Sam-saturday--Something About.Me
SAM Saturday challenge by @bluemoon is a wonderful way for all of us to get to know a little more about each other. #SAM-Saturday rules
There was something of a Clyde Connection in my family.
My grandfather's name was Clyde. He became Clyde Sr when my father was born and named Clyde Jr.
My mother married Clyde Jr and her sister married a man named Clyde, giving me an Uncle Clyde! And when my brother was born he was named James Clyde.
But this is the tale of the two crane operator Clydes.
My grandfather was born and raised in southern Missouri and he left home at age 13 and rode the rails working the wheat harvest across Montana and throughout the West. At age 16, like many other young boys, he lied about his age to be able to join the Army and fight in WWl.
This photo was printed onto a piece of silk and made into a pillow that he sent to his mother.
He was shipped off to France, and when it was realized how young he was, he was made an ambulance driver, which must have been a horrific job, cleaning up after the battle was over. He never talked about it.
When the war was over he came to Illinois and worked for Illinois Bell Tellephone Company installing the first phone lines in many areas.
After marrying my grandmother, Clyde Sr got a job as a crane operator, and it became the job he worked at until he retired.
Note the tie that my grandfather wore to work in the early days.
Clyde Sr. Driving 50 ft. pile for the Savanah, Illinois railroad Bridge.
Clyde Jr-standing and Clyde Sr.
My Dad quit high school at age 16 and his father got him a job working as an oiler on the crane my grandfather was running at work
But my dad disliked the work, and wanted to learn to be a chef. He quit and joined the army. After boot camp, he came home, married my mom and along with his dog, Puddles, they moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
When the army found out that my dad had experience working on a crane, they assigned him to crane school and his dream of being a chef was lost.
After being discharged from the army, and with a young family to support, my father was hired by a large construction company in Northern Illinois and worked around the area as a crane operator until he retired.
Most of the work he did took him to job sites all around the area and he was often gone from home for a week at a time, only coming home on weekends.
This bridge was only 2 blocks from our home and it was the only job that my dad ever did that he could walk to work.
Clyde Jr and grandson Jason.
Between the 2 Clydes, they worked on building many of the factories and bridges around the area. My grandchildren love going out for drives and having me point out different bridges and buildings that their great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather built.
Clyde Jr. and Clyde Sr.
Shadow Photos Round 42- Shoe Shadows
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Beautiful memories. I appreciate their hard work in building many factories and bridges.
Inspiring story
Thanks for this @melinda010100
RESTEM
Thank you so much for resteeming!
A wonderful story of a beautiful and hard-working family. Touching moments of visiting bridges.
Greetings my friend :)
Hello my friend! I do hope all is well with you. Thanks for your vote and lovely comment.
I try to be strong and believe that it will be good.
Thank you for your concern ;)
Great old photos. It's fun to go through those old photographs and see how things used to be. Was that a walker coonhound?! That's one heck of a dog smile—must be going for a ride! He looks almost exactly like my last dog :-) If he was a coonhound, I bet he was a very vocal pooch!
A few years ago, my mother gave me a bunch of photos she wanted repaired so that we could make some prints. Some were pretty badly damaged but, after hours of Photoshop magic, they likely looked better than the originals.
That was a dog that my parents had before I was born I don't remember him at all, although there is one photo of my grandmother holding me as an infant and the dog is also in the picture. When I was a year old they bought me a puppy for my birthday and Midgi was there for my entire childhood and died after my 19th birthday.But I am not aware of what happened to old Puddles.
I have a suitcase full of old family photos that need to be digitized and repaired. It seems like such a monumental project that I keep avoiding getting started on it.
Awww, good name, Puddles! He looks so much like a walker coonhound. Could also be a foxhound, but the nose is more coonhound-like. You can tell by the back being darker that he had the typical brown head and black caped back.
That does sound like a daunting project. Scanning shouldn't take too long, really. How long would it take to fix a couple a day?
Nice post.. old is gold...
Awesome memories..
Thanks for sharing with us..
A brave and hardworking family. A great story !!!
Greetings
Thanks, Greg!
Add to your Clyde connection... kind of. My father's name is Clyde. He is a bit younger, missed WWII. But started working as an oiler on heavy equipment in the oil and gas industry. I think officially as an oil-repairman was the job title. GREAT old photos
I cease to be astonished. I just am beginning to expect all of these parallels! My dad was also too young for World War II and he missed Korea also. Thankfully. My uncle Clyde was on a ship in the South Seas during WWll. .
Just crazy @melinda010100
Ooh I so love this story, I love to know family memories and yours are always so fascinating !! This is like the story of your country, your ancestors did built the country and their history joins the big History, it is so great to read! ^_^
I had first to search what crane operator did mean, didn't know this word, and then I was so glad because
there is a building that is built in front of my house for a few months, and we look every morning through the window of the kitchen when we have breakfast, we monitor the progress of work with a lot of fascination indeed ! ;-)
And in particular there is two huge cranes and we are in awe of the very precise work that the crane operators do, and we think of two things :
.. do you know more about these two points? (I am so happy to have found someone to ask! = D)
PS : I'm just thinking now that this is not the kinda cranes I've seen in your pictures but the giant ones that do not move, so the operator is very high...
I think the principle of the job was probably very much the same. It was a hazardous job in very many ways. My grandfather lost one of his fingers in moving parts while he was trying to do a repair. And my father had a bridge fall on top of him. He was trying to wrap a cable around an old section of bridge decking that he needed to remove when it came crashing down. He was very lucky to survive. Both of them suffered from arthritis and plenty of aches and pains. They worked outdoors in extreme cold temperatures many
winters. And those old cranes had no heaters and no doors.to keep the weather out. I remember when they would be working on bridges often the crane would be on a barge out in the middle of the water, and there would be a rope and a pulley and they would have to pull themselves hand over hand in a little bucket contraption to get out to the barge in the morning and get off the barge at night. I hope you didn't have to look up too many words here 🤔and bravo to your crane operators. It is hard work.
Terrific story and memories, Melinda! It's so great that you have the old photos to go along with the story! Resteemed :)
Thanks so much Keith! I love having all the old photos, even though it is something of a burden, because I feel responsible for getting them digitized and it is a huge task. I do appreciate the resteem!
haha! wow melinda010100! this is a marvelous post, I love it! The story and all the vintage photos are so interesting, it's quite a heritage. Did your dad ever cook in his spare time?
He didn't, but I think only because my mother ruled her kitchen with an iron fist. My memory was that she was always in it. I never even washed a dish in my mother's kitchen! My grandmother taught me how to cook and bake.
wow so your mother didn't want anyone in her kitchen..not even to teach you..how interesting!
how are you today, are you all caught up?
I feel like I have been slacking this week. But I did get a big pot of borscht made. Do you like beets?
oh uhhh beets are actually probably the one food that I don't like the taste of at all. What is borscht?
Beet soup! With cabbage and carrots and potatoes and onions and I love mine with a big spoonful of sour cream on top
oh! well couldn't it be made without the beets? lol. I know they're really good for you but for some reason they actually almost make me sick just smelling them and I'm not a picky eater, I mean I eat everything and anything.
Isn't that funny? They are probably my favorite vegetable. I first had borscht when I was in Russia and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I came home and learned to make it myself and now I always make a supply and have some in the freezer that I can pull out during cold winter nights for dinner!