I solve the issue of discovering families by assembling each family separately. First, I begin with the first vital generation. In this instance, I chose my grandmother and her parents — the great-grandparents generation. As you can tell from the above photo, my grandmother (bottom left) was the daughter of Joel Chambliss (to her right, with the mustache) and Lizzie Clements Chambliss (above Joel). The remainder of the page were the children of Lizzie and Joel Chambliss. All of their children served in the Armed Services!
I vaguely remember meeting my great-uncles, but I never knew my great-grandparents, Lizzie and Joel Chambliss. But I knew they had a story. Lizzie was born on the Davis Smith plantation in Brent, Georgia. Her father, Dr. Clements, was killed during the Civil War. There was great suffering after the war, and many families left their homes to seek work in the cities. By 1900, the Chambliss family moved to Atlanta in search of work. Not long afterward, all of the children were ill with a severe infection. Although Lizzie, a Christian Scientist who did not believe in medicine, accepted medical care for her children, she refused it for herself. She soon died, and the family took her body to the old plantation where she was buried.
Yet, the clouds roll by, and time slips away. Even if we know them personally, it is easy to forget over time. Each family has a unique story of their generation. Uncontrollable circumstances, such as wars, hardships, poverty, and disabilities, inflicted on their lifestyles.
Lizzie’s childhood memories on the family plantation were but a glimpse of a heart-rendering war later played out by Hollywood on the Big Screen and known as a feature movie, “Gone with the Wind.” How quickly her personal life was swept away, and how she prepared for her children to fight in World War I!
As I traced my family back in time, I beheld their loving families' struggle to survive while the old clock ticked forward to the devastating Depression of 1929–1939, followed by the Great World War II.
In August of 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. America had created the single most devastation of mankind in history!
Visiting and asking questions of relatives is one of the most rewarding experiences, as one hears the little details of ancestor stories!