My mother’s mother used to be an operator, but now she volunteers at a museum.
My mother’s stepfather is a cabinet-maker.
My mother’s father lost a leg in World War II, then he became an actor, and later a toastmaster.
I believe his wife was a homemaker, but I’m not certain.
My father’s father was a minister (first Methodist, and later United Church of Canada, which the Canadian Methodist church became part of), and my father’s mother was a minister’s wife (a full-time occupation).
My father’s dad worked at Lederlie, a big company that makes drugs. (No, not that kind. Vitamins and stuff.) He was a systems analyst, whatever that is.
My mother’s father worked for the Xerox company.
How’s THAT for your white-coller 1950’s, “Leave It to Beaver” family?
My mother’s father was a coal miner in Scotland, and when he emigrated to the states he was a coal miner here. When he retired from that, he became the gardener for the only (at the time-we have three now) high school in our town. He used to grab the kids who were skipping school and hanging out smoking near his “office” and became a father figure to them-he talked to them sternly about what it would be like to try to get on in the world without a high school degree. (Back in those days, a HS degree was as important as a college degree is now.)
One of my cousins was one of his boys, and cousin says that he would not have graduated if it had not been for my grandpa.
I am proud that he was my gramps. The year he retired from his HS job, they put a whole two pages in the yearbook dedicated to him.
Scotti
(BTW, his nickname was Scotty, and that is where I got part of my username from. It is an homage to a really great man, who never amounted to much in a material sense, but was worth millions in the ways that matter.)
One was a trapper/fisherman, the other is a retired fisherman/trapper.
My mother’s father was a bank manager in a small town.
My dad’s father was a bus driver, I believe. He died before I was born.
Maternal - cattle rancher/entrepeneur. Very successful.
Paternal - businessman of some sort. Also very successful.
Both died worth over $1 million each. However, due to the number of people in the families, and the fact that one of them remarried, most of the money disappeared. Not that I mind - it wasn’t mine by a long shot, it was just interesting (and kind of sad) to see. It was like vultures on a dead wildebeast.
Paternal grandfather came from England when he was 19, and became a gardener for a rich family in Hollywood, CA. My dad grew up living on this big estate, in the “servants quarters”, and playing with the rich kids. All this ended when my grandfather died in his early 40s, when my dad was age 12. Tragic, I know it took a long time for my dad (and the rest of the family) to get over it.
Maternal grandfather worked as a traveling salesman in South Dakota, and was usually piss poor.
My paternal grandfather died before I was born, so I never knew him. He was an Italian immigrant who farmed and worked in the local clay mines.
My maternal grandfather was Croatian–he was born in the US, then was taken back to Croatia, then moved back permanently when he was 18. He was a wire puller in a steel mill–some of his wire ended up in the Golden Gate Bridge. In the mid-'30s there was an accident, and a piece of wire went through his left ring finger–it had to be amputed at the lower joint. The doctor he went to for his finger had a nurse my grandfather liked…and she became my grandmother.
He died of cancer in 1995 at the age of 85, having outlived his wife by over eight years. I played a lot of poker with him over the years, and I still can’t sit down at a game without a momentary disorientation before I remember he won’t be playing with us tonight.
My grandfather on my dad’s side was an artilleryman in World War II. He fought with the British forces in North Africa against Rommel, and later in Burma against the Japanese. After the war he worked for a gas company, I think as a meter-reader.
Maternal: Civil engineer and surveyor.
Paternal: Russian farmer and later lived
off the land in undeveloped Alaska.
It’s interesting how many of the U.S. respondents don’t have to go back that far to get to a generation that immigrated.
On the paternal side, my grandparents were Swedish immigrants to Saskatchewan in ~1904, where they homesteaded on the northern edge of the Great Plain. They had 10 kids. My grandfather was a lumberjack; he passed away at home from pneumonia in ~1929.
My maternal grandfather was born in 1889 and lived in New York City; he was an engineer and inventor, primarily interested in refrigeration. Amongst his creations were the original machine that made Brillo pads, lightning arrestors for commercial buildings and a deep freezer patent that he sold to Westinghouse for $3000 (a princely sum in those days, but I think Westinghouse did OK on the deal). He served with the U.S. Army in WWI and WWII, making it to the rank of colonel (artillery and demolitions, IIRC). He made a boatload of money (which made for a bit of culture clash when rich New Yorker’s daughter married Canadian lumberjack’s kid), but managed to flush it all, after my grandmother died, trying to develop his inventions on his own, rather than marketing them. Well, it was his money, I’m glad he got to play with it.
I knew him pretty well; he died when I was 20 at which point we were a bit estranged, partly due to his and my mother’s belief that I should become an engineer and partly due to the times.
