Earning Their Keep
Did you find an ancestor with a truly unique occupation? Whether they were vaudeville performers or vaccine inventors, we want to hear about it.
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Email This Post
Did you find an ancestor with a truly unique occupation? Whether they were vaudeville performers or vaccine inventors, we want to hear about it.
Email This Post
My great Aunt Christine Brumbaugh (1882-1945), was a “humorous impersonator.” Long before political correctness. This description comes from her daughter Violet Goodson along with a pamphlet that has a wonderful photo of Christine and this description:
“Miss Brumbaugh easily leads as a humorous impersonator, and in her speciality ‘Dutch and German Character Sketches,’ is without peer on the platform today. She makes a pronounced hit wherever she is heard and needs only to be heard once to ingratiate herself into the minds and hearts of the average American audience. She is a graduate of Neff College of Oratory [Philadelphia] and has devoted years to the preparation of her specialty.”
She probably entertained at church dinners on a Sunday night or at men’s clubs dinners.
She herself was a daughter of a Mennonite and a 7th generation German or Swiss immigrant in this country, born in Bucks County, PA.
Ned Donoghue
My grandfather, Frank Albert Dean, like many of his era was an Ohio farmer. He married the love of his life, Mary Louise Highley, and they had six children together. Mary died when their youngest was about 18 months old. Not able to manage a farm and raise several small children, he took on housekeepers. Always a frugal man, he decided it was less costly to marry them than to pay them to keep house. He oulived three of his four wives and ended up having to pay for their funerals. Besides farming, part of his livlihood consisted of making concrete watering troughs for animals. He was very good at this and some years did better as a trough builder than as a farmer.
Patricia Christiansen
I found one of my relative Edward Charles Padfield in the census stating his occupation was a Lincensed Vichnaller? sp or Vichraller? I have no idea what that is. Any help drop a line.
Per the 1900 census, my great aunt’s husband’s occupation was: “Travelling with Buffalo Bill”. I’m wondering where I can find any info on this because it sure does interest me……especially since he was from Brooklyn, NY!
my paternal great-grandfather, George Foster, of Virginia was a carriage striper. He drew designs on carriages. I think it was similar to painting stripes or flames on a hot rod.
My Great Grandfather, Xenophon Peck, started out as an Ohio farmer, served in the Civil War by re-enlisting twice, even after losing one arm to a cannon misfiring. From 1867-1871 he was a one-armed Sheriff in Elyria,Lorain Co., Ohio. A champion swimmer before losing his arm, he continued to swim one mile a day with just one arm.
This is in response to Cheryl Boyle’s ancestor Edward Charles Padfield who she saw in the census as a licensed Vichnaller or Vichraller. I would be willing to bet that he was a LICENSED FISHTRALLER. A Traller is a fishing boat and he was a licensed Fisherman. Does that make sense? Your ancestor must’ve come over here from Europe with a heavy accent and his “V” was really an “F”. He must’ve lived close to the water as well.
This is in response to Cheryl Boyle’s ancestor, Edward Charles Padfield. If it was a UK census, then he would have been a LICENSED VICTUALLER, a person licensed to sell food & alcoholic drink, for consumption on the premises. In other words, a publican in a public house (the English pub), hotel, or ale house.
I don’t know a great deal about these particular people in my family but I was told by my great aunt (my grandmother’s sister) that her family were all glassblowers who lived in Canada then moved to Salem, New Jersey, and later to Clarion, PA then finally ended up in Ohio (Franklin, Portage Co., and Kent)
My grandfather and his two sisters were with the Flying Nelsons,(acrobats with Vaudeville). They joined as young children through adulthood. I have been compiling information on vaudeville for many years but it is difficult as it was not considered a good career choice. My grandfather retired in the early thirties and ran a small store in rural Quebec, no less.
During the late 1940’s and early 50’s my mother Alice, mended ladies nylon stockings for a living. My father was going to college in Ft. Collins, Colo. to get his Electrical Engineering Degree.
The needles to mend nylons were sold at Woolworth’s and other stores. The unique aspect of my mothers work was that my father had hooked her needle to an electric motor, which was controlled by a lever placed on a table at her knee level. She pulled the stocking over a drinking glass setting on the table, so the runner was on top. The needle was designed to reweave the threads in the stocking. She charged 10 cents per thread. Most runs were wide, perhaps involving 4 or 5 or more threads. Having one’s nylons mended was very popular and frugal in those days, as nylons were still expensive to purchase. That was in the days when nylons came as two seperate stockings and were hooked to a garter belt, instead of what are called panty hose today!
Several years ago, while researching my family in Lawrence County, Ohio, I located a married woman (from Germany) on the 1900 US Census, who listed her occupation as Charmer. I’ve found some strange occupations, but this one has confused me ever since. At first I thought of snake charmers, but Lawrence County is in southern Ohio and that occupation just didn’t seem to fit. Does anyone have any idea about this?
My grandfather was a “Boot & Flogger”. He worked down in cobwebby wine cellars banging corks into bottles of vintage wine. The corks were much bigger than the necks of the bottles, so there was quite a knack to it. The “boot” was the name of the leather holder in his lap that the bottle fitted into to keep it secure and he “flogged” the cork in with a type of truncheon. The process was mechanised before he retired but he enjoyed his work and stayed well past retirement age.
My GGGFather was a “Boat Legger”. He “walked” canal boats through tunnels by laying on the canal boat with his legs sticking out the side. There was another man on the other side and they “walked” along the sides of the tunnel, thus keeping the boat moving.
In the early 1900’s my Grandfather traveled from city to city painting smokestacks.
I did some research for a very close family friend and found her grandfather in Chicago in 1920 and 1930. His occupation…corset pattern maker. Those in her family always said he knew every woman’s bra size in town. Now that is unique.
My four greats grandfather, John Henry Buck, was a millwright. He built this country’s first threshing machine for retired President Thomas Jefferson. This threshing machine was built according to the Scotish model made by Andrew Meikle in 1786. Jefferson acquired a model of this threshing machine thru Thomas Pinckney’s help (Minister to Great Britain) and commissioned Buck to build it in late 1795. Buck, his wife Lucy, and four children all lived on the Monticello estate during the year he was employed by Jefferson. He was a mechanic of high reputation who could “handle the axe, the hammer and the plane with equal skill and precision.”
From 1824 to 1859 my great-grandfather made his living cutting silhouettes. He would charge $1 and in 5 to 10 minutes cut a full-length silhouette for his customer. The amazing thing was that he could remember each one that he did and reproduce it years later. Among his subjects were John Quincy Adams, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln all done from life. His name was William Henry Brown and he lived from 1808 to 1883. In 1859 he turned to railroading for work as photography had replaced the silhouette. However, he still did silhouettes from time to time usually as entertainment for relatives. I believe his last notable one was of Peter Cooper, the inventor, cut in 1883.