{"id":94,"date":"2011-02-26T20:28:53","date_gmt":"2011-02-27T02:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iseeancestors.com\/comm\/?p=94"},"modified":"2011-04-06T18:49:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T00:49:16","slug":"whats-playing-on-great-grandpas-ipod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/2011\/02\/26\/whats-playing-on-great-grandpas-ipod\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s playing on Great-grandpa’s iPod?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Joseph
Joseph Voisin, about 1907<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If great-grandfather Joseph Voisin<\/a> had an iPod, one of those tiny music players, what would he be listening to? His iPod has survived, and on it I found this song:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s “Take This Letter to My Mother,” a popular ballad in the nineteenth century composed by William Shakespeare Hays (1837-1907) and first published in 1873. <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Take<\/a><\/p>\n

In a journal entry, <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Joseph Voisin recorded two verses from this ballad.\u00a0 It is uncertain when he wrote the entry, but it was probably before 1877 when the next journal entry on the page is dated.<\/p>\n

\"Journal<\/a><\/p>\n

That would make him a teenager, between 15 and 19 years old.\u00a0 Undoubtedly “Take This Letter to My Mother” was on his iPod. Click the link to listen in <\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>…<\/p>\n

\"iPod\"<\/a>
\n Take This Letter to My Mother<\/a><\/p>\n

Joseph was musically inclined. He was the first organist at the St. Philomenia Catholic Church in Beal City, Michigan from 1882 to 1905. (That church is now St. Joseph the Worker.) He also performed at social dances, including dances in which native Americans participated. He wrote the words to a square-dance call in his journal. Therefore he was likely a square-dance caller too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If great-grandfather Joseph Voisin had an iPod, one of those tiny music players, what would he be listening to? His iPod has survived, and on it I found this song:  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[45,101],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-and-times","tag-ipod","tag-voisin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/309"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":78,"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iSeeAncestors.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}