52 Photos Week 36: Hard Work

Question

This week's 52 Photos theme:

HARD WORK

To participate, simply:

1. reply below, and
2. add a photo that fits the theme to this week's free-space gallery.

If you use a social network (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) please share the photo there as well, using #52photos and #wikitree. This can be a great way to involve more family members. If you use a blog, include a link to your blog post in your answer below so we can all read it.

You don't need to participate every week to share a photo. But members who do participate every week can earn challenge badges. Click here for more info. If this is your first time participating and you don't have the participation badge, or if you pass a milestone (13 in 13, 26 in 26, 52 in 52) please post here.

For help with how to add photos, see here.

Comments

This is my 26 in 26 this time round

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Thank you for the badge Eowyn

Answer 1

This is a 1921 photo of my grandfather Scott Marvin Sr. holding my mother after a day of hard work. He had learned about oil field work growing up in Pennsylvania. He moved to Drumright, Oklahoma in 1914 when the oil boom started there in 1913. He worked as a driller, and it was hazardous and hard work, and they often had to put out fires from well blowouts. Being out in the weather in Oklahoma and Kansas was not easy, and he drilled wells in all the major oil fields there. 

Comments

Alexis,  An hour ago I commented...... a sitdown under one of those shade trees was in order, after a hard days work......where it went I don't know?......now the sun's going down.

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Thank you for your comment John. He was probably wearing long sleeves to prevent sunburning even on hot days. Yes, a shade tree was in order.

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Alexia what a wonderful photo of your grandfather and your mother, I can only imagine he was working hard what you are telling here

Thank You for sharing this wonderful photo

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Thank you Susan for your sweet comment. He was greatly loved by my mother, and I was lucky that I got to live with him when I was a child.

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Alexia I am so grateful to know you got to know him.

There are so many you wish you have meet do t you feel like this, image you could travel in time

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Susan, I never thought of this until I saw your comment. Maybe genealogy is our time travel, and that is why we enjoy it.

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You might be right sweet Alexia 

Answer 2

My Great,Great Grandmother Christina (center) with my Great Grandfather Franklin and his cousin Mina on the porch of the Raymer farmhouse in 1908. For more than a century my family worked the land. Farming and raising a family was very hard work, especially in those days! 

Comments

Ron,  Looks great......That new "old" farmhouse.

Answer 3

When my uncle Fred Vander Bogart was first married, he did not own much except a truck and a piece of rocky land on a steep hillside. (yes, the land really slopes down like that. Notice how far downhill the outhouse is.) Alice held the flashlight while he worked at night, building a house and planting a garden. Bobby helped.

Comments

Joyce,  That young'un, with the hoe over his shoulder, is all ready to go down to the rail siding, where the steam locomotive left a whole slew of "empty" grain boxcars......to scrape "feed" into bags for the animals.

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Sorry, John, but your story is just a story. Uncle Fred had a day job; he had only one cow (named Creamy); got his feed at the feed store and brought it home in a truck.

Answer 4

(Locomotives)  Eowyn,  Hard Work......Steam  Locomotives  ......If you think that was hard, try remembering how to do what I just did.

Comments

Goofed up and lost the 1st attempt......2nd one wouldn't play.....3rd , well, you got it.

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John thank you for the great steam engine videos. Made me want to get onboard.

Answer 5

My great grandparents Auguste Oliger and Elisabeth Wurtz in the fields, maybe after 1950, in Schorbach, Moselle, Lorraine, France. They were still working everything by hand.

Answer 6

A brother of my great-great grandfather Hans Friedrich Lewerenz immigrated in 1882 to the USA. His nickname was Fritz, in the USA he was called Frederik or Fred.

He worked there in Illinois as railroad construction worker - a very hard and dangerous work.

On 27 May 1891 he had an deadly accident; he was run over by a train  of the "Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad".

This was recorded in the German Illinois-Staatszeitung (state newspaper) on 28 May 1891.

Answer 7

I've got a lot of old pictures, but most of them are taken of people on a picnic or dressed up for visiting, etc. There are some pictures of people on horses, and you know they were headed out to do some manual labor, but that's not shown. Thinking about my own pictures, rarely do I have a photo of a family member at work.

So here's the only old one I could find of people actually working. They are relatives (Wickhams in North Dakota), but I don't know exactly who, doing the weekly wash. Interesting that a fellow is apparently helping out.

Comments

It looks to me like he's flirting.

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Hadn't thought of that, but a real possibility.

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Just looked again, close up. He does seem to be turning the handle on the wringer, but his posture indicates that he isn't working very hard at it.

Answer 8

During WWI three of my aunts (L-R) Franie, Sue and Minnie went from London to Kent for the hop picking and general farm work.

Comments

I wonder how long she kept those stockings white? LOL

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Yes, they all seem rather unsuitably clad for the work, but I am wondering if those dresses are really overalls, they all look very alike.

Answer 9

My paternal third great grandfather, Thomas Brock, and his brothers took care of the family farm in Dutchess county, New York after his father died. Then he moved to Danby, New York. He was a successful farmer and an “overseer of the poor,” as stated in the business directory for Danby, Tompkins, New York.

