Brunell4MVP
Footballguy
The OSU death effecting one of own member's sons got me thinking about the stuff my ancestors went through.
So ... let's hear some interesting stories about your parents, grandparents, etc.
1) My granddad on my mothers side grew up in rural SC. His father drank heavily and beat the family all the time. His mother eventually poisoned the father and committed suicide herself. Leaving my grandad and his younger brother to fend for themselves. They were ages 12 and 9. So at the ridiculously young ages of 12 and 9 they set out alone and rode the train tracks of America stealing food and foraging for whatever they could to live. Tough stuff. Then at the age of 16 he lied about his age and enlisted in Army for WW2 simply because he could get a meal that way. he ended up fighting in the Philippine area, and was captured by the Japanese and lived in a POW camp. He would never say what happened other than he didn't want to re-live it...so I assume really bad stuff. At the end of the war he was freed, at the time weighing in at about 90 pounds. The VA found him a job as a mechanic for a county in the rural south, where he created a family of 6 that lived in a welfare provided 1 bedroom home, living off minimum wage at his job plus food stamps. He died about 20 years ago. Tough dude. Never once complained either.
2) My family landed in Jamestown in the early 1600s. Only one person came, and he's in the record books at Wiliamsburg. He was not on the first boat over, but was on the second or third. He was escaping religious persecution and seeing if the family could come to the colonies. So he was among the first 500 colonists to arrive in the "New World'. Eventually the whole family came over. After several years, he was given 2,000 acres of land for the unfortunate line of "service against the savages". At approximately 50 years old, he was hanged on his farm in an area now called Lightfoot for reasons unknown.
So ... let's hear some interesting stories about your parents, grandparents, etc.
1) My granddad on my mothers side grew up in rural SC. His father drank heavily and beat the family all the time. His mother eventually poisoned the father and committed suicide herself. Leaving my grandad and his younger brother to fend for themselves. They were ages 12 and 9. So at the ridiculously young ages of 12 and 9 they set out alone and rode the train tracks of America stealing food and foraging for whatever they could to live. Tough stuff. Then at the age of 16 he lied about his age and enlisted in Army for WW2 simply because he could get a meal that way. he ended up fighting in the Philippine area, and was captured by the Japanese and lived in a POW camp. He would never say what happened other than he didn't want to re-live it...so I assume really bad stuff. At the end of the war he was freed, at the time weighing in at about 90 pounds. The VA found him a job as a mechanic for a county in the rural south, where he created a family of 6 that lived in a welfare provided 1 bedroom home, living off minimum wage at his job plus food stamps. He died about 20 years ago. Tough dude. Never once complained either.
2) My family landed in Jamestown in the early 1600s. Only one person came, and he's in the record books at Wiliamsburg. He was not on the first boat over, but was on the second or third. He was escaping religious persecution and seeing if the family could come to the colonies. So he was among the first 500 colonists to arrive in the "New World'. Eventually the whole family came over. After several years, he was given 2,000 acres of land for the unfortunate line of "service against the savages". At approximately 50 years old, he was hanged on his farm in an area now called Lightfoot for reasons unknown.
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