August 5, 2013 - July 13, 1913

It was the middle of July in 1913 in a small mining town in western Pennsylvania that Sophie and John Churan welcomed their first child into the world.  Times were different then.  He wasn’t born in a hospital surrounded by scores of doctors and nurses with equipment buzzing everywhere.  Little Andrew was never really sure what his actual birth date was but celebrated July 13 as his birthday because that was when his birth was recorded at the county offices.

 

The world had yet to see its first global conflict. Telephones were a luxury as less than 10% of homes had one and the first coast to coast telephone call wouldn’t happen for two more years.  There were less than one million cars in the United States. If you could afford one, it would cost $800. Trains were the ideal mode of long distance transportation as the first commercial scheduled flight wouldn’t happen for six months. The Titanic sank the year before but there was no CNN to let everyone know. The newspaper, almost dead today, was the best means of circulating the news. They were available daily with special editions available when news broke.

The first public radio broadcast had only occurred three years earlier and it would be another decade before radios became a popular household item.  Movies were fifteen minutes long and Charlie Chaplin was going to sign his first movie contract the same month. The thought of a television would have been laughable.

There were no large grocery stores. A loaf of bread was a nickel, a pound of steak was twenty cents, a gallon of milk was thirty five cents and penny candy actually did cost a penny.  That fifteen minute movie would cost you seven cents.  The average wage was $0.22 per hour and most took home between $400 and $600 per year.

In 1913, the life expectancy for a man was 50 and for a woman it was 55. In the last 100 years, that expectance has increased by 50% to 75 for men and 81 for women.  In many ways our lives have gotten easier and our health system much better which has allowed us to live much longer than our ancestors.

The world in 1913 seems more than 100 years ago in many ways.

My dad lived a life that was simple in nature but he tended to enjoy whatever it was he was a part of. Family was all important to him throughout his life as I remember relatives always being over to our home. That probably came from the close relationship he had with his mother and younger sister, Margaret as his father died when he was five.

He was as different as can be when compared to my childhood. I was sheltered from everything as my mother felt that I would die for sure if I was exposed to just about anything. My kids still love to make fun of me whenever we talk about the fact that I had to learn how to ride a bicycle at the age of 13. In comparison, my dad had to move away from home and work on a farm to help support the family at the age of 14.

At 14, he was a big as he was ever going to get. He was strong as an ox and earned every dime he was paid.  Mature beyond his years, one of his favorite stories was when some of the men he worked with put him up to fight one of the other men that worked on the farm as a cheap form of entertainment.  Dollars were wagered on both the boy and the man. They were put inside of a box car and only the winner was to walk out of the car.  There was straw and cow manure everywhere but that didn’t slow either of them down. He gave the twenty something man everything he could handle and walked out the victor. He was tough but five years later he met his match and she was anything but the rough and tumble man my father had become.

When he met my mother, Julia Pregon in 1932, his world changed. From the very first moment he saw her, he knew she would be his wife.  For 41 years, they loved, laughed, fought, cried and worked together.  My mother was just as ambitious as my father and smart well beyond her ten years of education. Individually they were strong, but together they were special. We all hope to have a life with another person as they did. When he lost her, he lost a bit of himself, I’m not sure he was ever the same.

He lived through the depression and learned the value of a dollar at a young age, something he never forgot.  Always hard working, he worked full time until he was 70. He was never a rich man, but one that enjoyed the simple things like reading a book, playing cards or just taking a walk.

His greatest thrill in life aside from yours truly was when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.  His love of science fiction was with him for decades.  In 1969 when we saw “2001: A Space Odyssey” it as if all of those years of reading paperbacks all came true.  Not sure why I have held on to them, but I still have hundreds of science fiction books that my dad read from the 1940’s on.  I guess it is just my way of hanging on to him a bit.

He lived to be 77 and he saw the world change around him unlike any generation before.  The only thing he really missed was the birth of a grandchild as died three months before Justin’s birth. He had waited so long to hold his son and just couldn’t hold on long enough to hold a grandchild.  Hopefully, both he and my mother have enjoyed seeing the boys grow and become the wonderful men that they are.  He made a real difference in my life. I can only hope I will make the same in theirs.