American Legacies Organization, Inc.

Century makes a Difference!

Since we just marked another year off the calendar, we thought it would be interesting to look back at life 100 years ago. Here are the U.S. statistics from one hundred years ago…

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was forty-seven.

Only 14 Percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

By Harvey Wike

When we moved onto our farm outside Fredericksburg, PA, the road past our house was an old dirt road.

I guess at times we could be called Hucksters, as we would load up our produce from the farm, take it to the town of Lebanon, PA, in a Dodge panel truck and sell the produce door to door.

Thoughts

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!

If Wyle E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn’t he just buy dinner?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Common American Superstitions and Their Origins

By Jennifer Thompson

In remembering the black-eyed pea and cornbread tradition of New Years Day, I realized that for years now I have been reminded to do that by my family for good luck. I asked a friend of mine who had come up with that why it was supposed to bring good luck. He replied that he had no idea. And so this got me thinking of several common superstitions and their origins.

Oct. 9, 1899-July 22, 1970

By: Lisa Redd

Alice and her husband, Forest, raised 3 children on Bishop St., in North Atlanta, GA. Near the Atlanta Water Works. She loved cooking and never followed a recipe. She always prepared a huge Sunday dinner where she could feed an army because she couldn’t stop, with just one meat. She cooked ham, chicken and roast and every vegetable imaginable.

Cooking Southern Style

By: Sandy Williams Driver

A stranger could taste my down-home cooking and probably guess I was raised in the Deep South, Alabama to be exact. As a child, I stood on a stool and watched my mother fry everything from chicken and pork chops to okra and potatoes. She rolled out the biscuits by hand and always cooked cornbread in an iron skillet.

Fetching Milk for Dinner

The girl in this photograph carrying milk is Marion Leedom.

She was born in Elizabethtown, PA, 1903 and died 1981 in South Bend, IN

Mulberries and Root Beer

From Harvey Wike of Texas

Bertha Otelia Kunth Lavender about 1902

The Lavender History as Heard and Seen

by Charles E. Blakeslee

11/24/97

The Place Where I Feel Most At Home And What Makes It A Special Place For Me

by Amy Finkle

The place I feel most at home in is at my grandmothers house. I know it sounds silly that I wouldn’t pick my own house, but at my grandparents we do such fun things. First off, they live on a farm and have 26 acres of open forest and so we go walking in the woods. In the woods there is a pond and a cabin next to it that my pop built. In the summer we sleep over there and go fishing.

By Linda Clark

This is how I became a member of the Wike-Clark family.