My maternal grandfather, who died while my mom was still in high school, was a tenant farmer in eastern Arkansas in the spring/summer months who moved into town and kept books for a local general store in the winter. Eventually, he opened his own store just across the Arkansas River from the infamous Cummins Prison Farm. During WWII, he was already in his forties and thus was too old for general military service (having no prior military experience). In 1944-45, he picked up the family and moved to Oak Ridge, TN for a little over a year having no idea what was being built there.
My paternal grandfather was a carpenter, house painter, sharecropper, etc.; whatever he needed to be to put food on the table. During the war, he also was already too old for general service. He worked building a number of Army Air Corps training bases throughout eastern Arkansas, and like my other grandfather spent the last year elsewhere, moving to Houston, TX and working in a shipyard.
My Father’s Father was a van driver for the Daily Mail, delivering newspapers in London. At the start of WWII he caught a train to Glasgow with his brother assuming that if he volunteered he could choose his job in the army (true he drove amunition trucks while his brother was a driver for Feild-Marshal Mongomery for a while) and that the wouldn’t send Scottish regiments overseas (false, he was in France in eight months and was evacuated from Dunkirk and later served in Holland and Germany in 1944/45).
After the war he went back to the Daily Mail where he became a printer.
He died three years ago.
My Mothers Father volunteered for the British Army on the first day of WWI for the East Yorkshire Regiment and was later comissioned as on officer in the Royal Engineers. He was wounded in France in 1917 and awarded the Military Cross.
He was said to have “enjoyed” the First World War and stayed in the Army to be sent to Archangle in 1919, fighting Bosheviks with the White Russians.
After the war he went to University in Switzerland and Germany and saw the rise of Nazi Germany. He became a freelance reporter and tried to talk his wife to move to Switzerland and he saw another war aproching.
He rejoined the army at the begining of WWII and again served as an Engineer, this time in North Africa where he was again wounded.
He died in 1946 from an infection which would have been simply cured today. He had an amazing life and I wish I knew him personally.
My Grandfather was a lawyer. In Kiev. And later Poland. Then, some time in the late 30’s he looked at the German army, and at the Polish army (which was still using horses) and with remarkable foresight, left for America.
But, as here he was an ingnornant foreigner, he worked the rest of his life as a machinist. I actually don’t know much about his life, except how straight off the boat he married my DAR grandmother. And that recently he gave me a pendant he made from scrapes of silver he “collected” from work over the years, and which, some 50 years ago he decided to fashion into an ankh. Something I still wonder about.
I know you said grandfathers, but grandmothers were things too. My Grandmother was a librarian.
About my paternal grandparents, I have no news, as I am (and in so many ways) a bastard.
My maternal grandfather was an army air defense artillery officer. He spent WWII in the South Pacific . My paternal grandfather worked as an itenerant farm laborer in his youth. Later, he was a sign painter and artist.
My father’s father was German. He was a goldsmith, spent some of his apprentice time in Denamrk, met my grandmother, then settled in Prague. Come WWII, he was drafted for the German army and taken prisoner in Italy - his best friend from the war was the British interpreter at the POW camp, they corresponded until his death. After the war, he managed to link up with my grandmother (who had fled in front of the Soviet Army, with the kids, another story there) in the British zone, then they made it back to Denmark where he took up his profession again. Her stayed in Denmark for the rest of his life.
My mother’s father sold men’s clothing in the family store in Randers, Denmark. Come WWII, he joined the resistance and helped receive and distribute air-dropped weapons - dangerous, unglamorous work. After the liberation, he continued running the store, later decided to sell it and realize his dream of becoming a art dealer, which he did with considerable success until he died 6 years ago.
Maternal grandfather - As a young man he knew how to do different things, so he would work for a while, and when he had enough money to do what he wanted he would quit. Then, when he needed money again he would start working. In WWII, he was sent to the Aleutian Islands by the Navy (IIRC, i’d have to ask mom). After he settled down with my grandmother (who thought he was rogueish and disliked him at first), he did sheet metal stuff (welding, things like that). When they moved out to California, he worked in the metals lab at the Naval Post Graduate School.
Paternal Grandfather - I dont know what he did before immigrating to the United states, but when he arrived here in the 1920’s he worked in the fields of Salinas (part of one of the first groups of Filipinos to work the fields). He also was a Zoot Suiter. Then, WWII rolled around, and he enlisted in the Army. He was considered too old to fight, so they sent him up to the Alameda Shipyards in the bay area to work there. After the war, he worked in various restaurants as a waiter.
Paternal grandfather: Immigrated at the age of 10 to this country from Italy. Worked odd jobs in order to support his aunt. Volunteered for the US Army in World War I and was mustard gassed during his first battle. After recuperating and being sent home, he learned how to be a stone mason, and spent the rest of his life working in construction. He helped build the Jefferson Memorial and the National Cathedral.
Maternal grandfather: Pennsylvania farmer, until farming got to be more trouble than it was worth, and got a job at TRW.
Paternal grandfather – worked as a railroad switchman as a kid, but moved to eastern Long Island around 1919 and founded Rothman’s Department Store – still in business today. He was active in the local arts scene (such as it was), and provided a place to stay for Benjamin Britten (who promptly fell madly in love with my father, but that’s another story ). He also struck up a friendship with Albert Einstein when Einstein spent a summer in the area.
Maternal grandfather – died before I was born. He was a dentist, originally from Russia. Was a developer of the techniques of root canal and using movies as a teaching tool. A room at the Columbia University Dental School was named in his honor.
My father’s father was a farmer with 8 kids during the depression. He was also a sheriff at some point I know because I remember playing with his shiny badge. I’m sure did other things that I don’t know about.
