To get the information for my report I contacted both sets of my grandparents. My paternal grandparents, Bill and Johanna McAdams, and my maternal grandparents, Paul and Georgia Beasley. They sent me general information about their lives and some special memories that they have. I have learned a lot about my family through doing this report, that I did not know before.

My grandmother, Johanna Hettie Moore was born on August 11, 1927 to Andrew Bright Moore and Agnes Birdie McCarty Moore in Louisville, KY. She was named after her mother’s good girlfriend Hettie. She was born at home, as most people were in those days because women did not go to the hospital to give birth. She was given her first haircut at three weeks old, because she was born in the summer and her hair was so thick that it kept her neck broken out with heat rash. Hettie’s husband gave her the haircut. He was a barber and gave haircuts to anybody who needed them on Sundays for free.

My grandmother had two brothers, Carl and Andy, who were both older than her. One of her early memories of her brothers is during the winter when they were pulling her around on a sled. They got in trouble for playing too rough and making her fall off. She began to cry until her mother said that she could stay out and play longer. She was not a typical girl, she loved to play with her brothers and do all of the rough things that boys do. The three of them once caught a snake, cut it up, and watched the pieces move after it was dead. They were fascinated by that.

In 1931, the Moores moved from the city to the country. When they first moved they did not have electricity. They used oil lamps for light and a wood burning stove in the kitchen for heat. My grandmother remembers one morning when her mother wrapped her in a blanket and stood her on a chair while she cooked breakfast. It was so cold in the kitchen that my grandmother could see her breath. My grandmother loved her mother very much. She was always singing and making up songs about what was going on. She could always make my grandmother laugh. My grandmother’s father also liked to make her laugh. One evening he brought a box into the kitchen for my grandmother and said that she had to be very careful with it. When she opened the box she was surprised to find three baby rabbits. They all began to jump around the kitchen and my grandmother tried to catch them all at once. Her father had as much fun watching her as she had trying to catch the rabbits.

The Moores, like most people at this time, spent a lot of time in the kitchen because it was the only place in the house with heat. Everyone took baths in the "warsh" tub in the kitchen on Saturday night. After one took a bath one waited for one’s hair to dry, took a hot water bottle, and ran to one’s bed. My grandmother even had a hat that her mother made for her to sleep in because it was so cold in the winter.

Because it was a poor time in America, getting extra, unnecessary things was very special. The Christmas of 1933, was very special for my grandmother. She was six and her brother, Carl, was eleven. Her dad had not worked much that year so her parents told them that Santa Claus was poor, but they may have one present. Because they lived in the country, they very seldom went to town, Louisville, to shop. But on Christmas Eve of 1933, they all got into the old Lincoln touring car and went shopping at Levis’. Levis’ was one of the biggest department stores at the time and was located on Market Street in Louisville. My grandmother and her mother went up to the doll department where my grandmother saw the most beautiful doll in the world, according to her. But the doll cost sixteen dollars, which to her was a very large sum. So when her mother asked which doll she wanted, she chose one that cost only six dollars, a more reasonable price. Her mother asked her if that was the one that she really wanted and my grandmother confessed that she really wanted the beautiful sixteen-dollar one in the beautiful purple coat and bonnet (my grandmother’s favorite color). Her mother said that if she really wanted it, she could have it. She was so excited that she could hardly stand it! The clerk wrapped the doll and gave it to my grandmother to carry. She was afraid of holding it too tight and breaking it, but her mother assured her that the doll would not break.

They then met her father and Carl downstairs. Carl had a huge grin on his face and a long slender box under his arm. It was the .22 rifle that he had wanted for so long. They then went to the restaurant at the back of the store to eat lunch. After they ordered only two sandwiches and two pieces of pie for the four of them her father said that he had to go see about something and left them for a short time. He returned with a large package that he claimed was something for the farm. Then her mother said that she also had something to purchase and returned with a large package saying that it was material for a quilt she was making. This did not seem unusual because she always had a quilt in some stage of construction.

