Maternal: cotton farmer
Paternal: tobacco farmer (died before I was born)
grandpa was a beer brewer. So were his brothers. Big beer brewery in NY. Anniz would like him.
Also owned Forest Lawn in Glendale, where we have a plot.
Paternal Real One: Don’t know. Only know his last name
Paternal Adopted Grandfather (not actually related): Worked on Hydrogen Bomb, later became anti-nuclear proponent.
Maternal Grandfather: Chemist for government.
Paternal Grandmother: Single Mother/Nurse
Maternal Grandmother: Looney Bitch.
Maternal grandfather: Bookbinder. He died before I was born. My grandmother gave me a copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which he bound himself. This was ironic, since they both lost family in the Holocaust. My maternal grandmother worked until she was 70 as a seamstress in NYC’s garment district and was a proud member of ILGWU (International Ladies Garment Workers Union).
Paternal grandfather: Electrician/jack of all trades. He was from Germany. After WWI (which he fortunately was too young for) he wired the French countryside for electricity. Emigrated to the US in 1929. Eventually became an electrician at New York University. Was suspiciously fired during WWII (hmm, first name Ludwig–think it was because of his nationality?) He then became a building superintendent and worked in the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan. His last building was a residence on Park Avenue. He could fix anything. My grandmother was a housekeeper until she got married.
No-one famous, or infamous, or artistic: just stolid, upper-working or lower-middle class British types:
Paternal grandfather: Born in Devon, England in 1894. Came to Canada about 1912, joined the Canadian Army in 1915, served in Britain and France as a medical orderly in the Canadian Army Medical Corps (although not as a front-line stretcher bearer), met my Grandmother who was a red cross nurse at a Canadian hospital in England. While courting, they saw a German Zeppelin (LZ31) shot down near Potter’s Bar, he took a few pieces as souvenirs, which I now have.
Volunteered to join the Royal Flying Corps (shades of Blackadder!), washed out after 3 days when diagnosed with “pink eye.” I have a photo of him in his short-lived RFC breeches and “maternity jacket.” Returned to Canada after the war, drifted between jobs, had kids (including my Dad), returned to England in the late 30s, worked at a mouse farm (no kidding). Living in London when WWII began, he and my grandmother became air-raid wardens during the blitz. The youngest kids were sent to Canada to escape the bombing, the eldest stayed and joined the British forces. A German Junkers 88 bomber crashed near their ARP post, and he got several souvenir pieces of the aircraft, which I now have, along with his Warden’s badge and whistle.
Retired to Canada after the war. I only met him 4 or 5 times before he died in 1975.
Maternal grandfather: A Catholic Scot of Irish background, he scandalised both his and my grandmother’s family by marrying a good Protestant lass. After working in the Glasgow shipyards as a boy, he became an engine-driver on the London-Midlands-Scotland railway. Family tales include the bad old days, before Unionization of the rail workers, when he would collect pennies in his cap from the other workers on paydays to support a fellow driver who was sick and couldn’t work (no paid sick leave or National Health in those days).
He was from the “Red Clyde,” a part of Scotland which was heavily industrial and quite radically left-wing. He drove engines during the war for troop trains, and actually took the first trainload of American troops to arrive in Britain (early 1942, on the Queen Elizabeth) from the small Scottish port of Greenock down to England. They were very generous, and gave him oranges and bananas for his kids–something the family hadn’t seen in over 2 years. He died well before his time in 1952, nearly a decade before I was born.
Father’s father—was in on the beginnings of the Russian Revolution, got out while the getting was good (1911). Worked in the garment industry and was a political rabble-rouser (very far left). Great old guy—he died when I was eight, so I knew him fairly well. Self-educated, but a real expert on astronomy and archeology, which he got my sister and I interested in.
Mother’s father—real SOB. Born in Transyvania, came here as a baby about 100 years ago. Owned a press, printed most of the menus and calendars in Phila., but his wife was the brains of the business. Made a lot of money; died at 92, and not a moment too soon for any of us.
