Activist ancestors - do you have any?

[Snow]

Some thing about outhouses on a thread having to do with old farts got me thinking about my great-grandmother, who lived in a tiny 2 room house with no plumbing till she died, in the early 60's (that's 1960's, you young twits!). Anyway, she was an activist, despite lack of what we consider (and she would agree) advantages. She was married at age 17, went to live in a one-room house with a dirt floor, well water, outhouse. Let's see, she was 83 when she died, 1963, so she would've been married about 1897. The place was the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis. She was minimally educated, but interested in life. When the fight for the women's vote hit Indianapolis, she dove right in; was in fact put in jail overnight three times for marching for the vote. I enjoyed talking with her a lot when I was a kid; she did things like grow dandelions in her yard deliberately for a) greens for eating (she boiled the heck out of them; added salt pork) b) dandelion wine c) roasted the roots and made some really nasty drink out of them that she thought tasted like coffee. Really interesting old lady. She always suggested I get on my "wheel" (bicycle) and come over to visit.

My wife also had activists for several generations back, but that was a different country and a very difficult situation. They tended to get killed rather than jailed overnight.

Anyway, any of the rest of you have stories of your forebears? Were they influential?

[truthspeaker]

1. my great-great grandfather was an abolitionist

(I might be missing a great)

Nathan Jackson Morrison. I don't know how active or influential he was on the slavery issue, but he went on to found Olivet and Drury Colleges.

His grandfather, Isaac Dimond, was also an abolitionist. Both were active in their churches, and Morrison was a minister before becoming a college president. I doubt they would think highly of their outspoken atheist descendant.

[noonwitch]

5. My grandpa's half sister worked for the Resistance in WWII

She worked in Austria and Italy. My grandpa and his family came over in 1924, but she stayed behind because she was grown up and married. Because she spoke 5 languages, the Nazis arrested her and put her in jail until she agreed to be a phone operator for them. Once she started that, she began to use the phone system to pass messages for the Resistance using languages other than German, since the Nazis rarely bothered learning any languages other than theirs.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. Wow! That's movie stuff!

Ever though of contacting some Hollywood screenwriter?

"The Switchboard", starring Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons. One can dream, right?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Paternal Grandpa

Shameless pinko Spanish Republican. Not a very good thing during the Civil War. Dad (who had been forcibly recruited into Franco's army) saved his commie ass a few times.

[Snow]

13. Hmmm, I know a coupla guys who were in the Lincoln Brigade -

they're really getting up there in years now.

[MaineDem]

3. A great great ... aunt swore an oath

I'm not sure how many generations back but an aunt was transported from Ireland to Australia for swearing an oath against the English.

I say, "right on"! :)

[GumboYaYa]

4. My great, great, great grandfather

was an active campaigner against slavery in the South. He was one of the first large plantation owners to free the slaves working on his land.

During the winter of 1862-1863, Grant housed the Union troups on my family's land prior to the invasion of Vicksburg. Grant spent the winter in the family home that my grandaprents lived in when I was a child.

My grandmother is a social worker who after retiring in her 70's started a program to collect books to distribute to public health clinics. She organizes volunteers to come in and read to children before their doctor visits. They talk to parents about the importance of reading and send the kids home with a book. It makes the doctors visit easier and reinforces the importance of reading. Her volunteer program has grown to the point that she now has support from the state and federal government and her very own staff. She just had her 80th birthday.

I'm proud to come from a long-line of progressives.

[catmandu57]

7. My great grandfather

was a social activist on the plains of Colorado, my father told me he was a communist, but, from what he has told me I'd say more of a socialist.
He was active in local government, and during the depression when everyone was poor, shared the fruits of his farm with the community, feeding the hungry, and helping the dispossesed. I suppose I come by this honestly then, the socialist streak I mean.

[IronLionZion]

8. My Grandparents marched with Gandhi

and they say he has an incredibly persuasive power over you that calms your anger and stirs your soul at the same time. Now he was a hero!

9. long line of preachers

My grandfather was a conscientious objector in WWI.
First ancestors on my father's side came to America in 1775 and were pacifist, so they were considered Tories (since they refused to fight) during the Revolutionary War and moved into Canada as a result.

