Growing up, how many of you heard your parents or grandparents say, “When I was a child, we didn’t have . . . ”
In my late teens, I pondered how I’d one day finish that sentence. As the years went by and technology advanced, the answer became obvious. Growing up, I didn’t have a home computer, tablet, cell phone, or Instant Pot, to name but a few. Back then, most people had only one television with access to only four or five channels, one phone—still attached to the wall by a cord—and only the most basic of video games.
Technological Advancements
Why do I bring this up? Because today would have been my paternal grandmother’s 133rd birthday. While I’ve seen many technological advancements in my lifetime, she saw major advancements in her 103 years.
Think about it. When she was born in 1888, things we take for granted today were either in their infancy or hadn’t yet been invented. Take travel, for example. Getting around was still mostly done by horse, animal-drawn carriages/carts, or walking. Yes, there were trains, but they didn’t go everywhere. The first successful gas-powered automobile with an internal combustion engine wasn’t patented in the U.S. until 1893. (Germany had the first patent in 1886.) But having an automobile in the early 1900s didn’t make travel easy. The lack of paved roads and gas stations made long-distance travel practically impossible until many decades later. And planes had yet to fly when she was born, much less carry hundreds of passengers around the world daily.
Did you know what mode of travel you took depended on where you were? Around 1905, when Grandmother attended college in Nashville, she traveled the approximately twenty miles from her home to the school, by train. (The railroad had come through in the 1850s.)
On the other hand, eight years later in 1913, my maternal grandmother, born in 1901, traveled by covered wagon when her family moved from West Texas to New Mexico.
The Birthday
Back in 1988, as we prepared to celebrate Grandmother’s 100th birthday, it hit me how many changes she’d seen in her lifetime. She was a living, breathing, history book.
Unfortunately, during those last three years of her life, I picked her brain about family history only. I didn’t delve into how technology affected her life. I never thought to ask her about riding or driving her first car, or what it was like to talk on a telephone, turn on electric lights, or watch television for the first time. Most importantly, I never asked her about having one of the first pacemakers in the Houston area, and the changes that brought.
Technology: Good or Bad?
Technology brings change and brings it fast. Even if today’s technological changes aren’t as dramatic as what my grandmother experienced, they still change the way we do things. In some cases, this is good, improving our quality of life. In other aspects, maybe not so much. One of the worst by-products of today’s technology is as a distraction. It pulls us away from spending quality time with our families. Don’t be distracted by your electronics. Make time to talk to your grandparents, parents, and/or children. Record your specific family’s history and stories, including how technological progress has changed your way of life.