Good-morning, kittens & dawgs. June is nearly half way gone and so is the year. Last week, you met my maternal grandma’s parents in Meet my grandparents Part III. Today, I want to share a photo gallery of my grandpa’s parents and siblings.
Meet my great-grandparents: William Riley and Mary Jane Pruitt Hagerman.
According to my finds on ancestry.com Will (25) & Mary (18) married April 18, 1898 and had 11 (9 boys and 2 girls) children. It appears they depended on farming as a way of life. I imagine like many families of that time, they peddled their crops for pay to buy things they couldn’t grow. There are many mouths to feed in a large family, but the kids labored along side Ma and Pa in the fields.
I don’t know the year of these photos, but I just love the photograph on the left of Grandma Mary-Jane with the churn. I think this was either for churning butter or making buttermilk or maybe both. Do you know? Life was simple in those days. Simple as in no modern conveniences and material possessions. It was a harsh life. I wouldn’t like living in those times. Visiting is okay, if time travel was possible, but only for a day. My great-grandparents died 2-years apart. Grandma Mary-Jane passed in 1954, and Grandpa Will in 1956. They never knew me because I wasn’t born until 1961.
For years I wondered why I didn’t know or remember my Grandpa’s brothers and sisters. I certainly spent a lot of time with them when I was kid and yet I have no memory of them. Now, I know why. There’s 24 years between oldest and the youngest. Grandpa was the baby. Mose(1902-1932) & Vester (1906-1943) died before my birth and John R. (1908-1961) passed the year I was born.
Did you notice the strong resemblance between Grandpa and his older brother Shade? They could pass for twins, except there is a huge age gap between them.
ATTENTION FAMILY MEMEBERS, if you’re reading this, my photo records lack pics of Grandpa Will & Grandma Mary-Jane’s daughters ~ Myrtle Victoria Hagerman-Vance (1915-2012) and Clara Hagerman-Green-Hawks-Woody(1922-1981). Yep, dear ole auntie Clary (another name given to her) married three times. Good grief one husband is hard enough to break in, but three? I suppose remarrying was all a woman could do to survive in those days. Also, I need pictures of Mose, Vester, Jim (1912-2004), & Mitch(1917-2003). Your help is needed to make this complete!
Now to celebrate the small things in my life.
I celebrate
- you’re in my heart, you’re in my soul
- you’ll be my breath should I grow old
- you are my lover, you’re my best friend
- you’re in my soul
- 36 years of marriage with DH!
What are you celebrating?
Let’s celebrate making new friends together and we can begin by joining Friendship Friday and Follow Who? Social-Weekend blog hops. Thanks for visiting. Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow for a little boogie session with Saturday Songsuasion!
For more day specific blog hops, click here.