I was going through papers tonight, in an attempt to simplify (don’t ask me how many boxes I still have to go through), and I came across some pictures I liked. I thought, I’d like to get more comfortable with capturing some of these pictures in a way I could share. So easy to leave them in a box, but I can’t very well encourage people to capture their stories without doing so myself. So I picked just a couple, including this one and the one in the next post (On Stage).
This is a picture of Grandpa Kelsey. He was born in 1898, and lived to the year 1998, to the age of 99 years old.
His story feels a little surreal to me; the last time I saw him we went out to Perkins restaurant, and I remember him asking me, “so what’s this Internet?”. And I am awed that here he was asking me about the Internet, and had been around before planes or cars or electronics for that matter.
He also lived through World War One. Below is Grandpa Kelsey’s draft card, and boy did he get a birthday present in 1918.
In november of 1918, he was on his way to europe to join the war, and on nov 11th, when he was in the middle of the atlantic, they declared the armistice, ending the war. This also happened to fall on his birthday, so ever after veteran’s day was also when we celebrated grandpa’s birthday. I’m glad that he made it back home, and I really appreciate the birthday present.
Tags: Veteran's Day, World War One veteran, WWI
March 18, 2008 at 12:25 pm |
Todd, really impressive story. I believe it is so empowering to have such a Grandpa!