Rich; you are so fortunate to have this family shooting legacy! My male ancestors were all from in and around Philadelphia; my maternal grandfather was a successful real estate entrepreneur in the late 1920's and into the late 1930s when he died. My mother told me he bought a new car every two years to squire prospective clients around showing properties.
My uncles were all working class tradesmen and you would think they'd look forward to a weekend in the woods, but not a single one of them was the slightest bit interested in guns or shooting. Alternatively, they were all sports junkies for baseball, football and boxing. My grandfather and my mother's uncle financed and managed one of the first all-black baseball teams in PA; they were quite successful and went on the circuit just before the depression.
It kills me that these men were about a 25 minute drive from the Philadelphia Gun Club as well as no more than a 15-20 min. drive from the flyer ring in Choshohocken, not to mention an hour and a half from the Jersey coast and Barnegat Bay, yet none of them ever popped a cap! I stopped looking a long time ago for the CHE 28 ga. behind the pantry door, or the 12 ga. 32" Super Fox out in the wood shed behind the coal bin!
In a super-ironic twist of fate however, my mother's uncle, who was born and raised in Hartford, CT, was a metal polisher, finisher, and engraver, and worked for years for the International Silver Company in Meriden, so close to the Parker Bros. gunworks that they could walk to it on their lunch hour! Go figure....
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