Um, actually it's Remembrance Day in Canada. We probably have the most elaborate ceremonies to mark it up this way.
Indigo
· 1 year ago
Ancestors? I guess you could say they got their citizenship that way. When they started the fighting, the 13 colonies were in revolt against an abusive tax system from an off-shore royalist government. When they got back home from the fighting, they were citizens of the United States of America. It didn't exist before then. Most of the royalist and Tory relatives fled to Canada. Maybe their descendents are still there. The ones who didn't flee were hanged from lamp posts. It's the America Way!
ChrisinParis
· 1 year ago
That's an amazing story. Any idea where the ancestors lived before coming to America? Where did they settle after the war? That must be quite an interesting family history.
Indigo
· 1 year ago
They were from Scotland and Holland and poor after the Revolutionary War. The royalist relatives took the money and what they could load on a boat with them (including the "servants" i.e., slaves) when they fled to Canada. The Continental Congress had no ready cash (sound familiar?) and so the soldiers who fought were paid with free land in the wilderness (Ohio and Indiana!). Oddly enough, the extended family hasn't moved around much since they settled in those areas. My direct ancestor married into a local Indian tribe long before the Bureau of Indian Affairs gave the tribes official names. The Bureau didn't exist in those days. When the Forced Migration of the Tribes took place, my white ancestor's family stayed where they were and took over the village. The Indian village became the family farm where I grew up. The family "wealth" pretty much fell apart after the abolition of hemp farming in 1934. Like George Washington and so many of the Revolutionary Era farmers, my ancestors were hemp famers. Hemp was essential to making rope. The side-products were thought to be medicinal in those days. Most of my relatives today live in that area but, being gay, it was smart for me to get out. I got a doctorate and taught humanities in a university, then retired to Florida. It doesn't snow in Florida. That's my excuse for staying here.
Older_Wiser
· 1 year ago
No, but my grandfather was a veteran of WWI, a GA farm boy, and was in and out of VA hospitals most of his life, which ended in 1947. I remember that my grandmother (who died in 1976) had small and beautiful hooked rugs that he made while in one hospital in GA. I don't know where he fought, or anything about his time in service, though. She told me of his many hospitalizations, which sounded like PTSD and known alcoholism, resulting in my grandmother having to raise their 6 children by herself, all through the 20s and into the depression and beyond. Even though she was only a 43 yr old widow, she never remarried. It was a sad life for the daughter of a furniture store owner who had lived well, but in those days, you "made your bed and lay in it." She was a strong anchor in my own life.
I never knew my grandfather, which saddened me all my life.
eljoe2022
· 1 year ago
My Grandmothers story, she was an old Polish Grandmother, but my dad and his brothers used to tease her how she got her citizennship. During WWII she went before the judge who began asking her questions, he asked her who George Washington was, well she answered he's on the one dollar, he asked her again and she again said dollar, at this time my uncle yelled "mom". The judge asked my grandmother who that was, she said my son, he was in Army Air Corp uniform. The judge asked him to come foward and asked him what he did, as he just got home from flying 28 missions in a B-17, the Judge then asked my grandmother how many children she had, she answered two more sons, he asked where they were, she said overthere. (my other uncle was in North Africa, my day was in the Pacific) The Judge stated well if this women can give three sons to this country she deserves to be a citizen and banged his gavel. so that was how my grandmother became a citizen of this great country
But who knows? Maybe the US did some fighting there later on.
PrahaPartizan
· 1 year ago
Well, my father's father was an immigrant from Bohemia in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire who arrived in the US shortly before WW1. I know that he served in AEF, because I'd seen the rank stripes he had received during the war, but never knew just which battles he had served in. I suspect that his service in the war expedited his citizenship application, although no one in my family ever talked about that.