When they left the store it was beginning to get dark and was snowing hard. They lived about ten miles from town. Although it began to snow harder they stopped at Four Comers to buy some groceries. There were no grocery stores in those days, but this was the store where they always bought a big pickle in a little wooden tray, a whole roll of bologna, and a large jar of peanut butter. As they went farther into the country it became harder and harder to see the road. There wasn’t any traffic on the road and certainly not any snow plows or salt trucks. My grandmother and her brother, Carl, had unwrapped their gifts and were comparing their usefulness. To my grandmother, Carl’s gun was a "dumb ole gun" and to Carl, her doll was a ‘useless ole doll".

Finally, her father had to get out of the car and scrape the snow off of the windshield and headlights to see the road. Carl got out with him and took his gun. At the same time a brown rabbit ran across the road in front of the headlights and Carl shot it! He was so proud. The whole family was so proud of him, but he also got a scolding for having the gun loaded in the car. When they finally got home they were all tired but happy. Mother made hot chocolate and they had fruitcake and all went to bed happy.

The next morning, Christmas morning, they had a big breakfast of fried ham, milk gravy, good thick milk and lots of blackberry jam for the biscuits. Dad had skinned the rabbit and told Carl that he could make himself a pair of fir lined gloves out of his first rabbit. Dad made a fife in the living room so that they could sit in there and sing carols. When it was finally warm enough, my grandmother and Carl walked in and saw more presents under the tree. Carl received a new pair of black lace up boots that came all the way up to the knee and had a pocket with a shiny new pocketknife in it. He was so happy to receive his new boots. My grandmother remembers him wearing them to church with his gray knickers, belted jacket and gray cap. She thought he looked so grown up in that outfit.

My grandmother’s present was the biggest doll that she had ever seen. There was also a little red suitcase that had some dresses and a coat for her doll made from the scraps of her last year’s winter coat. It had been handed down to her from her cousin in the city and was light green with dark brown fir trim around the collar. My grandmother and her mother had many good times making clothes for her new dolls after that.

My grandmother’s first grade teacher was Miss Marshall. She was very kind and let my grandmother sit by the door the first week so she could see her mother coming to get her. One winter morning, the snow was so bad that the school bus did not run and they walked to school, which was about a mile from their house. There was a creek along the side of the road and they tried to ice skate to school. By the time they got to school, the pint of milk and peanut butter sandwiches in my grandmother’s school bag had frozen. She always took an extra sandwich and shared her milk with a friend at school who never brought a lunch. People in those days always helped each other out in any way possible. Another example of people helping others is my grandmother’s mother always kept a pot of soup on the stove because they lived along a highway and many homeless families traveled along the highways looking for work. My great-grandparents could not pay them to work, but they always offered food to the hungry. They sometimes had two or three families per day come to their house looking for work or food.

The Moores moved to Alabama when my grandmother finished fifth grade. All of their friends and relatives still lived in Louisville. Sometimes in the summer months they would all come to see them. Mother would begin to cook the day before they arrived. When they got there the kitchen was crowded with women and all of the children were told to go outside until they were called to dinner. This was never a problem because there was always a new litter of pups, kittens, or baby pigs to go see, or the old turkey to chase and torment, the big barn with the hayloft full of hay, the creek to wade in and find worms and crawdads to put on the city kids and watch them scream. There was a swing made out of an old tire, a Catalpa Tree to climb, a seesaw made out of an old board and sawhorse, and of course the most fun of all, the barrels that Dad hauled the "slop" for the pigs in. They turned the empty drums on their side and tried to see who could stay on the longest while trying to knock the other person off of his barrel Or another way to stay entertained was to go to the pasture where the "mean" bull was and make him run at one or just bother him some other way. There was also a fairly gentle mule that could be ridden if it could be caught.

When they were called to dinner, they found that all of the grown-ups had already eaten and the men were sitting at the ice cream freezers piling on the salt and ice brought from the city in wash tubs covered with gunny sacks and wrapped in lots of newspaper. My grandmother remembers one year when they had persimmon ice cream that she particularly enjoyed. She remembers a time when there were so many people in the house that she had to go out the back door and in the front to get to the other side of the table.

