"To Get What I Want When I Want It"
What hobbies and interests did your great-grandparents or other ancestors have that you might unknowingly share with them today?
My great-grandmother, Helen, left nothing up to interpretation in her high school yearbook. Portland High School asked the senior class of 1921 to list their post-graduate ambition. One of Helen’s classmates wrote, “To go to college.” Another wrote “To achieve success.” Helen wrote: To get what I want when I want it.
I never met her, but Helen sounded like a straight-shooter. My uncle said that in old age, Helen was witty and the “sweetest women ever.” He said she was hilarious. Apparently, she was a baller, too. I love basketball. One of my favorite things to do is go to the campus recreation center first thing in the morning and shoot in a silent gym. I didn’t know that passion came from Helen over 100 years ago!
What hobbies did your grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents have that you might share? There are opportunities to find out through research, and if you already know, I would love to hear them!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my posts and for subscribing. It truly means the world to me that you like what “Genealogy Jack” has to share and I sure hope you’ve taken things away from what you have read over the past seven months.
Jack Palmer is a History and Psychology double-major who graduated from Duke University in May 2023. I’ve done genealogy research since I was 10 and love writing about it for family, friends, and anybody else who might enjoy a blast from the past.
My great-grandfather had to leave school around the age of 10, as did so many children in Victorian England. But in his later years, my cousin tells me, he had a huge collection of books and had given himself quite an extensive education through reading. I have that same propensity for continued learning and for acquiring books.