Oddly enough, my mother's father also served in the war, just on the other side. We discovered his rank stripes one day when we were children and noticed that they weren't the same color as our other grandfather's old military memorabilia. We learned that my mom's dad had actually spent his time fighting for the Austro-Hungarian army in Galicia and the Julian Alps. He had a lifelong interest in skiing, which he seemed to have picked up from his time in the service. As you might imagine, he didn't arrive in the US until sometime after WW1 ended.
loona_c
· 1 year ago
Until now, I didn't realize that's what my grandfather did. He came over from Scotland (and met his Scottish future wife here too). She went back to Scotland and had their child there and didn't come back until he was a citizen after the War. I wondered about the citizenship thing. Now it makes sense.
aravir
· 1 year ago
My great-great grandfather emigrated as a child from Ireland. He became a citizen after having served in the Union Navy during the Civil War. His brother was not so lucky, having been killed at the Battle of Pleasant Hill, in April of 1864. Terrence went west after the war, became a rancher, and started a bank which now is, after several permutations, the largest bank domiciled in Arizona. He lived until 1912.
JohnMcKay
· 1 year ago
Emily68, The big battle of Verdun was in 1916, but in 1918 the US moved into the Verdun part of the front and advanced from there to the the German border.
My wife's grandfather fled Ireland and trouble with the British a few years before the war. He enlisted and fought in France for his citizenship. My grandfathers were both a little old for the war. One was a cowboy in Montana. The other, who had just gotten married enlisted anyway and spent the war training younger soldiers at Ft Lewis, WA. My grandmother received a tiny pension as the widow of a veteran after he died.
ChrisinParis
· 1 year ago
Thanks! I was just going to look at those Army papers again to see if I remembered correctly. My grandfather also left Ireland to flee the troubles with the English. (The other side left during the Famine.) Upon coming back he joined every other Irish person in Philly when he joined the police force.
JohnMcKay
· 1 year ago
Clever Wife's grandfather parlayed his experience as a troublemaker into a career as a union organizer. I never knew my grandfathers, but he lived with her for several years and she got to hear all of the stories about the troubles, the war, and the heroic days of unionization. Naturally, she is a New Deal Democrat to the bone.
John
moopaw
· 1 year ago
Well yes, both my mother's side and my father's side became US Citizens following service a war, the Revolutionary War which ended in Yorktown in 1781
Bobbyj
· 1 year ago
My paternal grandfather came to the U.S. to get away from being drafted into the Germany army. He was in the U.S. for about Two and one-half years before the entry of the U.S. into WWI. He went basic training and was literally climbing the gang-plank onto the troop ship when peace was announced! As a result, he was given citizenship because of his time in the army.
oh_yeah
· 1 year ago
My grandfather's cousin did enlist & serve in WWI to gain citizenship. My grandfather, on the other hand, had had/seen enough during one of the Balkan Wars before WWI, so took the usual path to citizenship.
SociologistTina
· 1 year ago
No war heroes in my family, but they do go way back in Philadelphia!
All Comments
http://allainjulesblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/oba...
I never knew my grandfather, which saddened me all my life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
But who knows? Maybe the US did some fighting there later on.
Oddly enough, my mother's father also served in the war, just on the other side. We discovered his rank stripes one day when we were children and noticed that they weren't the same color as our other grandfather's old military memorabilia. We learned that my mom's dad had actually spent his time fighting for the Austro-Hungarian army in Galicia and the Julian Alps. He had a lifelong interest in skiing, which he seemed to have picked up from his time in the service. As you might imagine, he didn't arrive in the US until sometime after WW1 ended.
My wife's grandfather fled Ireland and trouble with the British a few years before the war. He enlisted and fought in France for his citizenship. My grandfathers were both a little old for the war. One was a cowboy in Montana. The other, who had just gotten married enlisted anyway and spent the war training younger soldiers at Ft Lewis, WA. My grandmother received a tiny pension as the widow of a veteran after he died.
into a career as a union organizer. I never knew my grandfathers, but
he lived with her for several years and she got to hear all of the
stories about the troubles, the war, and the heroic days of
unionization. Naturally, she is a New Deal Democrat to the bone.
John
As a result, he was given citizenship because of his time in the army.