My previous post about Doom and Gloom was posted (by me) on the wrong blog. I decided to leave it there and I have to search and see how the same type of weather would have affected our ancestors?
Did most of them walk to work? I think perhaps they did since most of them lived in the community where the factory was located. Our great grandmothers probably we stay a home mothers raising the larger families. If they did work I would suspect they would have done washing or housekeeping for someone else.
I know my grandmother Gertrude O'Rourke would do housekeeping for others. I also remember that she did a weekly cleaning for a local Savings and Loan to supplement her income. I went with her one morning and had to sit still in a chair while she cleaned. Since the Savings and Loan was a few miles away from her home, we took the street car and I remember the far was about a dime.
My other grandmother Anna Bartels work cleaning the local school HOMEVILLE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. I note that this school was built in 1939 and that was just a bit after her husband, my grandfather, Willi Schridde had been killed by a lightening strike. This school was a ten minute walk from her home.
Willie Schridde worked as a millwright at the DUQUESNE STEEL WORKS and they lived up the hill from the plant. The men walked to work, which was downhill and I do not know if they was trolley service back up the hill. Something I had never thought about before.
Thomas Dowd lived near the EDGAR THOMPSON US STEEL WORKS plant and the men also would have walked to work. Our grandfathers and great grandfathers did a lot of back breaking work.
I have a little more exploration to do on these two Steel Mills and snow storms of the past.
I was just thinking about the weather and a particular ancestor this morning. My dad's mom gave birth to him on February 27 and I plan to write a childhood "biography" of my dad to post around the time of his birthday. I was wondering what the weather was like on that day and whether his mother's mother, who was a midwife, was able to be there.
ReplyDeleteWhen we had our first unexpected snow a few months ago, as we were driving to church I was wondering what our ancestors would have done.
I hope you're staying warm.
I am thinking that the physicial or midwife probably live locally and they would walk to attend the birth.
ReplyDeleteOn my dad birth certificate (1918) it stated that the birth occured at home and the physician was in attendance.
Snow was not a factor in July...I am staying warm and waiting for spring.