I did a little research and found that Donald Trump's father, Frederick Christ Trump was only 12 years old when his father died in 1918. It's arguable that he hardly knew his father either.
I think he had a satisfactory if truncated acquaintanceship with his father. One thing I've noticed about the 1918 pandemic is that people I've known who lived through it hardly volunteered a word about it.
Art makes a good point. None of my father, born in 1909 nor any of his three older brothers nor any of their childhood friends ever mentioned the 1918 pandemic in my hearing. I was quite close with all of them.
I do indeed fear that we have become a terrified nation of crybabies.
All four of my grandparents (now deceased) were born in the 1890s, and were between 20 and 28 years old at the time of the Spanish Flu pandemic. Both grandfathers were drafted during WWI but neither went overseas. My paternal grandmother was allegedly in poor health for much of her life, and recieved the last rites multiple times in her childhood and youth -- but lived to be 89. None of them ever talked about the pandemic that I can recall even though they were in a prime demographic that was impacted (young adults) and had to have known people who got sick and died.
My grandmother was born in 1900 and I don't remember her talking about the Spanish Flu at all. My dad was her second son, for crying out loud. She lived to be 93 and she was as mentally sharp at the end of her life as she was all during it.
My sister did put the question to my grandmother once (who was 23 at the time), and her response was that she lost more friends in the flu epidemic than she did to the war. That's the only time anyone in our generation heard her utter a word about it. We heard about the stock market crash, the Depression, and the 2d World War. Part of that, I suppose was her personality. She wasn't one to take the initiative in a conversation, and the Depression and the war were things her children remembered. Now, you got her brother-in-law in storytelling mode, you heard about family history or you heard about the 1st World War as he saw it (in uniform, in combat).
My mother-in-law lost both her father and an older sister(aged 8) in the flu epidemic. It changed her older brother's life, because he was in college to become an engineer, but had to drop out (he became an electrician.) But they never dwelled on it.
10 comments:
Math is hard. Even simple arithmetic is hard.
Must've learned Common Core math.
I did a little research and found that Donald Trump's father, Frederick Christ Trump was only 12 years old when his father died in 1918. It's arguable that he hardly knew his father either.
Oh, I don't know, TLM. Trump's father was about 40 when he was born, and died in 1999.
I think he had a satisfactory if truncated acquaintanceship with his father. One thing I've noticed about the 1918 pandemic is that people I've known who lived through it hardly volunteered a word about it.
A group of people that I guess includes my father. He was born in 1918.
Art makes a good point. None of my father, born in 1909 nor any of his three older brothers nor any of their childhood friends ever mentioned the 1918 pandemic in my hearing. I was quite close with all of them.
I do indeed fear that we have become a terrified nation of crybabies.
All four of my grandparents (now deceased) were born in the 1890s, and were between 20 and 28 years old at the time of the Spanish Flu pandemic. Both grandfathers were drafted during WWI but neither went overseas. My paternal grandmother was allegedly in poor health for much of her life, and recieved the last rites multiple times in her childhood and youth -- but lived to be 89. None of them ever talked about the pandemic that I can recall even though they were in a prime demographic that was impacted (young adults) and had to have known people who got sick and died.
My grandmother was born in 1900 and I don't remember her talking about the Spanish Flu at all. My dad was her second son, for crying out loud. She lived to be 93 and she was as mentally sharp at the end of her life as she was all during it.
My sister did put the question to my grandmother once (who was 23 at the time), and her response was that she lost more friends in the flu epidemic than she did to the war. That's the only time anyone in our generation heard her utter a word about it. We heard about the stock market crash, the Depression, and the 2d World War. Part of that, I suppose was her personality. She wasn't one to take the initiative in a conversation, and the Depression and the war were things her children remembered. Now, you got her brother-in-law in storytelling mode, you heard about family history or you heard about the 1st World War as he saw it (in uniform, in combat).
My mother-in-law lost both her father and an older sister(aged 8) in the flu epidemic. It changed her older brother's life, because he was in college to become an engineer, but had to drop out (he became an electrician.) But they never dwelled on it.
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