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Jesús José Ortiz Álvarez

Born Oviedo City, 24 Dec 1949

3 facts1 source

Living person. The family sees only the name, dates and photo; everything else stays private unless they choose to share it.

Facts and their sources

  • Born24 Dec 1949, Oviedo CityTaken as verified1 source

A life in time

  1. 24 Dec 1949

    Born in Oviedo City

  2. 15 Sep 1972

    A daughter is born

Family

See the tree

Partner

Children · 1

During his lifetime

He has lived through 9 decades. Pick one to hear and see what it was like around Oviedo City.

General history, not a record about the family: each item says where it comes from.

The 1940s · Jesús is born in Oviedo City

What people wore

Painted Stocking Seams

Women who could not afford real stockings sometimes painted a line down the back of their legs with eyeliner to simulate a seam.

Getting around

Moving livestock by train across Spain

Transhumant shepherds moved thousands of sheep by train between Babia and Cáceres, a 430-kilometer journey that took two days by rail, whereas moving them on foot would take much longer.

At the table

Creative substitutions for scarce food

Ordinary families survived by using culinary imagination to simulate scarce items, such as making omelets without eggs using bread and onions.

The Second World War. The deadliest war in history, from 1939 to 1945: some 70 million people died. Brazil sent 25,000 soldiers to fight in Italy.Around the world · 1939–1945

The Second World War. The deadliest war in history, from 1939 to 1945: some 70 million people died. Brazil sent 25,000 soldiers to fight in Italy.

Chief Photographer's Mate (CPHoM) Robert F. Sargent · public domain

Music

Christmas music and nativity traditions

Christmas celebrations featured midnight masses where people sang villancicos, and homes were decorated with elaborate nativity scenes called nacimientos instead of Christmas trees. Children received their gifts on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany, brought by the Three Kings.

Daily life

Daily chores and crowded home life

Cooking was done over wood or straw fires in small kitchens, and many children had to leave school as early as age seven to help with farm work, such as sifting straw or guarding cattle. Domestic life was often crowded, with multiple generations and up to eleven people sharing small stone houses.

Work

Precarious life for rural day laborers

Agricultural laborers in rural Spain typically earned only 3.5 pesetas a day and could often only find work for half the year. In some cases, these laborers slept in barns and stables with livestock when working in the fields.