Eight Generations: The Story of Our Family

by Dennis Ford

Eight Generations tells the story of our family commencing from the time of our great great grandparents two centuries ago to our great nephews in the present age The story of our family leads from nineteenth century huts built of mud walls and thatch roofs to the teeming tenements of mid twentieth century New Jersey and from turf fires and lime kilns to home computers and the Internet The story leads from peasant superstitions and hedge schools to the modern scientific worldview and to graduate degrees from renowned universities There are no kings or queens in the story only a chronology of princely people none of whom escaped the events of their era The townlands and villages and cities where our ancestors lived are places that were enmeshed in the history of their time Napoleon s 1812 invasion of Russia the grim trenches of World War One the Great Depression the landing craft and destroyers of World War Two the social anarchy of the 1960s the nuclear powered aircraft carriers that carry war to our enemies the story of our family occurs in this tumultuous context Eight Generations leads from people born before the American Revolution in the Old Countries of Erin and Lietuva and it concludes but it doesn t conclude The dim past leads to the bright future that awaits youngsters who with God s grace will greet the dawn of the twenty second century Mom and Dad lived through a tumultuous age Th e Great Depression The World War against totalitarianism Th e Korean War The Vietnam War Men walking on the moon Robots walking on Mars The home computer The Internet Antibiotics Google Mom has seen enormous changes in technology and in social cultural life she thinks children grow up too fast and are exposed to too much media In Mom s lifetime she s gone from rotary phones and party lines to cell phones that take pictures and provide Internet service and from the iron range and wood icebox to microwave ovens and refrigerators that have cold water fa