Heritage+Stories-Lasher,+Justyne

=Heritage Story=

My Family history has many family members, but I decided to do my story on my Aunt Jane. Her real name is Helen Jane McElhattan. She told me that she was named after other people. Helen was her mother's best friends name and Jane was her great grandmother's name. She was born in Young Twp. in Armstrong County. Her Family was very large. It consisted of a total of eleven children, six girls and five boys. The name of the girls are Ivy, Betty, Glady, Ruth, Shirley, and herself. The boys names are Bill, Tom, Jim, Bobby, and Kenny. Her mother's name is Mildred and her father's name is Thomas. While she was growing up, her grandparents would tell her stories about themselves. They told her how they met at a square dance, and how he use to play his fiddle and bango for her. My Aunt Jane remembers celebrating on the day that they were married for seventy-five years.

Another part of her life was going to school, like every child. When she started off, she went to a one room school house. It was one room, one teacher, and no water. If they wanted to get water they had to go outside, and pump the water. Also if they had to go to the restroom, they would have to go to the out house, which was also outside. As she got older, her family moved to Ohio. When she got to school on her first day, she was in shock. This new school was three stories high, and had many more students than the one room school house. My Aunt Jane was very scared for the day to start. When she looked at her schedule she was terrified. She noticed right away that none of her classes were on the same floor. Most of them were on the first floor and then she had to go to the third floor. My Aunt Jane hated gym too because the gym teacher would always take them in right before the bell so she would be tarty for her next class. Her first day she felt like going home and crying because it was so different from her old school. As time progressed, she got more and more use to it. She told me that it is one of the days that she will never forget. Just like us, they too had a summer vacation.

They had no technology back then, they only had a radio. With this in mind they would have to find other activites to occupy themselves. In their free time they would listen to the radio, play ball, but my Aunt Jane's favorite thing to do was play hide and go seek. She dated a few guys when she was fifteen years old. In fact that was the very first time that she went to a movie theater and a restaurant. At the age of sixteen she got married to a guy named Bud. Later on she had children so to keep her family going she was a seamstress in a sewing factory for three years. Then she got promoted to being a boss/supervisior, which she was this for thirty-three years. Her two kids names are Rick and Roxanne. She told me a story about Roxanne. When she was a little girl she went in my Aunt Jane's bathroom and got her lipstick. She put it all over her face and around the toilet seat. When my Aunt Jane caught her, she asked Roxanne what she was doing and she responded by saying "nothing." Aunt Jane then threw that lip stick away. Later on in her life her husband Bud died and years later she married my Pap. For their honeymoon they went to Tennessee and rode the ski lift. She told me that this was the most wonderful place she had ever been in her entire life.

My Aunt Jane is very happy with her life, but if she could change anything it would be to live in Hawaii. She would only go there if her family came along too. I told her that if thats true than she may not be going. The very last thing she told me was that her mother was her role model. She loved her mother very much and idolized her because she was a great mother. She taught them right from wrong and did everything for them. As you can tell life back then was different from our life today. I hope you enjoyed learning about my Aunt Jane's life.