Jenny's Blog: Achievement (#52ancestors) Week 11

#52Ancestors

Week 11: Achievement

I had always thought of my grandfather, Dennis McDonald (1903-2004), as a lifelong farmer, just like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him. But it turns out that he had another achievement that he seldom talked about. The most tangible clue was on the living room wall above his cot: a cracked (and hideously-glued) 3D model of Tower Bridge in London (that I wish I had kept or had at least taken a good picture of).

When I did a tape-recorded interview with him for family history in 1999 (yes, I’ve been doing this for a long time!), this is what he told me:

“I worked for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. I went to London, England, for Firestone. And I was over there when they started a factory over there.” He was one of 16 (two from each department) selected “to break in labor over there in the new factory. And I went over there [in 1928] and stayed a year.”

When I asked how he ended up in Akron, Ohio, from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, this was his response:

“Well, when I couldn’t make a living here and I decided I was going to go work for the public, I went and got on a train in Nashville and went to Akron, Ohio” (he was “just past 20” at the time). He first worked at Quaker Oats, then the freight depot, and then Goodyear for about a year. “Then I went to Firestone, and I stayed there five years, and I went over to London for them. I worked here at home on the farm, and I said, ‘I can’t make a living here’ and so I just got out and got me a job.”

He came back to Tennessee in time for the 1930 census (leaving no "official" record of his time away) and farmed for the rest of his life.

While he was overseas, he and a group of friends made the trip across the English Channel to Paris, France. He found the grave of his cousin Landon, who was killed in “the War” (World War I) and took a picture of the grave marker to take back to Landon’s father. They also engaged in a bit of sight-seeing, including the Eiffel Tower.

While this adventure might not sound like much in today’s world, in 1928 it was a pretty impressive achievement for a Tennessee farm boy!