Pennsylvania Dutch, Mennonite, Amish thread of activism.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Only One I Know Of

My great, great, great, grandfather (might be missing a great), was an officer in the Regio garrison and an organizer for Garibaldi in the south of Italy during the Unification Movement in the 19th century.

Later, he helped organize in Sicily to quell the separatist sentiment there. He left Sicily to go back to Regio after Sicily signed on to a unified Italy.

According to my family, he never fired a shot. Was a soldier, but really was a speech maker and a grassroots leader.

The Professor

[Jokerman]

11. Both Parents

Dad was active in the UAW & Mom in the local Democratic Party.

[Atman]

12. My parents!

I grew up listening to Tom Lehrer, and ska parties at the house...my parents' best friends (this was in the sixties, remember) were a mixed race couple, Jamaican man and a very white woman). They were all big into civil rights, obviously. We'd gather around to watch the Smothers Brothers. My dad had bumper stickers on his car showing black & white hands held over an American flag...I remember getting sneers and mumbled comments when we'd go out in his car.

[Snow]

17. Ha! I suspected we don't all have conservative parents

who don't understand our lefty politics.

[roguevalley]

14. my grandpa was a socialist farmer in Canada and became a railroad

union organizer in Oregon, getting blackballed during
the depression among other indignities.

[greatauntoftriplets]

15. My great-grandfather had to get out of Ireland quickly

(okay, this is according to family legend) after the 1867 Fenian Uprising -- the timing of his coming to these shores fits the timeline.

Also have ancestors who were Wild Geese -- Irishmen who left Ireland after another uprising in 1698 -- and went to France. My ancestors ultimately emigrated to Quebec, and then down to Illinois where I live.

[slackmaster]

16. Grandfather was a conscietious objector from World War I

He was one of a group of 42 Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, and others who were sentenced to life in prison in 1917 for refusing to take even a "non-combatant" role in the US Army.

The short version is that the Mennonite elders could not be bothered to go all the way from Kansas to Chicago to testify in front of a hostile draft board. Without any kind of "official" explanation of their sects' positions on war, these young men were unable to talk their way out of either serving or going to the CO stockade adjacent to Ft. Levenworth prison.

Before he was put in the pen their sentences were commuted by an appeals judge to 25 years. Shortly after the war ended, President Woodrow Wilson saw that a great injustice had been done and granted them all pardons.

That's why you will NEVER see slackmaster questioning any Presidential pardon. If Presidents didn't have that power I probably wouldn't ever have been born.

[Snow]

18. That'a amazing - both

that the guys would've been slapped with sentences like that in the first place (the country wasn't that enthuisiaztic about WWI, I've always heard) and that Wilson would wipe the slate like that. Hmmm, was that when his wife was really running things, I wonder? Don't remember.

[catzies]

19. My grandfather's great-grandparents were in the Underground RR

In Ohio. Hosted Abe Lincoln for dinner once; family lore says he patted my grandfather's grandmother on the head as she was a small child. I have a bracelet of hers. :)

[trof]

20. Not sure if my mom was an "ancestor".

I guess in the strictest sense of the word she is.
She was active in Democratic politics in Alabama in the 50s and 60s.
Appointed to State Board of Pensions and Securities (she was a stock broker). The board also oversaw Aid to Dependent Children. Whenever the legislature would try to cut funds for "welfare mothers/queens", she'd tear into them.

"Sure, we need to try and do what we can to help folks with birth control, but those babies don't ask to be born. Once they're here we need to do everything we can to see that they get proper nutrition and care."
Go mom!

[scarlet_owl]

21. My great-grandfather was some kind of

communist labor leader in Mexico (or something like that-I'm not sure about the details). He was murdered before my mother was born. It is my understanding that there are a lot of communists in my family.

[carolinayellowdog]

22. Teenaged Poetess warmonger

Hey,

I just got an email from Fulton County, Ohio where my great-grandmother was one of the first schoolteachers. The local paper is preparing a long story about her and wanted her picture. She wrote poems all her life and attained local fame in 1861 at the age of 16 for one that started something like this:

Arise, all honest Union men
to save your country's name
Let no secessionists dissolve
her union and her fame

CYD