Hi everyone,
I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago, when the comments were unfortunately not working, but, I was really hoping to ask this question again and see how everyone answered.
Joy sent me her answer in an email so maybe she still has it… if not Joy, maybe I can find time to copy and paste yours back on here.
Here is that question again…
“If you could travel back in time, where would you go?”
Well, that’s it for me…
Hopefully I will see you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
Charlotte is missing again! I guess I will go first today, if no one else is writing now.
It took me awhile to figure out what you meant, Jeanne. Were you meaning in my lifetime, or just any time? I decided that I really wouldn’t want to live in ancient times, or even anything prior to when I was born. We have it so good now in many ways, and I doubt if I lived in the 18 hundreds, I would not have been anywhere in the upper class, so life would be hard.
I am thinking my favorite time would be my own childhood, between the years 1942 and 1950. I had a wonderful childhood, and what cares, worries or responsibilities does a child have? I lived in a neighborhood with friends living nearby, actually next door, big yards to play in, places to ride our bikes, and our grade school a mile away. On top of that, and most of all, the people I loved the most were all still alive and we had such wonderful family times. Both sets of grandparents lived close, aunts, uncles and cousins lived close too. No one lived in another state, we weren’t scattered at all, so were able to get together all the time. Now, practically everyone has died or moved away, and the family no longer can get together. Being 83, that is what happens, but it certainly would be wonderful to get back together with all the family together once again!
I am with you, Linda!!
Beautiful.
Getting older is hard. We have witnessed so many changes. So many others have too in various ways.
You are brave 🥰
I looked at all of the previous day’s replies, and then forgot to look at today’s post! So here I am now. (I hope Jeanne or maybe I can figure out how to get those email reminders again, because without them, I am spacing out! Plus, I’m transitioning to a new phone/cell carrier, and of course it’s also bill-paying time, so my brain is really elsewhere at the moment!
But I agree with you, Linda, I would like to relive some of those times from my own childhood, particularly when I lived in Michigan (1952-1960). Would love to see so many loved ones (now gone) once again, and enjoy all the family times, etc. And of course discovering the joy of sewing again as I did in 1956!
I would also love to relive some of the times spent with Ron, and enjoy some of our trips, etc. again.
When I was growing up my mother’s family lived in eastern PA and DE, which made us close enough to get together as much as possible. But it seems once my grandparents passed away the cohesion they provided was gone and everyone seemed to go their separate ways. Not sure exactly why that was but even the cousins didn’t stay in touch. I so miss those times when my grandparents managed to bring us all together for good family times.
I’ll think about your question while I tell a story.
I sent Jeanne and George the butterfly pictures from Boulder County. Jeanne put them on the blog in Carbondale. Joy in California found that they live in California, so she’s looking for them, and Saturday, Larry, who sent me the pictures, asked if I’d like to go to the mountains (which start at the edge of town) to see the aspen. We stopped for lunch in Nederland, one of the mountain towns, and had lunch with Larry’s friends Brent and Carlye — Carlye’s the butterfly photographer, so I got to tell her about the adventures of her photographs. When but now could have all that happened?
As for time travel, I’d like to go several places for short times. I’d like to see Knossos at its height and see the ladies in their flounced divided skirts. I’d like to watch Queen Elizabeth I’s ladies dress her for court, I’d like to see Victoria as a young queen and 50 years later, perhaps talking to Disraeli, I’d like to see the ladies of Marie Antoinette’s court, and Josephine and her court. I’d like to see Clara Barton at Antietam and help her clean — that would have been a horrid way to spend time, but worth it. I’d like to see and hear Dorothea Dix present her case for caring for the insane in Massachusetts. I’d like to see one night of the Blitz and walk afterward with American Ambassador John Gilbert Winant, looking for people who needed help. I’d like to hear and see Frances Perkins and FDR discuss Social Security and watch Eleanor Roosevelt visit one of the British Women’s Institute groups.
I like clothes and women’s history a lot. I also like food, but I think we’ve got the best of that. I’d like all of you to have seen — and eaten — the lunch Jerri and Jade fixed for Student Support Services. It was like being transported to the deep South for a family picnic with every appropriate food you can imagine, all of it beautiful. J&J are Black, most of the staff was Hispanic. The secretaries took one look at the perfect, and perfectly full, table, and one said, “I’ll go for the green chili.”
Marilyn I’d love to go with you and discuss between each visit what was said and plan where to go next. Thank heavens we have books and paintings to at least give some insight. After your comments I usually spend the rest of the day going down the historical rabbit. Lol. Thank you so much!
I would go back to my childhood like Linda. From my birth at 1939 until I married I was in the same house with my family and my grandparents near by. The house was right at the beach and ocean. The area was full of people with families with kids, we had great times together. We always went to church, and as we grew older we went to camp in North Carolina. I also spent the night with my grandmother…Oh there were such wonderful times.
Wonderful memories, Sissy.
I’m with you too, Rosemary! Chilldhood was a magical time for us!
