#52Ancestors: Week 5 – Plowing Through Snow or Cornfields

This is week five of the 2015 #52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge where a group of u52ancestors-2015 Images blog about a different ancestor for each week of the year.  To learn more about the 52 Ancestor Challenge visit Amy Johnson’s site at Amy’s website.

This week’s theme is Plowing Through.  Whether it is plowing through snow, not likely here in the Pacific Northwest.  The last snow I saw was two inches back around Thanksgiving.  Or, plowing through online databases trying to find records about your ancestors.  I chose to post a couple of family photos of shoveling snow and those turning up the earth.

Plowing through Snow

My grandfather Hugh A. Howes (1902-1961) is shoveling snow in front of the family home on Bennett street in Dearborn, MI.  The date listed on the back in on the back says.  This is most likely the first winter back in Michigan.   The family owned the house in the mid-1940’s.  My great Uncle Borden (Bob) Baumgartel and his wife Doris lived in the house for a period when my grandparents moved to Florida around 1945.

My grandparents along with my mother only stayed a couple of years in Florida and returned to Michigan.  By this time, Hugh’s oldest sons were either married or serving in the military and would not have been home to shovel the snow.

Hugh A. Howes shoveling snow in 1949

Hugh A. Howes shoveling snow in 1949

The photograph shows that  there are not many houses on the street.  These tracts were once farmland and the west side of Dearborn was growing quickly. The photo graph below is a screen capture of Google Maps (2011),  showing a view of Bennett street.  The house was sold about 1957.  With all their children out of the house, they moved into a apartment.

Bennett Street

Google Map view of Bennett street

Turn up the earth of with a plow

Below are photos of two great uncles on the Pittman side of the family.  Hugh Pittman (right photo) is using a hand plow to turn over the dirt in the cornfields. The photos were taken in the early 1940’s.  The Pittman family was living on Park street in Central City, Kentucky, per the 1940 Census.

Pittman Bros Plowing Field

Left photo – Clarence Pittman ||| Right – Hugh Pittman and Hugh O. Howes (young boy)

Clarence and Hugh Pittman, though in there mid-30’s, were still living with their father, John T. Pittman, subject of the 2014 series of 52 Ancestors – No. 9.  Their brother, Finis, and their sister Tena and her husband were also living on the farm. The family suffered economic hardship during the 1930’s Great Depression.

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