Re: OT: births, was Re: Quick Announcement

On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> My greatgrandfather was one of eight children, all of whom AFAIK lived
> as well.   His brothers set up a lumbermill in East Texas in 1917, and, after
> founding the small towns of Wiergate and Bon Wier, moved to Houston.
> He had three children; his son had three children; and my father had two.
Wow.  When I was a kid I always used to wish there was something to
point at in my family history; but if even my parents don't know...<wry
g>  I also hated those "find out about your family heritage" assignments
I'd get every so often.  There just wasn't any information after 2 or 3
generations back.

> Family history is kinda a weird subject for me. I discovered a few years back
> to my everlasting shame that at least two branches of my mother's family were
> slave-owners in the 19th century; in the 1820 census, it was recorded that we
> owned 17 slaves while living in Mississippi, 14 males and 3 females.  That's
> part of the reason I want to go into education so as to atone for the sins of
> the family (I can't, of course, but I should try at any rate).   On the other hand,
> IIRC another part of my family were petty nobility in Germany before they
> emigrated from the Rhineland in 1786.
>
> (That could of course also be read as saying that that ENTIRE line was
> oppressive.  Oh well.)
I can see that.  I was and remain fairly ignorant of Korean history...it
wasn't until two years ago that I realized that the facts that my
mother's father avoided fighting WWII for the Japanese by studying (I
don't know what, and I'm afraid to ask) at a university in Tokyo, and
that my mom's parents fled south from a village in what's now North
Korea practically in Manchuria, meant that in all likelihood they were
Japanese collaborators.  OTOH my father's grandfather was some totally
minor rebel against the Japanese from the Seoul area, which *probably*
means that he had ties with the Communists.  (North = communists/rebels
against Japanese rule and South = capitalists/collaborators with the
Japanese is a bit of an oversimplification, but it'll do.  Bruce Cumings
discusses it more thoroughly in _Korea's Place in the Sun_, as if Korea
ever *had* a place in whatever sun.  But I digress.)  Funny how these
things work out.

I'm also too afraid to bring up the subject of the Japanese occupation
with my family, ever, though I do know my mother's father is still
fluent in Japanese.  I don't if, like other Koreans I've heard about of
that generation, he refuses to speak it, and for the past few years he's
been suffering heart problems (more old age than anything else).

By this time probably everyone in Korea is way, way distantly related to
some dynasty or other <G>, what with all the nobility sleeping
around...or maybe that's true in many cultures....

I suppose I want to be a teacher to "spread the math" and show how it's
interesting and useful, not for any particularly grand altruistic
reason.  :-/  Unlike many people in STEP (teacher ed program I'm in), I
haven't always dreamed of being a teacher.  Someday I would like to sit
in a class taught by you.  :-)

YHL, realizing that she hasn't returned to Texas in almost 10 years

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