Missy 

Answer 10

This pic was taken in 1968. The man on the left with the Mario-syle mustache is Rocco Carrabis. He was my great-grandfather Giuseppe's brother and he built all the houses on Windsor Street in Melrose, Massachusetts. Also in the picture is their brother, Pasquale on the far right, Rocco's wife Caterina D'avino, James Carrabis and his wife. More info on this week's blog: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2020/09/52-ancestors-week-36-labor.html

Comments

I can't see the picture.

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Now I see it. Remember when men wore hats?

Answer 11

Capt. James Stillwell was a ferry boat captain of ferries that connected Staten Island with Manhattan Island, New York City. As the population of both islands grew, he worked in all kinds of weather, rain or shine. He also had ten children. This kept him busy. 

Comments

Marion,   The box of outgrown toys I received from my cousin, Rex, included a Staten Island ferry.....now, although from an earlier time, I have Captain James to attach to the memory.

Answer 12

Hard work is typically equated with manual labor.  But could possibly be equated with work that is difficult or mentally challenging.

I recall my grandmother, Oma M Allison-Rammel (1895-1995) taking about how hard it was for her husbands parents {James Madison Rammel (1956-1938) and Ruth Knott-Rammel (1866-1946)} to perform many of the duties from their jobs.

They ran a funeral home in Assumption, Christian, Illinois.  They were both licensed embalmers.  In fact, she was the first women to become a licensed embalmer in the State of Illinois.

Assumption is a small farm town in central Illinois.  Thus, everyone knew everyone.  So it was told that it became harder each year to deal with the deaths of friends and family.  Almost 100% if the deaths were people they knew.

Below is a photo of them at about the time of their retirement.  Also is a copy of a brochure 

Answer 13

This is my 5th Great Grand Uncle, [[Thornton-1863 | Mathew Thornton]]. I only recently found out about the hard work that he did. Was I ever surprised! He was a doctor, a Select Men of his community in New Hampshire and he was one of three individuals that signed the Declaration of Independence for the State of New Hampshire. He was also a Supreme Court Judge and he wrote New Hampshire's  first Constitution. I believe he was also a Lieutenant in The American Revolutionary War. I am so proud to be related to such a distinguished, hard working Ancestor.

Answer 14

Hope nobody minds if I make a second post. (We're not being over-run this week it appears).

I just ran across this picture of my dad, loading hay bales onto a hay wagon in 1989. We always did square bales, even after most farmers moved to round bales. Round bales were bigger, and usually handled by a single person on a tractor, but we liked square bales. They were kept in a barn, so there was less wastage from the weather, and they were more appropriately sized for our sheep (most of our neighbors had cattle). But it was definitely more work to bale them and stack on the wagon, unload and finally stack in the barn. This was best done by at least 2 people. As you can see in this picture, Dad wasn't happy until the wagon was loaded with as many bales as it could hold.

I always regretted that the picture was cut off just above the wheels. They were neat metal spoke wheels, as this was an old wagon, maybe from the 50's.

This year we had more bales than usual, and stored some of them outside in a stack. Like the old-style hay stacks, some loose straw was scattered on top with the stems pointing outward to shed the water. (Straw works better than hay for this purpose, and cheaper too, so losing some straw to protect the hay is fine).

Each bale probably weighed 40 - 50 pounds.

Answer 15

I was researching my paternal grandfather earlier this year and found that he had served as a teacher/professor and was in a few yearbooks from the turn of the 20th century. Even so, finding this picture was absolutely amazing because this picture shows that my grandfather and my oldest son look exactly alike! I texted this photo and my kids accused me of doctoring a current photo of him to look old. I just love finding things like this.

Answer 16

My mother was born in Vanport, a military shipyard crop-up between Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR, now known as Jantzen Beach.  It flooded and the slapstick, nearly portable housing was a disaster.  This picture is of my great-grandfather, grandfather, and grand-uncle during the clean-up.  They talked about the immensity of this job for the rest of their lives.

Answer 17

A "Hard Work" theme could really go to any mom out there, but I'll name two.  First, my paternal grandmother, Alice "Shoody" nee Sheppard, raised five kids on her own.  When her husband abandoned her during WWII, Alice never received any financial support.   She worked night shifts in a plastics factory to support her children.  After the war, she served food in a restaurant famous for all-you-can-eat crab legs - the Criterion Restaurant.  From her obituary:  

After divorce, Alice supported her family with employment at Northwest Plastics and, after the factory closed, as a server at the Criterion Restaurant. She joked with a regular customer that she would work at the restaurant until the place burned down, and she did until it did.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sheppard-1275

Second, my own mother raised eight kids:  https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/e/eb/Ohmann-3-51.jpg, and I have a new found appreciation of that work after more than five months of cooking dinner for five daily during this pandemic.

Answer 18

Growing up my great Grandmother, Nana Percy worked at the local Arrow Photo processing.  My first camera was a Kodak 110, with the strip of flashes that went on top.  To the best of my knowledge from age 6 to age 10, my Nana never worked at any place BUT Arrow Photo, and all of the family photos were processed by her at her store.