If you’ve stopped by this blog at all frequently, you’ll recognize that family geneaology is a serious interest of mine. What you might not recognize is that an important audience for my posts on the subject is my own family, my siblings, nephews, and nieces (and occasional more distant relatives who might happen by). My family is, well, peculiar in a number of ways and an easy illustration of that is just to list my ancestors’ occupations:
Parents
Father: lawyer
Mother: remedial reading teacher
Father’s parents
Father: saloonkeeper
Mother: not employed outside the home
Mother’s parents
Father: vaudeville entertainer
Mother: vaudeville entertainer
Paternal grandfather’s parents
Father: dairyman, saloonkeeper, politician
Mother: not employed outside the home
Paternal grandmother’s parents
Father: chiropractor
Mother: not employed outside the home
Maternal grandfather’s parents
Father: engineer
Mother: operated a confectionery
Maternal grandmother’s parents
Father: butcher
Mother: cook
Occupations in my great-great-grandparents’ generation included dairyman, cooper, burgomeister, engineer, laborer, and cowboy.
One of the peculiar things I find in this is that you’ve got to go back fairly far in my family before you find any farmers. That’s pretty odd for the United States. In the 1900 census fully 90% of men listed their occupation as farmer. There are some farmers, however. For example, my father’s mother’s father’s father’s father was a farmer.
Another thing I find distinctive is the variety. My family has done a lot of things over the years. Honestly, I think mostly we just lived by our wits, making a living by whatever means presented themselves. Some of my ancestors made a very good living that way. Some just barely scraped by.
I think this family experience has colored my own views of life. I don’t see life as a process of constantly climbing but, rather, of getting by as best as one can. If there’s a single lesson I can take from my family’s experience over nearly 200 years it’s that however hardworking, provident, or smart you are bad things can happen and you need to be able to just roll with the punches.
