Mightier Acorns

Last week, we talked about the last of my wife’s “Great Eight” great-grandparents. They were Ahnentafel posts #24-#31. When we got to the end of the first Great Eight – my children’s great-grandparents, #8-#15 – I posted an Appraisal of what that generation looked like, using several points of comparison, and of course, My Great Eight got their analysis in turn.

So this week, let’s look at a breakdown of Her Great Eight!

The Lost Generation (but Younger)

When we talked about My Great Eight, the range of their birth dates spanned from about 1873 to 1895. “The Lost Generation” is generally defined as those born between 1883 and 1900. Her Great Eight were born between 1880 and 1909.

Only one of the men in this generation (Howard Martin) served in the Army during World War I. Earl McCullough was a little too old, and Don Shuffler was far too young to serve. William Holmquist was also probably too old and had only recently immigrated, partly to escape the constant threat of war in Europe. Earl and William might have also been exempted from the draft, as they were the breadwinners for young families when the war began.

Each of these families weathered the Dustbowl years of the 1920s and the Great Depression in relative security. They were not rich, of course, but the McCullough and Shuffler households were supported by jobs in the railyards, which were steady and, by that time, unionized. William Holmquist’s position with local public schools was also steady work throughout those years, and Howard Martin’s talent for salesmanship was boosted by the constant, steady growth of the oil industry during those years.

Location, Location, Location

My wife’s family is decidedly Midwestern – five of her Great Eight were born in Iowa, plus one (Aletha Putnam) who was born in Indiana but moved to Council Bluffs at an early age. The two exceptions were William and Hildur Holmquist, whose families were from Sweden and Norway, and who settled in Minnesota – arguably the most Midwestern origin possible.

Technically, William Holmquist was the only immigrant, being born in Sweden, but Hildur, Esther Thompson, and Mary Blom were first-generation Americans born to immigrants from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. We’ll get to talk about those countries in more detail when we get to the next generation!

The Matter of Faith

While their churches were certainly central to the social life of their respective communities, it’s not clear that these families put a lot of emphasis on theology. More recent immigrants might join congregations where they could find friends and neighbors who spoke the same language and knew the places they had come from. The effect Industrialization had on families in this Lost Generation was that fathers tended to work longer hours away from home, and wives tended to support each other through those church communities.

We know that Mary Blom’s family belonged to the United Evangelical church, because her father’s funeral was held there in 1917. United Evangelical churches later merged with United Brethren and the American Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church. It’s not clear whether Mary and Earl McCullough belonged to that church later on.

Don and Esther Shuffler were members of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, and Don taught Sunday School and served on the Evangelism Committee. Since I don’t have obituaries for William or Hildur, I can only guess that they probably belonged to a Lutheran church in Mahtomedi.

And just last week, we talked about the fact that Howard Martin remained a member of the Methodist church after he married Aletha Putnam, who insisted on raising their children in the Christian Science church.

The Family Matters

While my side of the family tended towards having large numbers of siblings but a dramatic drop off in the number of children, my wife’s side of the family tended to have smaller numbers on both sides of the equation. Five of the families they came from had between 4 and 6 siblings, and when we look at the next generation, only Earl and Mary had what we would call a “large” family with 9. William and Hildur’s 4 was a slight decrease from the number of siblings in their respective families.

Here is the table showing the number of children in each family for two generations, and the range of birthdates for those children. (In the “siblings” column, I counted the person along with their siblings, so Esther Thompson and her two siblings give us three total.)

In this group, Howard was the only “only” child, and Aletha was the only one with a half-sibling from her father’s previous marriage. Earl and William were the only “middle” children, and everyone else was either the eldest or second eldest of their siblings.

Infant mortality is still not as bad as it will be when we move back another generation. Of the 32 siblings, 5 died in childhood, that we know of.

When We Come Back: My Sixteen!

Since we are at a natural stopping point, I’m going to give myself a summer break from the regular schedule. I expect I will still be working on things behind the scenes, and I plan to start posting again around the end of August.

When that happens, The Ahnentafel will move up a generation and we’ll spend sixteen weeks on my great-great-grandparents.

Have a great summer, cousins!