My sister and I used to spend two weeks each summer for years with my maternal grandparents. My grandmother used to save her McCall’s magazines so Beth and I could cut out the Betsy paper dolls. Nanna would take us shopping in downtown Wilmington, DE, and we got to ride the bus. Then she would take us for our back-to-school haircuts and to an old ice cream parlor. Great memories.
Well, this is a big question. I think all of us would have many many times in our lives that we would like to visit again.
I loved the 1990’s. The girls were little and we were always together as a family having adventures or just going through the day with school, homework or enjoying tasks together. My oldest sister was alive (smoking/aneurysm/2000). It was simple. No cell phones. Going for long walks on the Potomac river or other big fun parks. People were nicer back then.
The girls and I would play with dolls all day, bake and eat cookies, visit fun friends and read a lot of books.
I miss the years when my children were growing up, especially when it’s back-to-school time. I loved getting them ready to return. But one of the things I miss most is no longer needing to prepare for dance recitals. Our dancing school had a recital every year and Andrea, Sean and I, and one year David too, were in the recital. It was a fun family time.
Well, I found my August 31st time traveler note. As follows. 🙂
This is a good one Jeanne. If I could travel back in time, I would go to 1830 or 1840 in Davies County Indiana. I’ve been stuck there for years as I haven’t been able to find the right family of my great great grand mother. I have her living with her daughter in Indiana, and then in Illinois, but I do not know her maiden name or her husband’s name. I would love to talk with her and solve the family mystery. There were two women in the area with the same name and many have confused my line with theirs so it is a mess trying to figure it out. And it also doesn’t help that every census has her name spelled differently. Of course, since she was illiterate, very understandable. So, that is where I would head. I’d probably also stop by Jeanne’s, since I’d be in the area. What would be there? Grassland? Farmland? I don’t know.
To finish the story, my great great great grandmother lived until the 1870’s and her daughter, my great great grandmother who was also listed as illiterate, managed to file a land claim in southern Missouri, in her own name and an X for her signature in the 1880’s. I have a copy of it. Several cabins, one suitable for year around living which was the size of our current bedroom about 16X16. Must have been tight!
Well, I’m back from time travel and today, it is supposed to be 94. Back to watering the lawn and plants. We’ll probably be at the other house working on the office as we have to remove the glass skylight panel before they are working on the roof above. Always something.
I love reading about all the things you have discovered about your family. That definitely was a different time. David’s ancestors were settlers in New Amsterdam and had a farm where Greenwich Village and New York University are now. Hard to imagine. David and I have been watching “Death Valley Days”. Not sure I’d be up to living in Death Valley but a lot of people sure did.
I would also like to visit various times in history for short periods along with the places and times of my ancestors.
I would mostly want to combine many time periods together so that I could have my maternal grandparents as well as all of my pets past and present.
My parents and I lived close to my grandparents when I was younger than seven, so that’s what I was love again.
I should love to go back to 1816 and find Jane Austen and bring her back to 2026 with me and see if she could have been saved from whatever illness it was that killed her in 1817. I wish she could have had a long and happy life making a living from her writing. I suspect she would have been happier in our century than in her own.
For myself I would go back to my 15yr old self and tell her to put up with the bullying and stay on at school and get that degree then instead of waiting till I was 48.
It was my turn to choose the books for our book club this year and the last one we read was “The Sea of Tranquility” by Emily St John Mandel which is about time travel. I can highly recommend it. It is a little confusing at first as it jumps between different centuries but worth continuing. It does show the dilemma of time travel and the ramifications.
Great question Jeanne and it was fun to see what everyone else would do if they could go back. Have a great day everyone and blessings to Jeanne and George, stay strong.
I never knew my Aunt Dorothy. She was my mother’s oldest sister. She passed away from septicemia (infected tonsils) when she was 13. If she would have lived just one more year she could have been cured. Penicillin was discovered the year after she died.
Good idea on Austen. She’d have the health care she deserved, and we’d have more books. She’d do as well or better with today’s marriage game and other subjects besides. With a world-wide audience, she could travel and see and be seen by all her fans. Emma Thompson would still make Austen movies, only more of them.
I would travel back to my junior year in high school. It was one of my favorite times in my life. I lived in Bethlehem, PA. A beautiful area with four distinct seasons. I had a wonderful boyfriend who lived next door when we met. We both ended up moving because they were going to tear down our houses on First Avenue to put in a major highway to Bethlehem Steel, but we were not that far from each other and walked to school together every day. First Avenue was a street that contained lovely townhomes, many of them three stories tall, that were once owned by people of influence in Bethlehem. They were built in the late 1800s. We had a carriage block and a hitching post on the sidewalk in front of our house. Of all the streets to tear down it should have never been this one. Such history demolished to make way for what I call “the scar of Bethlehem”, especially since it was no longer needed just a mere thirty years later. We moved that summer to Delaware to be near my mother’s family but my memories always return to that wonderful high school year and living in “The Christmas City”.