When the 1950 census came out I thought it would be easy to blog about. After all I was there in the room where it happened. So I dove right in a few months ago and ran straight into a roadblock. Why? I couldn't answer that question. At the time! But as time went by I realized there comes a time when you need to look at the census differently. I was at a fork in the road. I could keep going on the path I was traveling or I could take the new path.
A week ago I injured my ankle and wound up in the hospital totally unable to walk or put weight on my right foot. For years I have been struggling with mobility issues and gradually reached a point where I could barely do anything. My ankle injury put an end to standing or walking for a while. I was stuck and I live alone. I couldn't ignore the problem any more. In a matter of days I was on my way to a skilled nursing facility for a few weeks of physical therapy with the goal of being able to return home on my own. My family packed up a few things I needed from home and sent me on my way.
They left my To Do List at home so all I could do was lay in bed, stare out the window and think. And there was the answer; right there in front of me. It was my turn to spend time, be it long or be it short, (ahem) in the dreaded nursing home. Almost everyone eventually reaches this point in their life.
What does this have to do with the 1950 census? . . . .As I sit here typing it is 2023 and my turn, my decade, a new chapter in my life to face the fact that I might have times when it is hard to live alone. MY TURN to make new decisions that will affect this decade in my life and possibly the rest of my life. And this discovery has made me look at the censuses in a much different way.
All the censuses that we appear in are chapters in our lives. In each chapter we are faced with new decisions. For every action there is a reaction. How we react to the situations in each chapter/decade of our life create the story of our life, the dash. Would you believe that you can find clues to these decisions in the census.
What decisions did you have to make? Did where you lived affect that decision? What were you doing at that decade in your life that could have affected your reaction? (School, working) Was there a major event or disaster in the decade that would have affected your reaction? The census is full of clues. You might have to hunt for them. Some may require research. Some people are affected by every little thing that happens around them. Others are oblivious to their surroundings.
A few months ago when I first laid eyes on the 1950 census all I could see was everything that happened in my life and the world. I saw that decade as changing the world. It didn't -- well maybe a little. Mainly it changed my life, guided my life on the paths of my choosing. The 1940 census was to my older cousins what the 1950 census was to me. I watched them make the decisions that I would soon be making. If I am lucky enough to see the 1960 and 1970 censuses, I will see the decisions I made and how they shaped my life.
So what do I do with these new discoveries? I will use them to go back to the first census and take a new look at my ancestors. Find the clues that will give me a new insight into their lives. See them as real people with real problems and decisions that need to be made in order to travel through life. I will look for clues about things that affected the decisions my ancestors made.
Tomorrow I will return to my villa for a couple of hours to determine if I can safely return to living alone in a few days. Or will I need another week of therapy. I'm at a crossroads in my life and I know there will be major changes in the months of this decade ahead. How I react will affect my life in the future. i can't avoid it.
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