December is moving right along and it’s time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver. I suggested this week’s topic after I saw it mentioned in a magazine:

Here is this week’s challenge:

A)  Genea-Blogger Linda Stufflebean noted that December 8th is “Pretend You Are a Time Traveler Day.”  Today’s challenge is:  Where would you go? Would you choose a person, place or event in the past or travel into the future? Would you remain an observer or would you actively participate?”

I have to say that I’d choose my paternal grandfather, George Sabo, to visit around the end of the 1920s, which would be just before the Great Depression and before he became ill.

He was born George Kucharik on 24 May 1893 in the small town of Delano, Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, the son of Stephen Kucharik and Mary Kacsenyak. His father socially changed the family name to Sabo in the early 1900s. Why? No idea!

I consider him an ancestor, not a more modern relative, because he died on Thanksgiving Day 1936 of tuberculosis when my dad was only ten years old. Therefore, I never knew him.

I think I would only observe him for a couple of reasons. First, whenever a movie/show comes on that involves time travel, the thought is out there about accidentally changing history and I wouldn’t want to do that.

Second, most of the time, a genealogy wish to meet an ancestor is accompanied by lots of questions. I wouldn’t have many questions to ask since he was born in Pennsylvania and never knew any of his grandparents, who remained in today’s Slovakia and my Nana told me about him.

By all accounts, George was a wonderful man, devoted to Nana and my dad (who was an only child), hardworking to achieve the American dream of better lives and a caring friend and neighbor.

My grandparents, c1918

I have quite a few photos of my paternal grandfather, but time traveling to be able to observe his every day life would cement in my mind all the positive stories I was told.

Thanks, Randy, for this week’s challenge.