SNGF: A Bold Move

I’m having some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (#SNGF), with help from Randy Seaver and his prompts! Feel free to join in.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: June 6, 2026

Prompt: “The life of every person has events and decisions that have a risk factor that can significantly affect their life. Describe a risk that one of your ancestors made that affected their life. How did it all turn out?”

Introduction

Don’t we all have those pivotal moments in life — a fork in the road where the next step is anything but certain? Sometimes we recognize the risk at the time. Sometimes we only see it later, when we understand how much changed because someone was brave, desperate, hopeful, or simply willing to try.

My grandfather Gordon West faced that kind of moment during the Depression. He had been a theater organist during the silent-film era, but the rise of “talkies” changed the industry almost overnight. His risk was not dramatic in the movie sense, but it was life-changing: he had to leave familiar work, learn a new trade, and eventually go far from home to find employment.

Discussion

Gordon West was a successful organist at a movie theater when motion pictures were silent. But after the release of “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, “talkies” exploded in popularity and by 1930, “the number of talkies released matched the number of silent films.” [1]

Unfortunately, this coincided with the Depression, not a great time for Grandpa to be put out of work. He worked for free for a friend who ran a newspaper to learn the trade, and then moved on. He lived in Northwest Ohio and tried to find work in Detroit, but apparently couldn’t, so he ended up in New York City. I have no idea what gave him the courage to do this – there is no indication whatsoever that anyone he knew was there. He gained a position at the Staten Island Advance, where he worked as a linotype operator for 40 years until retirement.

In New York, he stayed at a boarding house whose proprietress had a niece she wanted him to meet. That niece was my grandmother.

Grandpa was born and lived in a town with a population under 1000. His father had lived in that town his entire life. How daring it must have been of Grandpa to go to New York City, of all places!

I hope that I take the necessary bold moves when needed as well.

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.

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[1] https://stephenfollows.com/p/when-did-talkies-take-over-from-silent-movies