When the ice cream was finished they had cakes, pies, and all the desserts imaginable. If it was cool enough the grown-ups would sit in the side yard and finish all of their gossiping while the kids played "anti-over". A game where two teams stood on opposite sides of the house and threw a ball over the roof The person who caught the ball then ran around the house and tried to tag someone on the other side. The team with the last person left "in" was the winner. This game could, and often did, result in a few broken windows, but none the less it was allowed.

As the sun went down, they were allowed to eat any "left-overs" if they had room. When it got dark the seats were taken out of the cars and they sat on them in the yard. It was easy to take the seats out of cars in those days because all of the tools for the car were stored under the seat and the seats were meant to be taken out easily to get to the tools. There were no trunks on cars then as we know them today. Everyone would sit or lay on the car seats in the yard and look at the stars. By this time all of the chiggers and mosquito bites from the day were beginning to itch, but this never seemed to bother anyone much. Mother always washed off the kids before bed in a pan of good cold well water. And painted each bite with Mercurochrome, a red antiseptic that took days to wash off.

One such gathering was at haying time when Dad’s tractor was broken down He hitched a rake to the back of a Whippet car and raked the hay into rows. Some of the men who had come to visit pitched in with pitchforks and would fork the hay up on the hay wagon, then helped to put the hay up in the barn. Uncle Lem, one of the helpers accidentally forked a hornet’s nest, which caused many of the workers to run away fast, but some got stung anyway.

Before the men went in for dinner, they always stopped by the creek to wash off the itchy hay and some of the sweat. And out came the Mercurochrome for the blisters on the hands of the city boys.

There was always something to do on the farm. Such as a lot of trees to climb especially when the apples were ripe, or not so ripe. One could always climb up and pick just the right one to eat. Or sometimes the right ones to eat which often resulted in stomachaches. The apple trees were great fun, but the best trees to climb were the young ones that were just big enough to have limbs that could support one’s weight. This was because if one climbed to the very top of the tree and got it to sway back and forth, finally getting it to go so far that it would bend all the way to the ground and one could get off This had to be done just right so that the branches wouldn’t slap one all over.

My grandmother had a dog named Brownie. He was a gentle, brown and white Beagle. One day my grandmother was playing with her dolls under the big apple tree. The branches of the tree hung to the ground in some places and my grandmother put her doll bed, clothes and rocker under the tree to play. Brownie was under there with her and she dressed him up in her doll clothes and put him to sleep in the bed. She played there most of the day and would not let the dog out of the bed. Then she went off to do something else and forgot all about the poor dog. When Brownie was called to dinner, he came around the side of the house with his bonnet on the side and having a hard time walking in his coat. They had a good laugh about that poor mistreated dog.

My grandmother’s first date was in junior high. It was with a neighbor boy, they went to a birthday party. My grandmother thought that she was in love. Then when she went to school the next day, the boy was laughing and talking with another girl and he acted like he did not know her. She got even with him though, when he asked her to go to the movies with him that weekend, (because her brother could drive them in his car) she told him to get lost

The Moores moved back to Louisville at the beginning of World War II. My grandmother’s brother, Carl, joined the army and her older brother, Andy, who had four kids by that time, worked for 3eff Boat as a defense worker. My grandmother’s high school days were centered around the war. No one could have new shoes or makeup and no one could waste money by going anywhere. The high schools then were all single sex schools. My grandmother attended Shawnee Girls High School in Louisville.

Her father went to work in Memphis, Tennessee. He worked at a plant that made gliders out of plywood that were used to carry troops behind enemy lines. He sent all of his money home to my grandmother and her mother. He received some bonuses for some of his ideas that he had at work. He sent that money home for them to buy War Bonds. My grandmother’s high school had an incentive going on with the War Bonds and Stamps. They were all in the "army" and were promoted according to how much money they collected for War Stamps and Bonds. My grandmother used her dad’s bonus money, was made a four star general, and had her picture in the newspaper.

