raeanna74

Do you know what your grandparents did? What kinds of jobs they had, especially as youngster? When did they start going to work? Did they finish school? Did they go to war? What did they think of the war then? What did they think of the politics then and now if they're still around?

My Grandparents grew up during the depressions - I know very little about my Dad's parents. Partly cause Grandpa B died when I was 12 and he didn't talk about his parents much because he was adopted and from what I hear resented it. His mother was Cherokee Indian and Dad was French. Grandpa B's birth parents didn't want the criticism of raising a half-breed. Grandma B was born into a huge family, A middle child, poor, and she was neglected. She was a bitter woman because of that.

As for my mother's parents. Grandma S's Dad was a politician, boat builder, and owned realestate during the depression. The depression hit them hard but he didn't sell off and when things began to improve his family was able to prosper. Papa Bill as family members still call him, Headed the democratic party when it first formed in Wisconsin. Grandma followed in her father's footsteps in a lot of ways. She was active politically, graduated from business school in 1926, bought and sold land, bought a floral business and ran it for 40 years before she and grandpa sold it as a functioning business so that they could retire. She invested and saved a lot. When she was a teenager, during the depression, she took in laundry and did housekeeping for some people. She found a woman she was working for, took a fur coat that she thought was too worn, and buryed it. Grandma went, dug it up, and cleaned it. She patched it where she could and wore it because she'd outgrown her old coat and they didn't have the money to fix it. Her sisters (3 of them) were all older than her and pouted and whined and tried to fight over the coat but her Dad finally stepped in and declared that Grandma had found and repaired it and it was hers. She loved that coat.
Grandpa S packed sausages during the depression for a while. When he finally couldn't get work he would hop a train and was a hobo going from town to town looking for work. He was finally driving a semi truck across country before the war. and got beat up twice when going through Chicago - both times by gangs of blacks. He's a little prejudice against a black man till he proves himself. Though he does know a few that he'll have coffee with or play golf with now and then. They've proven themselves to be decent people though. He was driving over the Mountains out West when he heard on the radio in his truck that WWII had been declared. At his next stop he got in touch with a recuiter and signed up. He believed that he would be drafted if he didn't and if he signed up voluntarily he would get to choose where he went and what position he got. He was the communications man and cook for a PT boat in the Philippines during the whole war. He has told me about Kamikasi attacks on his boat, His superior office coming to mess one morning naked and Grandpa throwing him out. He lost a stripe for that - He'd have had three if it weren't for that. He tells about going ashore and the Philipino's communal bathrooms. He tells about his opinion of government then.

Today Grandpa S and Grandma B are the only ones surviving. Grandma doesn't care much about politics. Grandpa believes we should assist Isreal and end the war there with superior force. He remembers when Isreal first began fighting for land and to be left alone over there. It angers him that the US has been pussy footing around trying to please all these countries that keep harboring terrorists and breaking peace treaties.

I find it exciting and interesting to learn about those that have gone before and shaped our families values and our countries politics. Those that have played a part or been affected by major events in our relatively recent history. How much do you know about your forefathers? Share some of their opinions and experiences.

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"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

