A former student and colleague posed an interesting question recently. “What is one change that has been significant from the time you were a child until now?”

Being well over a decade older, I could tell I was about to enter the “showing your age” zone.  Seventy years of sticking around offers plenty to reflect upon. However, the question did beg for some serious thought. Because my response was slow and not immediate, my suspicion is she probably figured I retreated into teacher mode to make a point. She was right.

The question sparked a memory of my great-grandfather, Elmer Schmoyer, born in 1870.  He lived quite a lengthy life and witnessed wild innovation, discovery and historical challenges both home and abroad.  And while in his 80s, was able to follow it all from his own living room chair with an exciting new medium called television. I thought of all the advancements in technology, medicine and more that took off during his lifetime until his death in 1973 — the year I graduated from high school.

Heck, he missed the Spanish-American War in 1898 when he was 28 years old, and World War I and World War II at 48 and 71, respectively. His son worked for the Trojan Powder Company, just below Parkland High School in the Lehigh Valley, that made explosives for both world wars. And his grandson, my dad, was part of the 64th Topographers Division that helped map out the island-hopping strategy from occupied Guam in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

To list all the time periods and events Elmer either read about, experienced or side-stepped, would take up two grade levels of our high school U.S. history curriculum. Consider; he was born just five years after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln — talk about significant changes.

His journey included a “You are here” red arrow that pointed a fourth generation great-grandson, to a front row seat of enjoying history play out in a much brighter and more personal light. Apparently, my great grandfather’s past was something of a secret. But, I do remember him driving me to Lake Muhlenberg when I was seven and he was 92 in what he called “the machine,” to go fishing.  “Won’t do that again” he said to my mother, “He’s a rutch” (restless).

Knowing my friend was waiting for a response to her question, I focused on past family history and today’s complex web of communication to help answer.

One change I said, would be the incredible and easy access we now have to “anything goes” information.  For a high percentage of Americans it tends to be: misleading, biased, sensationalized, untrue, angry, self-serving, politicized, weaponized, dangerous— you get the idea.

Thinking I was on a roll, I couldn’t help but dive deeper into the archives. I mentioned growing up with three sisters when the only TV channels to fight over were 3, 6 and 10. And, if you gingerly moved the rabbit ears on top of your TV set (look it up) and could handle a little fuzziness, you might be able to pick up the Yankees on WPIX or the Mets on WOR-TV.

What Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News (1962-1981) said was true, the Associated Press provided worthy facts, the broadcasters wrote and reported their own copy and my dad intently watched, listened, and did it all over again the next night.

There were no cell phones, computers, artificial intelligence or podcasters spreading their noisy babble.  You believed what you saw and filtered through what you heard. Now, the world is an overwhelming analysis of information that confuses and divides. Today, those in power use their giant media platforms to influence what we think and manipulate what we thought we once believed.

Aware my colleague had switched party affiliation, I didn’t want to sound like the “showing your age“ guy again. So I ended with; sometimes it comes down to how we react and reeducate ourselves when information from certain sources become increasingly more difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Still, I wonder what Elmer would have had to say about these last 50 years of history? I’m guessing, he would have asked, in between poorly targeted tobacco spits, “Does the machine still start?”

This is a contributed opinion column. John Schmoyer is a retired U.S. history/American government teacher and department chair at Northwestern Lehigh School District. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author, and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. Do you have a perspective to share? Learn more about how we handle guest opinion submissions at themorningcall.com/opinions.

https://www.mcall.com/2025/11/30/opinion-simple-question-reignites-thoughts-of-family-history/