War I, World War II).  He came to San Diego in 1887 when the population was less than 10,000, and the city grew to over 300,000 by 1946.

I would ask him about his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, and spouse, and their personalities and life events, about his childhood and friends, about his marriage to Della Smith and why they came to San Diego, how they traveled, where they lived, where he worked, how they bought the land with the houses I grew up in, how they grew the crops they did, and his attitudes toward life, love, politics, family, work, play, etc.  It might have been a long interview!


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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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6 comments:

Janice M. Sellers said...

I thought of so many questions I would like to ask!

http://ancestraldiscoveries.blogspot.com/2016/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-interview.html

Seeds to Tree said...

Thanks for using my question. I find this interesting. Here is my answer:

I wish I could re-attend my great grandfather Perry Hiramy Dunbar's funeral in Moline, IL. I was about 10. He was in his mid 80’s. His family is my one line that takes me back to the Revolutionary War, including his 4 Civil War uncles who fought for the Union. I remember hundreds of people tightly packed into the room. His only living sibling (of 9) his brother Reggie was there. The three Coffey sisters from Kansas, his cousins were there. I had imagined them to be exotic, like Carmen Miranda, because of their name, who would be able to provide much information because they lived in the house that my 3rd-great grandfather built in the 1860’s. I was disappointed to see they looked very much like my grandmother. Many other family was there. After all the events, I remember sitting on the steps of his big front porch, alone with my great uncle, eating ice cream, while he tried to explain what it was like lose his dad. Sweet memory.

Mary Rohrer Dexter said...

I am late this week because I attended a destination wedding. My son got married on the beach in San Diego. Here is my belated entry. http://skeezicks1957.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-who-would-you-go-back-and-interview.html

Mary Rohrer Dexter said...

To Jacquie - sounds like a great memory! Wouldn't it have been cool to hear about those civil war vets from your great grandfather before he died.

Nancy Ward Remling said...

I'd want to talk with my Grandma...

https://remlinggenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/09/saturday-challenge-time-travel.html

Linda Stufflebean said...

Even though it's Monday, here is my link:
http://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2016/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-interview-a-relative-who-was-at-a-family-event-with-me/