Unbelievable this was to me.I met and spoke at length recently to a centenarian about their life,the Lady told

Question

me how ,as a youngster she used to wave off the troops boarding the ships to the battlefields of northern france,and how times have changed.have you met anyone like this.Fascinating and poignant.

Answer 1

Here's your chance to speak to a Centinerian minus 61/2
years who remembers being routed out of bed at the
age of 4 by his sister---to see the American soldiers
marching---I was so excited I spent the rest of the
day marching with neigborhood boys (and girls who
played Red Cross nurses in white uniforms)---"When
Johnny comes marching Home Again--Hooray !--
Hooray ! "----we marched in and out of Kitchens---
must have driven our mothers crazy---but they never
complained---everyone had the war fever !

Liberty Bonds were sold to finance WW1---movie
stars Douglas Fairbanks ,wife Mary Pickford,
Charles Chaplin aand Elsie Janis (Sweetheart of the
American Expeditionary Forces --AEF) were chosen by
the President to promote them across the Nation !

In later life as an Acting Teacher I met them all except
Douglas Fairbanks who had died ( I carried on for him
by doing Swordplay on Stage/Film ---his Forte !)
Elsie became a good friend and her husband was
a student of mine )

WW1 was glamorous as all get out to a young boy---
later I learned it was a horrible lesson in killing,
wounding and maiming millions of men on both sides
who fought back and forth over the same few
miles of muddy rat-infested ground for 4 years

A lesson in futility ?

Wars are no good when it comes to "lessons" !
Look at the situation in Iraq today !
When will we ever learn ?
Sorry to give the wisdom of an elder---
NEVER !

Answer 2

My late mother in law had some amazing stories about living through WW11, in London. She told me how her and HER mother were sitting on the couch one morning, having tea, and a Bomb hit the side of their house. The back of the couch faced the window, and this saved their lives. Another time she was playing golf ( a great golfer), and there was an air raid during the day. She said she hid underneath some bushes, on the golf course. Another time, she was driving home, at night, she would not have been out anyway, but that did not deter her. And there was a huge crater in the road, where a bomb had fallen, she managed to stop the car, just before she and the car fell into the crater. We lived with her in the UK in 86' and 87. She also used to come and spend three months with us over the Christmas period, in South Africa. She was a minefield (pardon the pun) of information about all sorts of subjects, and we would chat for ages. My Aunt (mother's sister) drove army trucks for the troops who called in at the port of Durban in South Africa and my mother, while running two businesses, also had a group of ladies, who knitted gloves and socks for the soldiers. People were so less selfish in those days. Amazing how war on your own doorstep unites and brings out the love and goodness in people. United we stand.....But divided; well just look at the world today.

Answer 3

When I was 7 we moved house and next door was an old lady and her son, I didn't have any grandparents so I sort of treated her as if she was my grandma, I loved her telling me about the old days, she lost her husband in WW1, she told me about rationing and how hard they had to work while their men were away fighting, she lost a son in WW2 and told me how bad the bombing was and rebuilding the City we lived in. She died when I was 20 just after I got married, on the morning of my wedding I went upstairs in her house to show her what I looked like to me she was a treasure and taught me more about the history of the wars than any teacher ever could or did. I am now 49 and if ever I get the chance I will always talk to the older people, 1st you always hear something of interest and 2nd you may be the only person that they might talk to that day.

Answer 4

ytellu-I feel I've met a legend. Thanks for telling your stories. I may ask another question to drag more out of you!

Miss Mary is my 95 yr old neighbor.
She was raised on a farm in Tennessee with 10 other children.
At 3:oo am she waked to milk cows and at 6:oo am they went to the house for breakfast then off to school. When they came in from school it was off to the three acres of vegetable gardens to grow and preserve all their food for the winter and spring. She married at 16 and had eight children of her own.
Until this summer she had a full vegetable garden for herself and loved ones. She cooks Sunday dinner for family on sunday. She's now buying fig trees and planting flowers that'll bloom summer after next. What optomism! This woman came into my life to teach me what I didn't know. I can be an old person, be fully productive and have fun til the end!

Oh, how I'll miss Ms Mary if she goes first.

Fondly- Juju

Answer 5

I had a friend when I was young that was Japanese and she talked a little about Japan right after the war ended. She said they all hoped America would be the first to arrive in their town as the Russians were very cruel to the people when they came through their towns. For some reason that has stuck with me all these years.

Answer 6

Thumbs down is for whilst i think of somebody is being completely ridiculous or downright impolite and insulting. If human beings don't get a `thumbs down` for promulgating racial hatred, we ought to declare, human beings will look on the respond and think of that I and all of us consider or have got here across no insult or undesirable feeling contained interior the respond. that would not look good to something of he international and makes us all look heartless or detached. countless the rubbish spouted out in this section is disgusting to declare the least and to enable it flow `unthumbed` could be morally incorrect. Now, reporting is a various count. I one hundred% have faith in freedom of speech, yet I even have had the main danger free solutions bumped off via the religista. How approximately, "sure a splash" as `no longer an answer` ??? EDIT: a minimum of while you're turning out to be to be thumbs in any course, you comprehend all and sundry is interpreting what you're saying, in spite of in the event that they don`t like it.

Answer 7

They also used to do this in the US during World War II...My parents told me about it in describing when my Dad shipped off.

I, myself, have vague memories of when my mom and I shipped off to Italy to join my Dad right after the war...'46...We lived first in the Army camp in his tent; then moved into Pisa and lived with an Italian family. I went to an Italian Catholic school and actually lost what little English I had and became fluent in Italian lost the knowledge years later]

When at the Army camp, there were POW's and one carved me a little statue of a man that I have today...and another made me a china doll that was supposed to look like me. I sorta remember bombed out buildings and some kids who had lost limbs. :-(

Answer 8

Yes, it's something to hear how everything has changed during their lifetimes. I visit friends I've made at a retirement center and nursing home that have told me their stories. One of them passed away at 92 not long ago. She and her sister have told me many stories of their family of 10 kids, growing up on a farm in GA. How they had to move to NC for work when they were no longer allowed to plant the crops they needed to survive on, due to laws passed.

I also had a friend who passed away last year at 102. She grew up in AL and worked in the office of Gov. George Wallace. The changes she saw during her life time were amazing. I loved to listen to her memories, yet she lived in the present and enjoyed every day of her life. These people have so much to share with us if we take the time to listen.

Answer 9

My Dad was 99 when he passed. He talked about growing up in a cabin/shack with 9 brothers and sisters on some hardscrabble land in MO. The house caught fire while everybody was out working, fortunately, but burned to the ground in 15 minutes. His family was musical, and people would call in on the party line to listen to them harmonize.

Answer 10

Only one time in my life ... sat with a seriously older woman on a park bench, listened to her stories...fascinating. She had lost a son in the Korean War, told me all about him, her dead husband, etc....I think we must have talked for hours. IT reminded me of a song, "Hello in there." Her eyes were bright blue, that much I do remember, and they were so alive. When she felt pain of past rememberances, you could see it in her eyes. In the conversation, I listened (unusual for me) and she talked...She left so many lines between the lines....it was an easy read. I will never forget her, that is for sure. I am sure she is long ago dead, and bless her soul...she had a very kind, old soul...Peace and love, Goldwing