Judy, interesting. I've been thinking recently about how ancestral traits are transferred down through the generations. For the Germans, is seems that a strong work ethic is one of them as is a perfectionistic trait.
I was reading my maternal grandfather's story last night. Us grandkids loved him dearly. He was born in 1904 and died at the age of 99.5. His father died when he was 14 and he entered Stanford at 16, was one of the first graduating Stanford class of aeronautical engineers, and helped design the C-54, used in the Berlin Airlift. He was always proud of this. My ma had someone come in and tape/interview him when he was 92 and wrote it up for the family. It was a great idea. His words on parenting, politics, and religion follow. Re: Parenting. Grandpa states: "One thing that my parents had in common was the way they couldn't stand braggarts and arrogant people. My father gave me very little praise and my mother likewise. They thought too much praise would spoil a child. My father had a lot of difficulty expressing any form of loving or emotional feelings and I think that's characteristic of the whole Buckwalter family. The Buckwalters don't want to show how they're feeling. They don't show affection either. They tend to be rather critical, and I guess they're perfectionistic - all of them. I think the most important thing that I learned from my father was perseverance. My father never gave up. He always used to say.."If the thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well." Re: Politics. As background, my great-great grandfather moved from PA to Kentucky and then settled in Mississippi and started the J.R. Buckwalter Lumber Company. Grandpa strongly believed that the government should not take what he and his forefathers had worked so hard to accumulate and conserve. Grandpa states: "Politically, I've always been conservative. My parents were Republicans and my grandparents were too. Even in Mississippi, where the South was supposed to be Democrat, all of the Buckwalters were generally Republicans." Re: Religion. Grandpa states: "I don't think it's right to pray for something for yourself and then in the next breath to say everything is in God's hands. If there is a God, I can't believe that he concerns himself with these things or with us as individuals. There must be some universal intelligence that controls the universe - and an ant is no less important than a human being. There are a lot of people that don't believe that, though. They believe implicitly in the religious claim of creation. They believe that God created man and therefore man is superior. Here I am - I can't accept that man was created as a superior being. I can't believe that and I couldn't believe that. I guess I'm an atheist, but I can't consider myself irreligious because I have great respect for whatever created our universe. I keep hoping that someone will come up with some sort of proof. Scientists are making progress in finding out how the universe works and how it got started. They've already given us an indication of the extent of the universe - that it's unlimited. We're all living together in this universe. We're on one little-bitty speck of it, and I guess as human beings we aren't any more important in the vast scheme of things than an ant, or a bird, or any other living thing." >________________________________ > From: authfriend <jst...@panix.com> >To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com >Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 9:09 AM >Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pikes Peak carriage line eating station > > > >--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Emily Reyn <emilymae.reyn@...> wrote: >> >> Harry Buckwalter did some great early photography and early >> documentary films. Â He left Pennsylvania for Colorado at an >> early age. >> >> I come from a German Buckwalter lineage on my mother's side. >> Hard working, serious folk. Â After Germany, most all herald >> from Pennsylvania. > >I have Pennsylvania Dutch (Dutch = Deutsch, i.e., German) >ancestry as well, although not in the Buckwalter line as >far as I know. My mother's grandparents were strict >Calvinist farm folk, serious and hard-working as they come. > >> > From: Yifu <yifuxero@...> >> >To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com >> >Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 7:13 PM >> >Subject: [FairfieldLife] Pikes Peak carriage line eating station >> > >> > >> >Â >> >1895, by Harry Buckwalter. We can assume the hikers resume their trek to >> >the top of Pikes Peak, taking care not to disturb any Whistle Pigs. >> > >> >http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/6/52741.jpg >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > >
