Mom was born a month after the ratification of the 18th<\/sup> amendment<\/strong> \u2013 that\u2019s the one that prohibited the consumption of alcohol. It wasn\u2019t appealed until she was 24, at which time she immediately went out and ordered a Gin Rickey<\/strong> \u2013 a popular \u2018highball\u2019 at the time. A year after she was College football\u2019s top team in 1919 was, are you ready for this? Harvard<\/strong>. There was no NFL or NBA; hockey did play for the Stanley Cup<\/strong>, although they didn\u2019t play for it in 1919 due to a flu epidemic.\u00a0 People spent their leisure time roller skating, playing pool, dancing or going to the movies.<\/p>\n Mom probably went to the movies before she was 8, if so, they were silent movies; \u2018talkies\u2019<\/strong> didn\u2019t happened until 1927. Vaudeville<\/strong> was still a popular form of entertainment and as a teenager I\u2019m sure mom didn\u2019t talk on the phone much, OK not at all; telephones were very expensive and Mom was raised in the \u2018Roaring 20s\u2019<\/strong>, lived through the Great Depression<\/strong>, traveled from Marin County<\/strong> to San Francisco<\/strong> on a ferry since the Golden Gate Bridge<\/strong> wasn\u2019t built until she was 18.\u00a0 She was married with a 5 month old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Help us reach our goal and ‘subscribe’ to our blog<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bob Sparrow 1919 – 2013\u00a0 First, let me thank all those who sent their condolences to our family for the passing of our mother; she was an iconic lady who, with our Dad, created an incredibly close and loving\u00a0family. … read more![\"Woodrow](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Woodrow-Wilson.jpg\")
<\/a>She was born in 1919, only three months after the end of \u2018The Great War\u2019<\/strong> \u2013 it wasn\u2019t called World War I until we had another World War and started ascribing Roman numerals to them.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope we see no more Roman numerals. Woodrow Wilson<\/strong> was president \u2013 she had seen 17 different presidents in her life, well, not \u2018seen\u2019 them, but . . . you know what I mean. The unusual thing about Wilson\u2019s election was that he was the only presidential candidate to run against two previous presidents, incumbent, William Howard Taft<\/strong> and\u00a0Teddy Roosevelt<\/strong> who was president before Taft and wanted to try it again\u00a0–<\/strong>\u00a0Wilson beat them both. \u00a0Old ‘Woody’ got elected to a second term promising to keep us out of war, which he didn’t – hard to believe that a politician wouldn’t keep his word.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>born, the 19th<\/sup>amendment<\/strong>, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified; never mind that it was introduced into congress in 1878, so it only took 42 years to get through that bureaucratic \u2018good ole boy\u2019s club\u2019 \u2013 and you thought we have a \u2018do nothing\u2019 congress today. OK, we do. And speaking of \u2018tools\u2019, the toaster was invented in 1920, but sliced bread wasn\u2019t created until 1928, which makes one wonder what they put in those new toasters.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0Railroads were still the most common way to get around, but Henry Ford<\/strong> was changing that with the introduction of the Model T<\/strong> in 1908.\u00a0 In 1919 you could buy one for about $350 \u2013 a goodly sum of money in those days. The Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk<\/strong> took place only 16 years before mom was born and the very first commercial flight in the US took place only 5 years before. It’s mind-boggling to think that mom could have met both\u00a0Orville Wright<\/strong> and Neil Armstrong<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/a> not even available in rural areas; most folks still relied on the telegraph to get a message to someone.<\/p>\n<\/a>No wonder mom used to just shake her head when she\u2019d see a \u2018smartphone\u2019, a self-parking car or a wireless printer, about the only thing that hadn\u2019t changed over the years was the Gin Rickey<\/strong> and maybe that\u2019s why she loved them; it took her back to a simpler time and reminded her of all that she had experienced in a lifetime full of wonder. She did live in interesting times.<\/p>\n