This weekend my family and I gathered back in Iowa to celebrate Grandma Mary's 100th birthday. It really is amazing when someone makes it to one hundred. One of the things we did for the party was make a slide show. Going through the old pictures I was struck by how much of my professional life has been spent studying and attempting to replicate the settings and actions of the people and places in the pictures. As a historian, I have largely specialized in three periods of history, the decade surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, the 1920's and the war years of the 40's. While I read countless books about the period, Grandma Mary was a witness to the entire span. Her story runs parallel to the dramatic shifts this country saw in every facet of life from transportation to medicine to the rise of America on the world stage. In fact, it would be hard to find a period of time when the world changed more that it has in Mary's 100 years. Here's a fact the really is staggering, Mary has lived through 41% of the Presidential administrations (Taft was President when she was born).
While her life has shared similarities with many people her age there have been some experiences that have set her apart. Despite living in a very rural part of Iowa, her family spent time traveling and even lived a couple winters in California. When most of her counterparts ended their education at 8th grade she was able to continue from the one room school house to high school, then Stevens College for ladies and finally to Iowa State University. That's where Grandpa Russ came into the picture and the rest is....history. So here's to a Happy Birthday Grand Mary!
While her life has shared similarities with many people her age there have been some experiences that have set her apart. Despite living in a very rural part of Iowa, her family spent time traveling and even lived a couple winters in California. When most of her counterparts ended their education at 8th grade she was able to continue from the one room school house to high school, then Stevens College for ladies and finally to Iowa State University. That's where Grandpa Russ came into the picture and the rest is....history. So here's to a Happy Birthday Grand Mary!
