FAMILY TREES
As the technology keeps on advancing and the world becoming globalized with the introduction of social network sites, individuals are utilizing their DNA as well as sites such as ancenstry.com to learn about their family’s history. However, when I developed the need to understand my family’s history, I thought that it would be best to ask my parents. I needed to get more information about my family and ancestors, including their names, place of birth, birthdate, where they schooled and lived among other questions. My parents noted my curiosity, and we began from the past up to the present. The findings were quite interesting.
Although I had bits of information about my grandfathers, such as their race and names, I never knew any of them personally since they had passed on before my birth. However, I had the opportunity to know my grandmothers from both my father and mother’s side. Sadly, my parents explained that they lost their fathers as teenagers. I found out that my grandparents underwent several struggles while being brought up, a factor that largely influenced their life choices. The struggles included financial constraints and educational needs. From my parents’ explanations, it was clear that each of our family generations experienced better schooling and education than the previous generation due to struggles and life events that impacted their lives.
My grandfather from my father’s side was known as Patrick Howard. His birthplace was Hazelton, Pennsylvania, where his father worked as miners for coal. Unfortunately, his father, the sole breadwinner, died after the coal mines collapsed one day, forcing them to move back to Czechoslovakia. My paternal grandfather was two years then. In Czechoslovakia, he was raised on a small farm, and due to poverty conditions, he did not finish school and dropped before the eighth grade. When he became twenty years old, he went back to Pennsylvania as an adult to work as a miner just like his father. My father recalls the difficulties that his father had in reading and writing and his hard work to ensure that his children get the needed education. My father asserts that his dad passed away when he was only nineteen years old as a result of heart failure. He also had breathing issues during his last days as a result of contaminated lungs from the poor working conditions in the coal mines. My grandmother, his wife’s birthplace, was in Pennsylvania. Her name was Alicia Howard, who grew up and schooled in her birthplace together with her elder brothers and sisters. As the last born of a family of five children, she had the privilege to complete high school studies and got married to Patrick immediately after her graduation.
Aiden Salvado, my grandfather from my mother’s side, was born and brought up in Stratford, Connecticut, until he reached five years where they moved to Bridgeport. My mother asserts that he was a talented artist recognized in school, and his art pieces were hanged on the walls of his school until the institution was closed down after many years. However, due to financial problems and being the firstborn in his struggling family, he did not go beyond the eighth grade. He later signed up for construction jobs where he would move from one site to another under temporary contracts and finally became a construction worker for Connecticut State. However, just like my paternal grandfather, he died of an accident while working. At the time, my mother was seventeen years of age. His wife, Deborah Salvado, my maternal grandmother’s birthplace, was Yantic in Connecticut, and at the age of seven, she also migrated to Bridgeport with her family. She went to a high school in Bridgeport but got pregnant and did not graduate. She worked in a clothing industry where she folded clothes and later became a dressmaker to support her children after the death of my grandfather.
My father, Lenoch Howard’s birthplace, was Hazelton in Pennsylvania, but his family migrated to Bridgeport at the age of two. Despite moving to this new, my father did not change school. As a child, he attended Parochial schools in Pennsylvania and later joined Bullard Havens High School as a teenager. His high school, taught him the trade if repairing electronics and I could remember him repairing TVs and radios as a hobby when I was a child. Seeing his parents struggling life, he yearned for more education and worked for an Associate degree in electrical engineering in a college at Connecticut and later attending the Engineering Institute of Bridgeport, where he received a Bachelor’s degree on the same. The degree took him five years, where he attended self-paid night classes.
My father met my mother, Sarah Huggins, while staying in Bridgeport, where they had Cheryl, my older sister, but migrated to Monroe, Connecticut, one year after her birth. After two years, I was born, and my sister and I went to Fawn Hollow Elementary School. We migrated to another part of the town in the same district school when I was seven years old before the birth of our youngest sister, Alice. We all stayed in that house until we all graduated from high school.
I think that the migration of my family somewhat impacted their lives and education. The most affected person was my grandfather Patrick. I wonder how his life would have turned out if he had not gone back to Czechoslovakia after the death of his father. Education seemed not to be a priority during my grandparents’ generation. Also, I think that the death of my father because of his work and his writing and reading impacted his life choices to chase higher education. He persevered, providing for his family with the help of my mother while at the same time attending night classes. His life has the greatest impact on me, and he motivates me to get a leadership certification as well as a master’s degree. If this trend of each generation having more education than the previous continues, my daughters and sons should prepare to get a doctorate.