Because of the war, there was not much going on. Most every day at school they heard about someone’s father, brother, uncle, etc. who had been wounded or killed in some place they had never heard of. They learned a lot of geography because teachers often had discussions on the war and showed where it was taking place. Most of the time everyone tried to forget about the war, but that was hard because it seemed like everything revolved around the war. Everything that had to be bought was rationed. Everyone had ration books with stamps in them that were issued by the government. Everyone had to have stamps to buy coffee, sugar, shoes, etc. After a while the shoes weren’t even made out of leather, they were made out of something else that was ugly and did not last long. The leather had to be used for the shoes of the men in the armed forces. Gasoline was rationed, there were no unnecessary trips anywhere. All of the grease from meat was saved and sent to the gunpowder plants. When the tires on a car were worn out, they were retreaded because no whole tires were available.

Everyone had "blackout curtains" for the air raid drills. During the drills all of the lights in the house had to be turned out and cars could not drive with their lights on. Everyone was afraid of being bombed like England was. It was a scary time for most everyone. Any fun that was had was mostly with family or close friends. The day after the war ended, my grandmother stood in line to buy nylon stockings for three hours because, they had only been allowed to wear cotton ones during the war.

My grandmother was very close to her mother all throughout her life. Her mother was very gentle and kind, she would always try to make my grandmother see the other person’s side. She tried to teach her children to be fair and to be aware of other people’s troubles. She taught them to try to help those friends who were not popular and who did not have pretty clothes. My grandmother was never part of the popular groups but she had a lot of friends who were fun to be with.

Since she had moved to Louisville from Alabama and entered a girls school she did not really know any boys to date. But, one time a friend of hers and she went on a date with her friend’s cousin and his friend. Her mother was afraid for her to go because she said that soldiers only wanted ‘one thing" and she said that my grandmother had to be careful what she said or did. But the two couples went to a movie then to her friends house to sing around the piano and the boys told some of their wild training stories.

Although my grandmother’s father worked a lot of the time, he still tried to be involved in his children’s lives. He was always interested in what they were doing, he wanted to know all about it. He especially wanted to know what they were reading because he was always reading. Both of my grandmother’s parents were strict about who her friends were. They often wouldn’t let her go with certain people if they did not know them very well or if they did not know their parents well.

My grandmother graduated from high school June 6, 1945 and began school at the University of Louisville on July 8, 1945. Her lather insisted that she try college and he paid her way. She was excited about college because there were Navy guys there. But, if one had any classes with them, one might as well have been invisible because the professors ignored everyone else to help the Navy. My grandmother was going to be a lab technician and she started college with a very tough schedule but after a year and a half, her father ran out of money and my grandmother had to go to work. She took night classes and met two new friends Bettie McAdams and Wanda Hall, the sister and a cousin of her future husband, Bill McAdams.

My grandmother met my grandfather at the church that they both attended. He was home from the Navy, and my grandmother went to school with his sister and his cousin, she was friends with them. They knew each other for three years before they got engaged. They planned to get married several times but waited because my grandfather did not have a job. They finally got married May 28, 1949 after my grandfather went to aircraft maintenance school in St. Louis. He still did not have a job when they got married, but my grandmother had a good job with the L&N Railroad. Their wedding was a regular wedding at a church with all of the trimmings. Their honeymoon was at Kentucky Lake. At that time the dam was the only thing there. They had to cross the river on a ferry boat. They stayed in a room in what had been the old hospital for the workers. The state converted it into a hotel.

My grandfather, William Glenn McAdams, was born January 12, 1925, in Louisville, KY to William A. and Sibyl Hazel Duvall McAdams. He said that no one had money in those days. His father worked for the Illinois Central Railroad, and they always had plenty of food. His mother made most of their clothes. When he was three years old they moved to an apartment on Twenty-fourth Street in Louisville. His Aunt Claudia, Uncle Canby and Cousin Wanda lived in the apartment above them. His mother made him a cap ‘to cover my red head" and one day he walked over to the fire in the grate, said "Bye, cap," and threw it in the fire.

