SACRIFICES MADE BY OUR ANCESTORS

It seems as we look back in our family lines, many have made sacrifices to improve their lives or the lives of their families.  For those who immigrated from Greece to America, its hard to imagine what people must have felt, especially those who the decision was made for them.

One such example is women who were sent as brides.  View this video to hear a song about their experiences and view some historical pictures of the events.

This song relates the pain of leaving for America on the request of the parents who thought that giving their daughter a new life by marrying her off to an american was for the good of the daughter and of the family. This song is the lament of the daughter to her plight. Written in the 1930s it was recorded in 1935 by Rita abatzis.http://youtu.be/EWYu1rZwoR4

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR FAMILY THROUGH LETTERS

Lately I have been involved in a new project in trying to preserve some family memories.

I have been transcribing old family letters written to people in the family.  I thought it would be easy to just scan the letters and input them into my document.  But then I thought better of that.  Now that many schools will no longer be teaching cursive, in just a few years we will have people who will not be able to read these old letters because of  this change in the schools.

The fun part of preserving letters is that you get to know the personalities of the letter writer, you learn about their likes, dislikes and concerns.  You also get to know some about history.

While living in Pennsylvania, I wrote to my family how gas for the car was now 85 cents a gallon.  Can you imagine having to pay that?  Now we expect to pay between $3.00-5.00 a gallon.  And then cottage cheese was a whole $1.50, just outrageous.  How our perception changes in just a few short years.

When completed I will save these to https://familysearch.org/photos/  under memories so they will be available to others in the future.


Excerpt from letter  to Debbie Stevens from Dawna Stevens April 1978

"I’m sitting here waiting for the bus.  It cost 35 cents one way and ten cents a transfer.  I quit buying cottage cheese, $1.50 can you believe that?  The news from the East is that by winter, beef will be  $1.99 a pound and gas 85 cents a gallon."

 

 

Letter sent from 790 Market Street #7

Kingston, PA  18704