I wonder if some of this owes to a midlife crisis. What was happening for my female ancestors when they faces the end of their 45th year?
1993.................. The year my mother was 45. All three of her children were grown with families of their own. I was pregnant for the first time. My mom had 5 grandchildren already and was still married to my father. They would be divorced 4 years later. Both her parents had already died. 1993 was a time between the Gulf War and 9/11, a time when things in Early, Texas were still somewhat safe, protected and completely oblivious to a world outside of itself. "Got Milk?" became the newest ad campaign slogan; "Schindler's List" won the Academy Award for best picture and the Dallas Cowboys won the Superbowl.
1962................. The year my maternal grandmother was 45. This was 5 years prior to my birth. Her oldest daughter was married, and her youngest 2 children were 17 and 15. She had only 1 grandchild. From the bits and pieces I have collected from my mom and her siblings, my maternal grandmother was a very bitter woman at 45. The family moved very often, always following a construction job. She drank excessively. 1962, a year before the end of Camelot, before rock and roll changed the face of music and the American teenager.....my maternal grandmother and my mother were living a very transient existence in the American west.
James Bond's "Dr. No", Marilyn Monroe's death and the Cuban Missile Crisis were a few of the headlines for the year.
1955.............. The year my paternal grandmother was 45. This was 12 years prior to my birth. The mother of 8, her youngest 4 were still home at 18, 17, 12 and 6. My dad was the 17 year old, a junior at Coleman High School, Coleman, Texas. She had 7 grandchildren already. Although my paternal grandmother lived in the same central Texas county her whole life, she too moved often, from one farm job to the next to support her family. The family was very poor. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama; James Dean died in a car crash, and the first McDonald's opened.
1936............ The year my maternal great grandmother was 45.
1935........... The year my other maternal tgreat grandmother would've turned 45. She died in 1917 during a Spanish Flu outbreak.
1931............. The year my paternal great grandmother was 45.
1928............. The year my other paternal great grandmother was 45.
I can't say why looking at the lives of my female ancestors somehow puts things in perspective for me, but knowing that each of them endured somehow reminds me I'll make it through this year of confused anger.
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