My grandfather is the oldest of three siblings. His sister, Bettie is the second oldest, and Eugene is the youngest. They lived next door to a church that they attended.

My grandfather always liked school and made good grades. In the first grade he really liked his teacher, Mrs. Bell. His teacher’s daughter was in his class. Every morning at eleven Mrs. Bell sent two boys down to the lunch room to get a hot bun with peanut butter on it and half a pint of milk for everyone’s lunch. It cost three cents.

My grandfather’s family was, and is still, very close knit. My grandfather was always getting into trouble. He used to tease his brother, Gene, a lot and was switched many a time for it. His nickname was Bad Billy.

My grandfather also liked high school. He made good grades in all of his classes, except one, typing. The students were required to type forty words a minute and he could only type thirty-eight words per minute, so he failed the class. He later found out that there was something wrong with his finger and it was the cause of his typing problems. He later had a job at a small tool and die company keeping books and typing.

My grandfather’s first job was putting up hay for a neighbor farmer. He was paid twenty-five cents a day for working sunup to sundown they pitched the hay onto a horse drawn wagon and then into the hay loft. Sometimes there wasn’t room in the hay loft and they made hay stacks in the field. Everyone who was old enough and big enough had to work and do chores. They cut wood, fed the stock, plowed with horses, dug potatoes and them put them in baskets, or other such chores.

As a teenager my grandfather ran around with a group of six or eight people, guys and girls but they didn’t date. When he was eighteen, right before he left for the Navy he took Bettie Ann John out to a movie. It was his first real date. It cost fifteen cents each to go to the movie, they each got popcorn and a coke which was five cents each, the entire date cost my grandfather forty cents.

My grandfather was twenty-eight when he met my grandmother. They went ice skating on their first date. My grandfather had skated a lot more than my grandmother so she tripped him and they ended up on the floor more than on their feet. His parents always loved her.

Six years after they were married, my dad, David Glenn was born. He was due in December, but wasn’t born until January 6, 1954. There were five couples who were friends with them who were all due at the same time. My grandfather said that "he was the sweetest and most lovable thing that ever came our way". My grandmother’s mother was so happy. She came to stay with them for a few days. My father had, in his words, "orange" hair. He loved to sing and could say the alphabet when he was eighteen months old. Then when he was six, his sister Emily Agnes was born. My grandparents experienced the same joy and elation that they had when my dad was born. He was so proud of her and loved to hold her and show her off. Alter about two years that all changed.

One day David saw an elephant on TV named Emily and started calling Emily, Emily Elephant. She cried and complained for days, but my grandmother couldn’t get my dad to stop. So, she finally told Emily to think of a name for David. Emily started calling him David Donkey. The names have stuck to this day.

One day my grandfather and my dad, who was three at the time, were wrestling around on the floor. My dad kicked my grandfather in the head and twisted his neck somehow. It was hurting so badly that my grandfather went to the hospital and got medication. He said that his neck was sore for a week. Another memory that my grandfather has is when Emily was three, and they had just moved to Southdale Road in Louisville. My grandmother called him at work one evening and said that Emily was lost. My grandmother was very shaken up. When my grandfather got home the police were there and they were asking questions. Suddenly, Emily came walking in the back door. She had been visiting and playing in the basement of another neighborhood child’s home the entire time.

This is the history of my father’s parents. Through finding this information about them, I have learned a lot about how they lived and why they hold important the things they do. I have learned especially about how World War II affected people who were here in the United States a lot and not just the soldiers.

My maternal grandfather, Paul Thomas Beasley, was born on April 11, 1935, to Ada Bell Strange and Milward Beasley in Woodford County, KY. My maternal grandmother, Georgia Ann Bannister, was born on August 23 1937, to Mary Elizabeth Hammond and Perry Walter Bannister in Woodford County, KY also. Because they were born and raised in the same place they have many things about their childhood’s in common. They same doctor, Dr. Gillipsie, attended their mothers in the births, which were, of course, at home. My grandmother has always thought that her name was Georgia Ann until recently she looked at her birth certificate and it said Georgia Anna. My grandfather was named after his grandfather, George Thomas Beasley.