My mother’s father was also a farmer, only his father had homesteaded the land that my grandfather farmed. He was a father to 3 daughters. He was also a school teacher and a community leader in various positions.
My father said that my mother’s family was rich because they got new shoes every year whether they needed them or not.
Paternal Grandfather-Survived the Nazis and started a life in Transylvania as a tailor, lost most of his family during WWII, had 4 children who later escaped communist Roumania and brought the rest of the family out later on. He passed away when I was 16.
Maternal Grandfather-Survived the Nazis, went to Israel to help in the fight for independence, then later became a Rabbi and after having two children moved to Switzerland, and then finally back to Germany to finally become Chief Rabbi of the conservative movement in Germany. He’s more internet and computer savvy than my own folks. Helluva cool guy.
My grandfather enlisted in the Navy in 1943. He had his mom go down to the draft board and say he was 1 year older than he actually was. He studied heating and AC and was assigned to an ammunition ship during the war. After the war he married my grandmother, who he met on a blind date ,and went to work for his Dad at an equipment rental business. He worked 10 hours a day, every day at that business for 48 years It wasn’t glamorous or even interesting, but to him it was everything. All he ever wanted was to work hard and take care of his family, not just kids and grandkids but in-laws, cousins, nieces etc. He was the final authority for all of us, he was our Cecil. My Dadu never lied cheated or stole- he never cut a corner in his life. He built the house that I live in by himself, right down to the 1” x 1” tile in the bathrooms. In 1994 he started to have trouble thinking clearly and he suffered anxiety attacks at work. He saw every doctor available, even went to the Mayo clinic and all they could tell him was he was suffering from clinical depression.
My grandfather’s biggest fear was not being able to take care of himself and his family. When my Grandma’s brother George was raving out of his mind from pain of cancer, Dadu said to me “honey, if I ever get like that, you just tell me I’m acting like Uncle George and no matter how bad I am I’ll know what you mean.” In 1996 he was as bad as Uncle George. I came by one day and saw him bringing in the garbage and he looked at me with complete lack of recognition and I knew I had lost my Dadu already. On August 28th 1996 his doctor recommended a “treatment facility” (read – nursing home). He came home from visiting this hell hole and I believe in one moment of clarity realized the direction his life was taking. He told my Grandma to go ahead and get her bath, went out to the backyard and shot himself with the pistol my Great Grandfather had brought back from WWI.
I’m sorry this is so long and heavy, I probably won’t even send it, but the anniversary of his death is coming up and he’s never far from my mind.
I have a confusing family: mom, father, adoptive dad, stepfather. All my grandmothers are alive, all grandfathers dead except one who will be in a couple of months. The only one of my grandfathers who I knew really well was an American ambassador. Before retiring in Washington D.C. he raised his family in India, Holland, and South Africa. I have been told he was a friend of Lyndon Johnson’s(sp?) and there are many pictures of the two of them at my grandmother’s house.
My paternal grandfather was a coal miner and poultry farmer in the Pittsburgh area. He died of black lung before I was born. My maternal grandfather owned and operated his own auto mechanics shop & gas station (an Esso). He also died before I was born.
Neither of my grandmothers had paying jobs outside the home, but my maternal grandmother did tons of volunteer work and founded a mobile library after my grandfather died. She also taught sewing and crocheting to 4H-ers.
My maternal grandfather (who recently celebrated his 80th birthday), worked, as did many West Virginians, in the coal mines after graduating from high school, until he enlisted in the Army in 1942. After getting out of the Army and moving to Ohio, I believe he held some factory jobs, then became a railroad brakeman, a position he held until retirement.
I don’t really know much about my paternal grandfather. I never met him. I know he spent time as a cab driver in NYC, and was an amateur boxer, but that’s all I really know.
My father’s father was a NYC fireman. One of the first black firemen. He’s passed now, but my dad has those beautiful sepia toned pictures of him and his company (all black, you couldn’t actually mix then) and his ladder.
My mother’s father was first a merchant marine. When he got too old for that he became a longshoreman. I wasn’t alive when he was a marine, but he always had stories. I guess he loved the sea.
Paternal Grandfather: Robert Lee Tyson, Sr. (1881-1952). Carpenter by trade. Could neither read nor write but could do enough math to read a square and build just about all of Quantico Marine Corps Base. His father fought in the Civil War. It amazes me that I’m only three generations removed from someone who did that.
Maternal Grandfather: Hawes Coleman Hill (1906-1978). WWII Veteran. Served in Burma and other parts of Southeast Asia. I have a great picture of him taken, as the caption says, “In Rengoon, in service to my beloved country. God Bless America.” Policeman.
Maternal grandfather: Well-regarded geologist. He worked primarily for Shell Oil back in the 50’s and 60’s, and then became sort of an independent consultant, making godawful amounts of money (like $200/hour) to trudge through unpopulated backwaters studying rock formations to see whether more formal petroleum explorations would be worthwhile. During WWII, he initially trained as part of a ski rescue team, but towards the end of the war, he got shifted into infantry. He was one of the soldiers sent into Japan after they surrendered; I have a cavalry sabre he says he took from a Japanese officer. He’s still with us, retired but very active, and sharp as a tack. He’s 85-ish but seems 20 years younger; he quit running marathons only a couple of years ago.
Paternal grandfather: Abusive alcoholic asshole. Last time I heard anything about him was probably 16-17 years ago; he’s probably dead, but I have no idea. We never really knew what he did for a living, because he was too weird and scary to get to know that way. If you saw my post in the “My Mother’s a Bigot” thread, this is the half-Cherokee grandfather who married the Mexican. I got my most interesting blood from the most screwed-up side of my family…
). He also struck up a friendship with