NOT politics (mostly)--the Princess and the Frog

[purchasemonkey]

   changinganswers, lurkingowl, pixiecrack and I got together on Friday to watch movies. The ladies present voted for Disney's "The Princess and the Frog," having heard good things about it during the Oscars and in general. The gentlemen present voted for something else (I think it was the first episode of the HBO WWII miniseries "The Pacific," but I may be remembering incorrectly).

Comments

Marriage

[purchasemonkey]

As I understand it, before the Civil War, my family owned property (there's a town named after the plantation--my uncle always steals the road sign and puts it on his door at work--he's a cop). I believe that the marriage customs at that time involved marrying other wealthy people, who were thus other Creole planters and their family members. My aunt Susan has genealogical data going back quite a way, compiled by my late great-grand-aunt (her namesake, who was born in 1899, was a schoolteacher for 42 years, and who taught me how to use power tools, write in cursive and play Scrabble and card games).

The progression happened due to the Civil War. Our family lost its property at that time, as the family mythology goes (I don't actually know what the legal records say; I'm the eldest son of the eldest son going back to at least my great-grandfather's father, so around the Civil War). For the record, the Civil War was a good thing. =)

My paternal grandfather was a veteran of submarines in WWII (which, according to my dad, also Navy, means he was insane). He married an Australian nurse (my grandmother). He worked as a farmer and as a pipefitter after the war, eventually becoming a professional pipefitter and union man while his family and renters worked the land. He sent all his kids to college (who wanted to go) and was a relatively well-off man for the area (as rural farmers go--i.e. not rich, but owned land and could send his kids to school). My dad went to college, flunked out, married my mom (Louisiana WASP, family from Georgia) and joined the Navy. My dad was a command master chief and my mother a psychologist.

It was always assumed I would go to college and work in a professional field of some kind. My mother's father, who was a white-collar worker for a large successful lumber firm, helped finance my private-school education. My father's middle sister (five kids on that side) was a nurse-anesthetist. It's a family tradition at this point, although my decision was shaped more by my mother's friend's professional opinion (nurse-clinician and leader) and a scholastic advising firm than by family opinion.

More information than you wanted, really.

Re: Marriage

[orichalcum]

Actually, I love hearing family histories. :) Though amusingly, when I first met the two of you I assumed pixiecrack was the French one given her extremely French pair of names.

Do you think of ever moving back to Louisiana, ooc?

If your grandfather was presumably in the South Pacific and ever wounded, he might have been treated by my grandfather, who was a doctor who spent much of his time dealing with Naval and especially submarine casualties.

I don't know if you know, incidentally, that CP spent about 2 years flying down to New Orleans every few weeks working on a big post-Katrina case trying to restore public housing to people displaced by the hurricane. So he got to know the city reasonably well, although I've only been there once for a conference, in 2003.

I consider myself sadly ignorant of the South in general, due to the aforementioned media bias and a general Northeast/West Coast orientation, and like acquiring knowledge that humanizes areas of the world I tend to make snap judgments about.

Re: Marriage

[gannok]

Unfortunately for me, my grandfather wasn't nearly anything as exciting as a Submariner. Or a Human Torch for that matter. Frankly, he wasn't any of the Invaders. He was a PFC though. He was stationed in Germany. As a mailman. So no really interesting stories. Though the one that he told that I thought was great, was how he told off some 2 star and got a promotion out of it.

He was a chaplin in Korea though. He got to meet the then leader of South Korea. Had nothing but nice things to say about the man.