My grandfather on my father’s side was a pig farmer in Ireland, then moved to Chicago and became a railway shipping inspector.
My grandfather on my mother’s side was an advertising illustrator.
Paternal Grandfather: Lumberjack. He left my grandmother, who was a cook at the lumber camps, when my Dad was in 8th grade. She had six kids to support, so my Dad (the oldest) dropped out of school and started working as a lumberjack to bring in some money.
A few years later, she married my Step Grandfather who was (you guessed it) a lumberjack. If I ever need a tree cut down, I know who to call.
Incedentally, my father worked at the lumber camps until he was 17 or 18, and then decided the work was too hard so looked for an easier profession. He picked construction work. Makes you wonder just what those lumberjacks had to do seeing as framing large buildings was considered an “easy” job.
Maternal Grandfather was a milkman. Raised 5 kids in relative comfort delivering milk every day. Makes you think, eh? I remember when I was a kid it was considered a treat to go on the milk route with him. He gave me little cartons of chocolate milk to drink. I also remember that he delivered milk to our house, and he’d always take a break and come in and play a game with me when he delivered the milk.
My paternal grampa was a housebuilder, mill worker and piano tuner, all at once. He owned a lot of land on the east side of town. His oldest son married the oldest daughter of the guy who owned the land across the road.
My maternal grampa was a radio engineer. He was part of the Allied Signal Corps but was sent to California to work on the Manhattan Project instead of being shipped out. After the war he was a deputy sheriff fixing the radios. He owned a lot of land on the east side of town. His oldest daughter married the oldest son of the guy who owned the land across the road.
I grew up a beloved grandchild on the east side of town in a house my grampa built (where my other grampa haunts a crack in the ceiling, see haunted furniture thread), with them living next door and my other grandparents across the street. What a great way to grow up.
My paternal grandparents were Amish farmers in western Maryland/southwestern Pennsylvania.
My maternal grandparents were missionaries in Africa for about 20 years where they ran a school. After coming back, they were both professors at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. My grandfather was also the Dean at the college for a while. After she retired, my grandmother helped found an intergenerational day care center (day care in a retirement community). She even got her picture in Time.
I don’t know what my grandparents did during the war.
paternal grandfather was a fireman for Union Pacific in Wyoming, died (at age 49) of a heart attack before I was born.
maternal grandfather is a little more complicated. I don’t know the man I’m related to by blood (although I did find out recently that he and my grandmother divorced the month after my mother was born & he remarried almost immediately). The man I knew as my grandfather was a maintenance machinist for a glass manufacturer in the Bay Area; he and my father worked together for years, until we moved to So. Cal. He passed away about five years ago.
My maternal great-grandfather worked for a time at the truck scales on the highway (I have no idea what the proper name is for this).
And, if you go far enough back in my family tree you can find a distant cousin who went out in the back yard and had visions: he ended up building a temple.
My paternal grandparents were dairy farmers–they raised prize winning Jersey cows. I grew up next to their last farm and my mom and dad worked there, too. When Grandma died of cancer, Grandpa remarried and quit the farm. He has since passed away, too. After the dairy was shut down, mom and dad bought their own gas station, though my mom still raised her own calves for meat.
My materal grandparents were dirt farmers. No, they didn’t grow dirt, they grew whatever the landlord wanted them to. They were sharecroppers. Grandpa died before I was born. Grandma moved in with us around the same time my other Grandma died. She has also since passed away. So I’m grandparentless.
Geesh, sorry this is so long.
Mom’s dad was a railroad detective, Santa Fe RR out of Galveston. One of the big things in my mom’s family lore is that he used his job skills and contacts to help people who had been picked to take the fall for various crimes. He’d help the accused lock down a case against the person who really did the crime, so that they would have a chance in court. A lot of these people lived in the railyard, so I’m sure that it helped him keep the railroad property safe.
It kept him safe too. One day, his boss was beating him up in the railyard. A hobo walked up, pulled a bowie knife and offered to kill the guy for my grandfather. He declined, saying he’d do the job himself, if it needed to be done.
