Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire We’re you born in the wrong time period?

Born when God decided my turn had come. That was 1958. Don’t reckon He makes mistakes. So I am where I’m supposed to be.

I'm glad I wasn't born in the wrong time period.

I mightn't be here today!

My first American ancestor on my mom's side thought
he would too.
After his daddy apprenticed him about age 12 or 13
to a ship, after he got here a few years later he was
going to be a mountain man and a trapper.
On his way up the Missouri river, the mexican war
started and he backtracked and went to war.
After that he was in california and made some
gold money in the gold rush and did pretty good
until the war between the states, then had to do
that one too. Lost one wife and whatever children,
eventually got another, had more kids
Donated land for public buildings
Died around 1909-1910

Born in 1950 and raised in Eastern Oregon. Great time to grow up, and great country. Oregon like all other states has changed greatly, and no state has improved, since the 60's. Yes I was born in the right time. We did the same things as my grandparents. We just had better tools and transportation, letting us accomplish more in less time. Farming, logging, trapping ,hunting and fishing and chasing girls until one caught you! Cycle of life.

Like an old man was telling a couple of us probably
30 or so years ago
Today is the good ol days
He was saying that when he was young, you walked
everywhere you went, everybody stank all the time,
even your girlfriend, wasn't much to eat like there is
today. People died young from things that we get
well from in 3-4 days. Everybody pretty much went
to bed at dark because coal oil was expensive to
burn a lamp just to stay up. Everybody gathered at
whoever had a radio and there'd be 2 dozen people
smushed up together looking at an old wooden
console radio as if they could see anything.

When my mom and daddy were young, they
didn't have anything besides their clothes and
shoes, and had to raise most of whatever there
was to eat. They were still in that time when
somebody 50 years old was ancient.
People died from getting cut with a hoe or
an axe or pneumonia or measles or polio, etc.

I'm happy all those before me sacrificed and
worked hard to get things relatively luxurious
for me and people my age

You have a handle on that time, no doubt.(according to first hand experiences from my parents & history) '29 to post WWII. Hard effing times all over the country for most..

So true, great post.

screw you guy's... when this snow quits im'a goin' over to the Baldwin twins for some Recipe...

True that

When I see those long rectangular rock piles I know that they were put there with a wagon and/or stone boat.

Had an old timer who made sausage and head cheese for me when I was a kid. He was an emigrant and had to keep his nose completely clean for 5 years to get citizenship. Consequently his employers worked him HARD for those 5 years . He showed me and told me of the local farms he picked rocks from ….

Yeah, mom and dad got electric in 1961.

One of the wells was about 1/3 mile from my grandpa’s house.Hauling water with a team and stone boat or wagon was a treat in that -30 .

Grandpa would fix harnesses all winter then bust hell out of a bunch of it getting the teams , that weren’t used in the winter, going in the spring

Dad started as a ‘field hand’ on a thrashing crew at 13 or 14. Which meant you didn’t have a team and wagon of your own so you tossed sheaves up onto a wagon (s) all day……he was 5’6” when full grown. Dust,heat, hard work…..fun times

I was born at least 80 to 100 years too late.

I think about that sometimes.

Boy that's late.

Were you guys especially rural or was Canada just a little slower to electrify?

I used to romanticise about being born in a different time, then I thought about my own father's life, being a young child during the Great Depression seeing my grandparents lose their ranch in Texas and being basically dirt poor. Being taken out of school when he was in Junior High to work as a mechanic during WWII because all the men were off fighting. He got sent to Korea for his senior trip to get shot, stabbed, catch schrapnel from a grenade, etc. Then he come home to have to help my grandmother raise his younger brothers and sisters because my grandfather had passed while he was in Korea... He endured a lifetime of hard work ranching and working in the oilfield until his body was completely worn out and crippled..He had maybe a year of retirement from the oilfield before he passed..

All things considered, my life has been pretty easy compared to that of my forefathers...I think a lot of us alive at this time probably had it way easier compared to those that came before us..

The only thing about the good old days is that they are gone.

I want to say thanks to all the folks that made this a decent thread. Enjoyed the stories and got to learn a little about the members perspective on the subject. I think all reply’s were very truthful. Alan

Other perspective. My Ancestorage is out of Virginia, in the Appalachians. There really wasn't much to complain about because most people didn't know anything would be any difference else where. Pretty much every one else had the same conditions to live with and under. My step grandmother was lucky enough, that her father owned 5 or 6 different farms that he had bought out over the years and he hired people to work for him. Not Mexicans, but locals who were more than happy to have the chance of earning a little extra.

Old Man Hedrick, her dad bought her a new pair of shoes to wear starting the first grade. She worn them ONE day, because she was ridiculed by all the other children, as no one in their families could afford to own shoes, so they went barefooted all 4 seasons. She refused to wear them. She was born in 1924 in Monroe County West VA. Per her dad's request, the only time she wore a pair of shoes to school was the day she graduated in 1942. So even tho her family could afford shoes for the kids, she wore a pair the first day and the last day, that's it. Pretty much all the kids she went to school with, NEVER had enough money in the family to be able to purchase a pair of shoes, and had no one else to hand them a pair down.

My grandparents in Tennessee, they had enough money to buy a pair of shoes for the younger kids, but not the older boys.
They refused to wear shoes, any time of the year, because that was what they were use to... even during winter, and even when it was snowing. As they got older they did wear shoes to church, just to make my grandmother happy. When the older boys went into the service in WW2, it really was the first time they had to wear shoes on a regular basis.

It was normal for people in those days. That is why we as a nation were a lot tougher during those times, and why our troops were so tough during the war. They knew how to embrace hard ships. It was an every day occurrence for most Americans, especially rural folks.

I have family members, plenty of them that managed to live well into their 80s, 90s and more, during early times, from being the first people here getting off at Jamestowne in 1607. In fact, which you can verify on Wikipedia about that only 20% of the first settlers off the boat survived the first two years in Virginia. I am a descendent of that 20%. IN fact, over 6,000 immigrants came from England in the first 13 years to the Virginia. 80% of all of them died, mainly from disease or Indians. By 1619, the population of the colony was only 1200 people. That was normal. My first ancestors who got off the boat in 1607, were in their early 20s to mid 20s. Most of that first group died between 1665 to 1670. We can't even imagine the hardships, that was daily life for the people of those days. What our grandparents lived thru would be pretty cushy times for those, 15 generations earlier.

Our society doesn't get stronger, we get weaker. Look what many people in the third world can survive, because they know no difference.

My grandmother's family came here in 1619. The family reunion held each year in West Va, is decedents of Robert Lilly and Francis Moody. They were with the first group of people to settle in what is now WVa. That reunion has made the Guinness World Book of Records six times since 1990, for its size and number of attendants. Robert Lilly and Francis Moody were both born in 1696 in Virginia. Their graves were moved from Lillydale, in 1950, to a farm that holds the family reunion each summer, when the town was put under water for a dam that was built.

https://lillyreunion.org/Lilly-Family-History/

Robert was born in 1696, as was Francis Moody. They had 16 children. Francis died in 1806 and Robert died in 1810.
Image how hard their life was on the then "Frontier". Yet they lived to be 110 for Francis, and 114 for Robert. One can view it on their gravestone, at the Family Reunion Farm where they were moved to in 1950. Image how tough their lives were, yet look how longed they lived. These are the type of people who built this nation.

When you are born into a world that you don't fit in...

It's because you were born to help create a new one.

I'd rather watch paint dry than watch the Waltons.