My History

My History

A Gift To My Children

As we age, we find ourselves spending more and more time in the past reminiscing about days gone by. Older people have this urge, this need, to tell the stories of their youth to their children not only to keep their own memories alive, but also to help the younger generation understand more about who and what they are and where they came from. Back in the days before technology and instant communication, it was up to the elders of the family to pass their history down to the next generation not only to keep their ancestry alive, but also as a form entertainment. Now days your family tree can be looked up online and kids have TV, video games, ipads, smart phones, computers, and who knows how many other forms of entertainment available to them at the push of a button. No one needs grandma to sit by the fire and tell stories of days gone by any more, so much of our history is being shoved aside and lost.

I don't know if any of my kids or grand kids are really interested in my story, but just in case one of them some day wonders what life was like in the “olden” days when grandma was young, I've decided to use this blog to tell it. After all it is called “A Crone's View of the World”and this old crones story starts here.

I was born in Silver City ,New Mexico on December 1^st, 1942. The year before my birth Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and threw our country into what was the beginning of WWII. My parents were married in September of 1941 and had moved to Morenci, Arizona where my father was working in a copper mine as a shovel runner (operator), but a few short months later found my father in the Army Air Corp, training to go to war, and my mother back in Silver living with her parents.

When the war ended in 1945, and my father came home he moved the three of us back to Morenci where Phelps Dodge had kept his job open. And that's where I grew up...on the side of a mountain, in a not so pretty town filled with the noise of the mine working on the mountains around and above us and breathing sulfur smoke from the mill, but all things considered it really wasn't all that bad a place to grow up.

This picture was taken from in front of our first house.

We didn't live on blocks and streets, but rather hills and levels.