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The family tree – a granddaughter learns about her great-grandparents and her grandmother’s early life in Seymour, Missouri

Hayley Norton and Gramme Alice
Storycorps
Hayley Norton and Gramme Alice

Hayley Norton interviews her Gramme Alice about life in Seymour, Missouri in the first half of the 20th century. Alice recalls their first homemade rural phonelines, and the freedom of being a kid on the farm.

Alice and her family moved to Seymour when she was five. She shares details and remembrances of growing up on the 500+ acre family farm where she says she had “free reign”. She says she was told later in life by a neighbor that they thought her family was the richest around, with a “refrigerator and a real couch instead of a day bed.”

Hayley probes for information on her great grandparents and Alice says her dad made “one real impression” on her, describing a moment summarizing her father’s character in this conversation centered on a granddaughter learning her family history.