He’s also the reason I will never cross a strike picket line. Like I said, his boss used to beat him up on the job. He’d also get him out of bed to drive him home from the whiskey joints. This was during the Great Depression, so he had to hold onto the job that he had. My mom still remembers the night, after they got a union contract, when his boss called for a ride home. My grandfather told his boss that he’d be willing to get him, but he had already worked 48 hours, so he would get time and a half, it was between 11:00PM and 7:00am, so he would get double time on that and it was a four hour minimum call. After his boss’s response, he suggested to his boss that he could say all that to the labor board.
Dad’s father came from Appalachia around the (other) turn of the century. He was a carpenter and architect, but sometimes made brick chili and moonshine to make ends meet. I don’t think that they had much money: one of my uncles got the army base paper route and timed it to hit every company’s mess, and my dad never ate mustard as an adult because all they could afford at times were mustard sandwiches.
I can’t think of any stories of ethical or moral courage by my father’s parents, but his side of the family are not boastful people. On the other hand, it seems to me that the most important thing in life is to do the job right. Based on how my dad and his siblings lived and the work that my dad has produced, I’m sure that this ethic was handed down the paternal side of the family tree.
Both grandfathers died in the Fifties.
Paternal Grandfather – Long-time Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme Court.
Maternal Grandfather – An alcoholic homeless person who abandoned my grandmother when my mother and uncles were small. He was murdered on the streets of Denver, probably by another old hobo for whatever bottle he was carrying.
How’s that for contrast?
Wow, what a great variety of stories.
Paternal: Grandpa Harley was a big, big motorcycle buff from very early on - Harleys and Indians. Rode and restored them all his life. He also did some motorcycle stunt work in some of the early silent comedies. I know he had something to do with the railroads for a while, then became an airplane mechanic. Grandma came out from the Ozarks in the '20’s with her sisters to pack oranges in Ventura, CA, where she met her second husband, my grandather.
Maternal: Grandfather was at various times a police chief and sharpshooter, and the first paid fire chief in the city. He was a very close friend and hunting buddy of Erle Stanley Gardiner, and retired to salmon fish and manufacture his own brand of lures in the little workshop out back. Grandma was an accountant until she retired.
Grandfather – dad’s side:
He worked as a book binder in Philadephia. After visiting Colorado Springs several times they packed up the kids and moved here.
Initially he sold windows and other commercial building supplies. My grandfather was making more money than the president of the company and they had a problem with that so my grandfather started his own business selling windows from his garage. Later my dad bought the company and before he sold it to some large corporation, it was grossing over $24 million a year.
Grandfather – mom’s side:
All I know was that he was an auto mechanic in a dinky town in Kansas. He later died (before I was born) from lung cancer.
Grandfather – birthmother:
He was high up in the Air Force which makes sense since we have a huge Air Force presence here.
I don’t know about birthfather though…he’s a putz anyway.
Paternal Grandfather: Microbiologist for Wyeth Ayerst. worked on the baby formula many folks grew up on. Still alive and kicking in his late 80’s. Even up to about 10 years ago, he was getting phone calls from people at Wyeth asking him about his work etc. I was impressed!
Maternal Grandfather: Merchant Marine during WWII then worked in a foundry for the next 35 years or so. Work, work, work. Chemical spills at the foundry contributed to the pulmonary fibrosis that eventually killed him.
maternal - worked at a greenhouse near Chicago. I didn’t get his green thumb, though.
paternal - farmed in OK and later owned a gas station there. Almost a thousand people came to his funeral - he knew everyone in town.
–tygre
Mother’s dad: Coal miner for almost 50 years. Died this year of lung cancer.
Father’s dad: Worked for his stepfather-in-law’s cheese company, but was also an amateur boxer. Died of Parkinson’s disease.
Hope I live to see the day when work isn’t fatal.
Paternal Grandfather:
Worked with his hands-carpenter, painter, built airplanes for a while, etc.
Maternal Grandfather-Italian guy who switched sides during World War II and fought with the Americans. Clipped down my machine gun, survived, became mailman. Still alive, very senile. Very sad.
Bri