If you want my grandpappy to smile at you, visit the website of a company he started (the one he flushed the bucks down): Flakice Corporation
Maternal grandfather emigrated with his parents to homestead in Rural Sasketchewan. The farm is still in the family. He lied about his age and enlisted for WWI and quickly realized that barracks life beat farming all hollow. He arrived in England just on time for the war to end, and was stuck there for months. He enrolled in something called the “Khaki University” and continued his education when he was demobbed, having quickly realized that academia beat soldiering all hollow. He wound up as a professor of agricultural economics in Ames, Iowa. (It turns out he almost hired Frank Lloyd Writght to design the family home; I still haven’t found out exactly why that didn’t happen…)
Paternal grandfather born & raised in the states. Ohio, I believe. He never talked about his past much, as great-grandad died early and great-grandmum was apparently something of a monster. He went to Harvard and went into business consulting, writing, and teaching. His two books are still available at Amazon. He just died this year at the age of 89.
Well, I talked with my Mom tonight (and she was thrilled to find out her dad has a place on the web) - so, corrections and additions.
My paternal grandad was born a Swede in Finnland in 1876. Mom said he died in 1932
Maternal Grandfather: WWII vet, a member of the Marines and in the South Pacific. Returned to work for a Steel company until he retired in 1987, and passed away 2 years after that.
Paternal Grandfather: Another WWII vet; an Army Ranger that fought in Italy and received a Purple Heart after taking a bullet that blew out most of his right scapula (he had a very distinct drop on his right shoulder–it was about 3-4" lower than the left). My father has the letter written by the Governor of New Mexico, addressed to my great-grandparents. Apparently, my great-grandparents had received “the telegram” saying my grandfather had been killed in battle, when, in fact, was wounded and in the hospital at the time; the governor had written a letter of apology and congratulations (hey, their son was alive!) and someone had framed it along the way. He came back to live in Yukon, Oklahoma, and managed the town lumberyard/hardware shop. Passed away two years ago.
Maternal Grandfather
He is 88 and going strong. When he was in the 8th. grade his father died and he had to quit school to work in a leather tannery in Wilcox Pennsylvania to support his family. My grandfather only had an 8th. grade education but he can do anything and I admire him greatly.
My paternal grandfather drove a freight truck for Newton Transportation in North Carolina.
My maternal grandfather was a “bomb watcher” in WWII in England. His job was to stay above ground during the air raids and watch where the bombs hit so he could report the locations and the damage. He ended up dying of black lung because of all the exposure a few years after the war ended.
My Maternal Grandfather: Sadly, I have no idea about anyone from this side of the family…
My Paternal Grandfather: While I know more about him, I really don’t know a lot of details. I know he served in WWII (no surprise there), though I don’t know in which service, or even which theater. Before he died (early '80s), he was a long-haul trucker (mostly oil tankers and such). He survived a couple horrendous accidents (in one, the truck he was driving was literally reduced to indistinguishable strips of scrap metal. He had no recollection of how he got out of the truck before it exploded), but smoking and booze finally killed him.
Paternal Grandfather:
World War II Vet, Infantry, European Theater. Welder for Ford-Caulkins Motor Company.
Paternal Grandmother:
Worked in a flower farm when I was a child. (I had really neat mental images of farming flowers…had no idea what hard work it was.) Homemaker and mother of 4.
Maternal Grandfather:
World War II Vet, Army and Navy, both. I’m not sure if he served in the Pacific Theater or not, but I know he was in Europe. He came home from the war an alcoholic and I don’t think he stayed in one place long enough to have a career after that. I’m sure he must have done something.
Maternal Grandmother:
World War II Women’s Army Corps. And then any job she could to finish raising my mom and her 3 brothers.
I’m proud of all my grandparents, even my Maternal Grandfather, because he became what he was partially as a result of the horrible things he saw and did in the war.
On my mom’s side:
My Grandpa was a farmer for most of his life in rural Saskatchewan. He was also a hockey player in his younger years and then in when he was older he coached. He coached for a long time and was honoured many times for his contributions to the community. Kids still came to visit him years and years later just to talk to him. He was also a great guy, and I miss him dearly. I used to love to go bowling with him (which we did right up until he died).
On my dad’s side:
He died before I was born, but he was also a great guy. He was in the army in several capacities. He trained people how to use weapons and also in hand-to-hand combat. He was a black belt in several martial arts. He could also play any instrument you placed in front of him. Truly amazing. In my house, left from him, we have several guitars, a mandolin, a mandola, a trumpet, a violin, and several other instruments. We also used to have a piano and drums. He was also ambidextrous, where I get it from, and rather creative too.
Both my grandfathers missed the war, as they were farming, an essential occupation. They also were both married with young children.
We lived across the road from Dad’s dad, and we all worked on the family farm. Grandad had driven oilfield truck when my dad was young, when Bloomingdale, MI was in the middle of it’s modest oil boom.
Great granddad on that side was also a farmer, his brother ran the livery stable in town (I’m named for him)
John Van Horn
Bloomingdale
Percheron Stallions for Service and Sale
Mom’s dad had been a farmer, a coal miner, run a bowling alley, and in his last years was Drain Commisioner for Allegan County, MI. He lived only 2 miles from us, so we got to see both sets of grandparents often.
Mom’s maternal grandpa traveled around the country hereabouts building tile silos. He built one for my dad’s paternal grandpa many years before the families were connected.