The Grosh Family - Generation 50
by Bob Grosh, Generation 52
Herbert Grosh 1896 - 1978 was a member of the Grosh family. Herbert was born on February 28, 1896. Herbert died on April 1978 at 82 years old.
Herbert Grosh's last known residence is at Springfield, Fairfax County, Virginia 22153
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| Herbert Grosh - Circa 1959 |
Here is Herb
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| Elva Grosh - Circa 1960 |
He was visiting us in Florida. This picture is in the back yard of our house on 6 Bass Rd in Fort Walton Beach. The road has since been renamed Ohio Pine
This is his wife, Elva. I'm not sure where the picture was taken, but it might be stone mountain Georgia.
In Ohio, Elva was the owner/operator of a small upholstery shop, it was located in the garage behind their house. Later, she taught school. She was only a substitute teacher at first because she didn't have the required certification. The story goes that a fire in Ohio destroyed a lot of the records, so she claimed to have a teaching certificate from there and got a job in Georgia as a teacher. She was named teacher of the year several times when they lived in Georgia.
When she and Herb both retired they moved to south Florida. One hot summer day they were picking strawberries at a nearby farm when she had a heart attack and died.
People and places that Herb and Elva visited in their lifetime.
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| Jenny is lonely Bobby, won't you play cards with her? |
Here is Elva's mom, Jenny Charles, Generation 49. Jenny is on the left. Her sister is on the right. This was taken on the front porch of my great grandma and grandpa Charles's house in California when we visited in the late 50's
Jenny loved to play cards. When she played cards with her great-grandkids, she cheated like hell. Of course, we eventually figured it out, but didn't dare protest. She taught me how to play poker. We used pennies, nickels and dimes for chips.
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| Jenny, grab the cute one, I'll whack his dad with this rock and we'll run. |
Great grandma Jenny Charles and Grandpa Charles visiting a family grave in California. That's my dad pulling weeds. The three kids are my brother sister and me. I'm the one with my hands in my pockets. The pockets were probably empty. I kept my hands there a lot when grandma Charles was around. They both had a sense of humor.
Another picture of great-grandma and grandpa Charles. I remember a 50th wedding anniversary. They had saves the wishbones from every Thanksgiving turkey during their years together and had them attaches to a wide ribbon with little bows. They painted the 50th one gold.
Great-grandma got up at dawn every morning and slowly shuffled, all hunched over with arthritis, to the kitchen. She kept a huge bottle of aspirin next to the sink. Barely able to move she would pour out a hand full of aspirin into one hand and popped all of them in her mouth. After washing them down with a full glass of water, she would do a little dance, completely cured of arthritis. The dance she did was a jig. The same dance she did when Great-grandpa Charles played the fiddle. He was really good at playing the jig on the fiddle.
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| You kids stay put. We'll send your parents when we get to the top of the hill. |
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| I never met her, can we dig her up? |
I remember dad always having his aviator sunglasses. I guess if you are a fighter pilot, you never go anywhere without them, But really, my dad wore WHITE SOCKS?
Chuck and I seemed to understand the solemn nature of this place. Or maybe we were just bored. Becky seemed to have fun no matter where we were.
There isn't much for kids to do at a cemetery. The Charles's didn't have any toys for grandkids to play with, so there wasn't much to do there either. At the Charles's house we could watch TV or play in the back yard. It was great to watch that black and white TV because great-grandpa Charles was hard of hearing and the sound was turned up real loud. We could watch Bonanza and Gunsmoke without mom hollering at us to turn it down, she didn't dare.
I loved those westerns. but then, all kids loved westerns, there wasn't much else.
Of course the clicker would change the channel whenever there was a wrestling match on. Great Grandpa loved wrestling.
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| Hey Chuckie, help me get her to the trash bin in the ally. |
A few explanations are needed here. It was a real clicker. The buttons were like little triggers, they fired hammers inside the remote that "clicked" against small tuning forks. A vacuum tube in the TV picked up the frequency of each tuning fork and made the channel or volume go up or down. That might sound like it would be slow to change channels, but, even in LA, there were only five.
The technology wasn't the only thing that was different. Wrestling involved two men in trunks who wrestled. There were no chairs over the head, punching out the manager, skimpily clad girls, shouting at the opponent, clown like costumes, or throwing the ref out of the ring. In short, it was boring there too.
With no bicycles or other playthings, the back yard only offered up a wheelbarrow.
Here is the front porch. It was the best place. Great grandpa Charles would go set on the front porch when there was nothing on TV but the soaps. He told stories, not just any stories, but ones about wagon trains, settlers, horses, guns and Indians. We told Westerns. He told about the year long journeys his grandparents families took by wagon train to cross America and reach California from the East. He told about searching for gold and silver. He told about an uncle's family all being killed during an Indian raid, all except one small child. This one child was take and raised by the Indians. He hated the Indians because of what they did to his family and killed some of them by sneaking up on them at night and slitting their throats. As the west was settled, he found his way back to his family, but, having grown up with the Indians, he did not like the white mans way of life. He then moved back with the Indians and took an Indian wife.
Imagine that. My grandmother was born before Henry Ford made his first model T. Her father was born before the Write Brothers first airplane flight. But her grandparents crossed the prairies in wagon trains before the
Transcontinental railroads were built.