My grandfather is the third of four children, Milward, Christine, and Caroline. My grandmother is the sixth of six children, Charles, Louis, Ruby, Thelma, and Ethel. My grandmother said her family was close and there was always love in it. Her parents were strict in discipline but strong in love. The kids had a lot of respect for them. One of my grandmother’s favorite times in elementary school was when she was crowned the May Queen in the sixth grade. My grandfather misbehaved a lot when he was young. Once when he was at school he knocked over the outhouse when someone was in it.

My grandmother liked high school. She attended Henry Clay High School in Lexington, KY. She sang in the chorus group and got to travel and perform. The group won a Superior rating in Richmond, KY at the Eastern College, she was also in the student council in high school My grandfather attended Versailles High School in Versailles, KY. He liked high school because he met a lot of new people in town. It was twelve miles away from where he lived. He rode a Harley and used to do tricks like stand on the seat and ride down the street. He also used to climb up flagpoles and could balance there on his stomach.

My grandmother moved a lot when she was younger, she moved five times from birth to teenage. She joined the Baptist Church when she was thirteen and went to the activities there regularly. She very much enjoyed the fellowship with the others there who were her age. She says this kept her out of a lot of trouble. For entertainment my grandparents both went to movies, skating and to ball games. The movies were especially a treat because no one then had a TV. They also played a lot of ball games with groups of friends from the neighborhood.

My grandparents knew each other from grade school. He used to come and see her on his bicycle when he was twelve. He came to see her at her sister’s house ( her sister was already married). Over the years they kept in touch. In high school when they were both dating he used to say that he was her summer boyfriend because she only paid attention to him when she visited her sister during the summer.

My grandmother’s first date was with a neighbor boy. Their parents knew each other very well. They took a city bus to the movies. On some of her first dates with my grandfather, her mother said that he would never make her a home, "he is too wild." My grandmother said that he wasn’t bad, just a showoff; and only appeared to be irresponsible. They "slipped oft" and got married at the Justice of Peace office at a young age. But she doesn’t recommend this.

My grandmother had a job in a "five and dime" store. She just wanted her own money to spend. After she married she stayed home as most women did, but she did take an accounting at a local business school Later in her life this paid off when she worked at a bank after her children got old enough to take care of themselves.

My grandparents have three children, Steven, Teresa (my mother) and Richard (Tony). They were all born in Lexington and lived in the county all of their lives. This is probably the reason that they never went as many places as other children their age, however when they did go places it was very special for them and they always had a lot of fun. Steve and Tony played basketball and Teresa was a cheerleader.

When Steve was young he had a BB gun. One day when he and Tony, who was two at the time, were playing with it, the preacher’s wife and daughter walked by. Tony started saying " Shoot ‘em in the butt, Stevie! Shoot ‘em in the butt!" So, he did. And Stevie and Tony received a whipping for that one, and Tony’s mouth got washed out with soap. Another time when Tony was about two, his grandmother was watching him and she heard him saying "Here kitty, kitty." Except the "kitty" that he was chasing wasn’t a kitty at all it was a skunk. Luckily she got him away before anything happened.

One day when Teresa was in the first grade she didn’t want to go to school, so she told my grandmother that she was sick. Then as soon as the bus left she "felt better" and got out of her bed to play Barbies. My grandmother told her that she needed to rest and made her get back in the bed. She had to stay there all day. Teresa never tried to skip school again. One thing Teresa always did was to trick Tony, who was younger than her, into playing dolls. She would tell him if he played dolls with her then she would play trucks with him. She would wear both of them out and they would always be too tired to care about playing trucks.

Tony, the youngest was always very inventive. Once, when he was only four, he came out of his room on a pair of skies that he had made out of newspaper and glue. He was "skiing" around the living room

This is the history of my mother’s parents. In finding this information, I have found out a lot about my grandparents and their families. And especially about where they received the values that they uphold today.