more census fun

i found my other grandma!

things we learned: my great-grandparents (her parents) were RICH.  my grandma norma's family had lost their home in the depression and were living in a rented apartment - not uncommon.  my mom's mom's parents still owned their home, worth $30,000 - and had a live-in servant.  CRAZINESS.

then i went on a census expedition to find who lived in the house i grew up in.  (pause: i promise i do have a life.  this is just consuming SOME of it.)  my dad knew the name of the people who lived there at the time, which was CRUCIAL.  for my grandma in minnesota and my grandma in new york, knowing the address would have been enough to find the record.  in rural north carolina, the records were divided into "east of highway 18" and "west of highway 18," with no attempt being made to list any addresses.

looking through the census records in rural north carolina was a SAD adventure.  in the box marked "rent per month or value of house," i saw this many times

if that's hard to read, it says "share crops."  ugh.  as a history teacher, of course i know there were sharecroppers in 1940.  but to see it in black and white near where you grew up - that makes it real.

in the box for "highest grade of school completed," if was not uncommon to see this for an adult man:

UGH.

here are the people who owned our house:

our house was about 5 years old at the point, dad says, and the census says it was worth $800 - so they were doing much better than probably half the people around them, who rented or were sharecroppers.  the highest level of education completed by our house's first occupants: 3rd grade.  they were farmers.  the "amount of money wages or salary received" in the previous year:

that is a blank box - again, not uncommon as i looked through the records.  dad says that they would have traded for everything they needed.  UGH again.

the census is INCREDIBLY cool.

my grandfathers are up next in my census adventures, but i am having trouble finding their addresses, and as one lived in greenwich, connecticut and the other in omaha, nebraska, i'm going to need some addresses.  there are too many records to just page through without some guidance.  this census adventure is to be continued...