Paternal grandfather: A sailor during WWII, mostly in the Pacific. He was wounded pretty seriously, deaf in one ear and still had shrapnel in his shoulder when he (eventually)died. After that he was a welder at Chatham Dockyard, which is now a museum, and you can go and tour the one of the submarines he helped build.
This always seems funny to me, because I married a submarine sailor.
Marternal Grandfather: Was in Northern Africa during WWII. Luckily he missed most of the action because he was so young. He worked for Esso (Exxon over here) until he retired. He actually worked with the some of the first computers.
Both my parents became programmers in the late 70’s. My Mom is still, and now my sister is a techie. It’s funny to think that you can have three generations working with something so relatively new as computers.
My grandfather was a farmer for a long time. After a while, (I think right before their fifth, and last, child was born) he and my grandmother moved to town and he worked for Iowa Mold and Tool. I’m not sure what his job was, and he died when I was only about five or six, but I do remember spending lots of time at grandma and grandpa’s house, and that when he’d come home from work, he’d lean up against the kitchen wall and talk about his day. He was kinda dirty, and his fingers were black even after he’d wash them. I remember a faint, metallic smell, big boots, and greasy overalls.
What a great thread. I miss my grandpa.
My maternal grandfather worked as a bootlegger in the 40’s, a used car salesman for most of his life, and as a dry cleaner for 40 years. He came from a large family of 12 kids and his father was a farmer but before he had children he worked the Vaudeville circuit. His mother was a second cousin to the Jesse James family.
One of the neatest things that my paternal grandfather did was that he worked in Alaska in the 40’s and 50’s and he retired as a escalator engineer in Seattle about 15 years ago. His mother was a concert pianist and his father owned some sort of newspaper distribution thingee in Detroit.
My maternal grandmother worked as a waitress and a real-estate agent. Her grandmother was a Native American who lived on a reservation in Kansas.
My paternal grandmother worked in factories all of her life. Her parents emigrated from Germany. I don’t know much about her family at all, she never talked much about them.
From ChrisCTP:
I agree, Chris. And a nod to the OP as well. There’s not a lot of feedback going on here, but I enjoy both the (rarely taken) chance to reminisce as well as the background briefing. I like knowing my neighbors.
Tell us more, folks!
(How’s that for a long-winded bump?)
Sorry for the lack of feedback. I have been reading and enjoying each one of these posts. You (the teeming millions) have some great and some not-so great grandparents and you tell their stories eloquently. I almost feel like I can see you as you talk about them.
Thank you for sharing your grandparents with us. Also, I did not intend to leave grandmothers out, I just forgot to add that word in the OP.
Please keep the stories coming, if you will.
My maternal grandfather was headmaster of a british boarding school. he was knighted by the queen of england for his contributions to education.
My paternal grandfather was a teacher at Beverly hills high school (yes, it was 90210…). he taught dustin hoffman, among other people.
Dad’s Dad was a doctor in radiology in Springfield Illinois
before that he was a county doctor in Michigan where he was the unofficial team doctor for the Packers (mid 30’s)
Mom’s Dad. Invented the Automobile vacuum cleaner (at the do it yourself car washes) and also made his fortune in real estate.
Osip
Paternal grandfather was a rural mail carrier.Horse and buggy at first then model T.He died when I was very young. I don’t remember him.
Maternal grandfather delivered fresh bread from the bakery in Minneapolis.
My maternal grandfather (the one I really knew) built a candy and cigarette wholesale business that eventually served most of eastern Kentucky. He managed to get fairly wealthy over the years through a complex system of financial management–he didn’t spend more money than he had, and he didn’t spend money on things he didn’t want.
The most important thing he ever said to me was when he was in the hospital a few months before he died. I took him his mail, which included his bank statement. He opened it and examined it for a while, then showed it to me and said, “You know, I wish I was 20 years old, and didn’t have a penny of that.”
The family tells me that I share my grandfather’s attitude about money. He loved making money, but it didn’t have any inherent value to him. For instance, after he retired, he would travel around to auctions to sell random merchandise. He would be tickled to death about selling a case of 24 table lamps or a dozen pocket knives for a quarter apiece more than he paid for them–but would then turn around and give me $50 for some clothes, or write a $100 check to the church, always insisting that no one find out where it came from. He made money for the same reason some people paint, or hike, or do card tricks–it was fun.
My paternal grandfather died when I was fairly young. Like every other male on both sides of my family was at one time or another, he was a tobacco farmer.
(Yes, I realize that the people in my family have mostly made their livings in the tobacco industry, and I’m going to be a doctor. The irony isn’t lost on me. I think of it as part of the Circle of Life.)
Dr. J
My maternal grandfather served in Korea; he was a surgeon. After the war, he did a lot of volunteer-type medical work as well as having a busy practice. He retired almost 15 years ago, and since then has been having a hell of a good time going to sporting events and gardening and investing in the stock market.
My paternal grandfather served in the Aleutian Islands during WWII. He was a communications officer on an LST. He got his Ph.D in English from Yale and then was a professor of English literature at a small liberal arts college in KY for 45+ years. He is now retired and in declining health, which makes me sad.
My grandfather was a fucking asshole. Thankfully my father looked at him and decided he never wanted to be like him. He used my gradfather as a roll model of what not to be like, and how to treat people. It’s bad when childern absolutely refuse to go visit, no matter what the consquences. We would rather take off into the wilds for the day and take our punishment, than visit him for a few minutes.
Occupation: Farmer then carpenter.
Maternal grandfather was in the Army, rose to Brigadier General. 34 years including West Point service (maybe 35 . . . I dunno exactly and mother isn’t here now). After that he was a defense consultant or somesuch. Did some fishing and writing. And boatloads of drinking and smoking.
Paternal grandfather, as a profession . . . poetry editor for the Washington Post for a while, poet in general for several decades, author/editor for many, many years. Taught school at the school he cofounded for several years, was on the board of same school until his death, IIRC.
That’s what they got paid to do or did as hobbies that were legal. Apart from that, go to other threads. Maternal grandfather didn’t do much of anything bad compared to paternal.
Maternal grandfather (walked on water as far as I was concerned):
Born Sudbury MA, 1912. We still have the desk he made for his shop project in high school. Attended Wentworth Institute, degree in patternmaking, 1930. Negged from WWII, he said nobody he knew had ever heard of the classification he got. I think it was his eyesight got him out. Made turbines for warships at the time - got security clearance for that job. Before that he’d worked for the brass mill in the town he’d moved to and met my grandmother in, and then at the Sturtevant Rifle Co. where part of his job was unpacking rifles sent back for maintenance. Grandma says sometimes the customers were dumb enough to leave the damn things loaded, and her heart would skip a beat whenever she heard a rifle report. (The town is a very small one, and work was just a stone’s throw away from the house.)
Built the house my mother grew up in from a Quonset hut sold as surplus after the war; built a small shed for my mom’s seashell collection - later became a toolshed.
Passed on in 1991 and Mamma O, Sis and I still miss him terribly.
Maternal grandmother grew up in the town her mother was born in and never left until they moved to NH a couple of years before Granddad had a stroke. Taught in the town schools for several years (thereby crimping Mamma O’s style in high school) and a housewife thereafter. Last grandparent I have left.
Paternal grandfather: Born 1906 in Springfield MA. Left on his own at 19 when his father died; worked several careers in his lifetime, one of which was registered nurse. According to Grandma when they lived in Portsmouth NH he got so many bit parts in movies they were filming there he had to join the Screen Actors’ Guild. Had a very serious stroke in 1982 and I never really got to know him. Passed on in 1987.
Paternal grandmother apparently enjoyed the flapper lifestyle. Born in Springfield in 1906, she moved to SF in her late teens with several friends looking for work, then hitchhiked back home with a couple of them. Makes me wonder what kind of weird scrapes she got into. Got an art degree from a school in Boston and worked as a commercial artist for a MA department store for almost two decades. Passed on a year ago this August.
That sounds just like my Nana are you sure we are not related?
This is a GREAT thread!
My paternal grandfather drove a truck for many years, then when the company closed down he got a job as a furniture salesman. He divorced my father’s mother after they had been married for 25 years, and re-married almost at once. I imagine there is a story there, but I don’t want to know it. He died of lung cancer, even though he never smoked. He grew up on a dairy farm, and I can remember him telling me how hard that life was. His father missed two milkings in his life - one for his father’s funeral, and one for his mother’s.
My paternal grandmother was a secretary to the boss of a department store after the divorce. Talked non-stop, and the worst cook in recorded history. Always interesting to visit her at her apartment, as long as we didn’t arrive hungry.
My maternal grandmother was the single human I most loved in my life. She did not work outside the home, and she lived with us for the last 10 years of her life to the day before she died. I was so incredibly lucky to have her that I didn’t even realize how rare it was. I assumed everyone had a person in their house who loved them unconditionally and unquestioningly. She used to say ‘children don’t need anything but time’, and she gave us tons of that. I met a woman at church camp this summer who looks like my grandma, and I astonished myself with the gush of affection I felt for this woman, just because she reminded me of a grandma who has been dead for almost 30 years.
My maternal grandfather was a carpentry contractor. I never met him; my mother was pregnant with me when he died of a heart attack while sitting on the toilet. You have to know my family to appreciate how appropriate this is.
He was in WWI and my grandmother started writing to him as part of a program at her high school to a) prove their patriotism because it was a German language school, and b) keep Our Boys out of the clutches of the mademoiselles (my grandfather was in France). My grandfather asked if he could call on her when he got back to the USA, and they married. He was a strait-laced Methodist when he married my Lutheran grandmother, and her parents-in-law detested her as a ‘flapper’. She was quite a party girl, from the stories I heard.
My grandfather must have been a funny character. Everyone tells stories about him that make him sound like a domineering loudmouth, but everyone tells the stories with genuine affection. He must have had something on the ball, because my grandmother loved him. She could never talk about him without getting weepy. He had been dead for 14 years, and her dying words were ‘Take me home, Jack.’
God bless them all. They had a much harder life than I do, and they never complained about it.
The nice thing is, now my mother treats my children in exactly the same way her mother treated me.
Regards,
shodan
This thread is a keeper. Anyone else out there want to share their grandparents with us?
Mother’s father: engineer and urban planner for the city of Baltimore in the '30’s and '40’s. Sports car enthusiast, womanizer and heavy drinker.
Father’s father: engineer, ran a stone masonry firm. Quiet, bookish, raised chrysanthemums and supported my grandmother’s shopping addiction.
Paternal grandfather: Drove a tractor trailer and lived in LA.
Maternal grandfather: Worked for Pepsi bottling plant in Philadelphia.
Both of them blue collar guys, like myself.
Maternal grandfather: Was in the 1st Marine Infantry during the Korean War. Rarely talks about it. The two stories I heard was once his unit was sent to take an island. They took the island, but due to miscommunication, back at their ship they were presumed KIA. They lived off what they could find for more than a week when another unit was sent to take the island only to find the Marines already had control there.
Afterwards he went to school and became an engineer for Hussman.
Paternal grandfather: Never really knew him. His first name is Dalton, and that’s about all I know.
Paternal grandfather: farmer and livery stable owner
Maternal grandfather: baker and candy maker