h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I had a lovely day yesterday. My brother, his two daughters and my great niece came for a visit.

They brought my Mum and I lovely s of pot plants.
Then my Mum took us out for lunch in a pink pub.

Everyone enjoyed their meal, unfortunately my mother's steak was too tough for her. She was well chuffed when they gave her a refund.

Will have to go and see her this afternoon, she is probably feeling lonely now they have all gone home.

Sounds like a good day!

Yes it was! My mother hadn't seen her niece for a good 4 or 5 years, so it was very special.

sounds like a good laugh, its all ways good to make efforts for elderly reltives

I agree. Since I plan on being old for quite a while I always try to make some time for older friends. I figure what goes around comes around.

My mother's psychic as well.
She's very good with minerals. It's great. Whenever I have a feeling about a mineral I ask her what she thinks. We usually have the same feeling about them which I find interesting.

She has a great sense of humour as well. When she's feeling OK she always has lots of stories to tell. She's been interviewed by the local radio. I asked her if she wanted to be interviewed again, but she said she wouldn't.

Too bad she won't do another interview. I hope you have a written record of some of those stories. It's amazing how fast stories can disappear when a generation is gone. I wish I could remember half the tales my great aunts and uncles who were born in the 1880's and 90's told me. My mom was a youngest child, and didn't hear a lot of the stories. I guess by the time she came along, they had told them too often to want to elaborate.

That is very good advice hstwrd, I don't know if they kept a record of her interview. No doubt they could use it again if they wanted to. She certainly does remember a lot about WW2. She has repeated them to me so many times I think I can remember them as well.

If you start recording them now, you can ask her about parts you don't feel sure of. We tried to get my great aunt (circa 1901) to speak her memoirs into a tape recorder after her eyes got too bad for her to continue writing by hand, but she refused to learn how to use it. She was the youngest of six to be born on the home place, was sent to college by an aunt who married a Texas oil tycoon, finished her French and studied art four summers in Paris in the twenties (one right after Lindbergh had landed there) and lived in Greenwich Village in it's golden era. I don't know anyone with a more diverse life. We were pretty close, but I don't know half what there is to know about her.

"If you start recording them now, you can ask her about parts you don't feel sure of."

...She's written on the back of all her old photographs, that's a good idea, only problem is I don't have a tape recorder. I'll find another way of recording her memoirs. I need to practice my typing anyway

"We tried to get my great aunt (circa 1901) to speak her memoirs into a tape recorder after her eyes got too bad for her to continue writing by hand, but she refused to learn how to use it."

...That is what I have noticed about the elderly. I suppose because they don't have the energy to do much anymore they don't want to be bothered to learn anything new. I have a friend who is going blind, I asked him if he would be interested in learning braille (whilst he can still see a little), but he isn't interested

"She was the youngest of six to be born on the home place, was sent to college by an aunt who married a Texas oil tycoon, finished her French and studied art four summers in Paris in the twenties (one right after Lindbergh had landed there) and lived in Greenwich Village in it's golden era. I don't know anyone with a more diverse life. We were pretty close, but I don't know half what there is to know about her."

...Did she continue her painting after she left art school?
My grandmother, great-grandmother and great-uncle were all musicians, my great great uncle wrote a couple of famous pop tunes (in his time) and they all went on stage.


Have a nice day

"...Did she continue her painting after she left art school? "
Yes. She was also very good at bas relief (I didn't spell that right, did I?). Her Austrian husband was a painter/sculptor. He considered her an amateur and often painted over her canvases, but when she painted or sculpted children, I think they were much better than his! (He didn't like kids, I think. Was pretty good at painting old men, though.)She did a charcoal sketch of me that was supposed to be model for an oil portrait, but someone offered her "$500" and she said she'd sell. They only gave her $50 in the end, but she let them have it. Somewhere in Texas is a bunch of strangers with a very large drawing of me at @ age 8 with my cat around my ankles. She started another, but her eyes were going by then and it never got finished. My cousin-in-law has that one. It's not a good example of her work.
It is disappointing to watch people give up, like your friend who won't learn Braille. I suppose it might be depression, or a peculiar form of denial.
I wonder if I'd know those old pop songs of your g-g uncle's? I know a lot of odd things, esp. rep from @1890-1920.

Probably, one of the songs he wrote is called "21 Today"
Do they sing that one in America?
They sing it at most 21st birthday parties in UK.

I'd love to meet whichever relative of mine that gets the royalties for that!

We don't sing "21 Today", but I have heard it. That's neat!

Do you have any of her drawings at all?

We have some paintings- a couple of miniature landscapes. At the home place, lots of hers and her husband's stuff is being fairly well preserved by the nephew she willed the house to. (Uncle Ernst's stuff is also in some permanent exhibits, but I don't know that her stuff is.) I can see it there pretty much anytime I care to make the drive, along with some fancy needle work her oldest sister did. I think we used to have a photo of the first drawing of me, but I haven't seen it in a while. It just irks me that someone else got first dibs on a picture of me. I wonder if that family will even want it after the person who bought it dies.
We're lucky that the farm house has stayed in the family. I can't imagine its not being. Does your family have a place to "archive" it's history?

Unfortunately my family has been shattered to smithereens...

After my father died everything went to pieces It was already going to pieces due to many varied circumstances.

No use crying over spilt milk I suppose. There are some things I would like to recover, but the person who I asked to try and help me was pretty useless (think he must have had something to hide because he kept running away from me).

I sent him one of my latest CD's with my mobile number on it, but he never replied.

I try not to let it get me down.

That is sad, but there are advantages to going through life without a lot of "stuff " to look after. All the more reason to preserve the family stories, I would think.

i agree, its worth rembering that family is not just people who are realted to you. I have some family that i see once every 4 years, thats not family as i would call it. I got mates who have been there for me and i have been there for them, thats family

What are the advantages please hstwrd? I would like to know.

My mates are all 500 miles away Tom.

"What are the advantages please "
Well, living in a house full of stuff, I have noticed that the more stuff you have, the less time you have to do other than care for the stuff.