ngdawg

Father's side: My grandmother was the youngest of 8 kids to a Polish immigrant couple. Her american name was Anna. No one could pronounce her Polish name. She married the son of a German couple-his name was Gus. He was a NYC fireman. They first had my Uncle Bob and two years later my dad. Gus left 2 years after that because he didn't want my dad. Anna went to work for White Rock, a soda company and raised her two boys herself. She tried for government help (housing, etc.), but she owned a car so they said no. LOL She had gotten engaged at one point, but the man was Jewish, his mother forbade his marrying a divorced gentile with kids, so he killed himself. Anna stayed with White Rock until retirement-lived in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn and was the most bigotted person I'd ever met when it came to blacks and hispanics. Gus died in 1978 in Florida. He had remarried, but never had more kids.
Mom's side: Grandmother was from Poland-she came here with her family at about the age of 15 (we aren't sure how old she ever was). Of the 8 kids in her family, 5 died, including twins from smallpox when they were 18 months old or so. By the start of the German invasion of Poland, all correspondence with family back there came to an end. It's of course assumed, being Jewish, they all perished in death camps or ghettos. I know of no jobs she ever held.
Grandpa was the 'Mayor of Sheepshead Bay'. No one didn't know him. He was born in Russia to a sweater factory owner and his wife. He had one brother. When Grandpa was 5 or so, his father was killed by a street cart. His sickly mother lost everything afterward, became sicker and died within a few years. At the age of about 8, the Revolution was in full swing and Grandpa, who, with his brother, lived with an uncle, fled to Turkey. But within two years, the Turkish Holocaust had taken hold. Turks were killing Armenians, exporting Greeks and other nationals and, being Jewish, they figured they best get out. It was then they came here. Grandpa worked in the projects in which he lived, in the boiler room. When he finally retired, he remarked about how he was looking to sleeping in-until 6am Grandma and Grandpa had 4 kids, including twin boys(Grandpa passed out when they announced she'd had two). My mother is the second born. Her older sister owns the 5th largest modelling agency in Manhattan(so she claims) and the 'boys' (heh, they're in their 60's now) were both quasi-famous college basketball stars and are now teachers and businessmen.

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Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

maleficent

My mother's parents were both dead by the time I was a freshman in high school...

Grandma, was first generation in her family to be born in America, her family came from County Cork in Ireland and never ever wanted to go back... She spent her childhood and uptil she was married a few years in Hoboken NJ way before it was a trendy place for yuppies to live... there are pictures I've seen of her when she was young, and she was very very stylish and very trendy.. One of her uncles was a big numbers runner in NJ...

she married pop pop when she was in her early 20s -- his family goes back to areas of NJ from the 1600s.. he always insisted that members of his family thre the rope to the mayflower when it docked ... He worked all his life ad worked hard to support his family - he graduated from college and worked as a CPA - most notibly for Annheuser Busch -.There are pictures of him with me and my sister - being the total proud grandpa and I remember him smelling of cherry pipe smoke and being a great story teller... He died entirely too young...

When grandma and pop pop got married, their first child, Harry Jr appeared 8 months after the wedding day- It was SCANDALOUS!!!! the year was 1923 and he was premature.. but tongues wagged. and people counted ontheir fingers.. 10 years later, my mom came along and they moved out of hoboken... Harry Jr died at age 13 from complications of an burst appendix...

my father's father died when he was in high school and i know very little about him, just that he left my father's mother taken care of.. Nana, my dads mother, was always old to me - I don't ever remember her not being in a nursing home and going on sundays to take her out to lunch - I think she died when I was 8 or 9... but the stories my dad tells of her - she'd be a cool lady - she was about 4'9 and 80 pounds but ballsy as anything... didn't put up with crap from anyone...

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Ample

I know next to nothing about my father’s father. I know that he grew up on a farm somewhere in Kansas where they raised rabbits. My father told me that he had a pet rabbit that once and his father made him skin it and they ate it for dinner one day. He was very abusive; beat the crap out of my dad a lot. Growing up, my father not once laid a hand on me, he left that up to my mother . When my father was a teen his mother divorced him and they moved out to California. Yeah the guy was a asshole of the worst kind.

I didn’t know my father’s mother too well either. She lived about 200 miles away, and I think they had a pretty rocky relationship. I have no idea what she did for a living. My father’s youngest brother had quadruple bypass surgery when I was seven. There was a life or death decision to be made. My grandmother sided with one side of the family and my father sided with my uncle’s wife, causing a split throughout the family, that still stand today over 20 years later. I never saw my grandmother alive again. She died five years later. Her funeral was the first one I ever went to. I just remember thinking who is this woman?

My mother was originally from the East coast and I grew up on the West Coast, so I never got to know her parents too well. I know my grandfather fought in WWI as a radio man. Later he worked for the FBI as an accountant in a Washington suburb. I don’t have a lot of memories of him, but he was a very kind man. That was always nice to me, and my sisters. The man ran 6 miles everyday, and when he turned 80 his eyesight went bad so he did those 6 miles running small loops in the basement. My grandmother is the only one of my four grandparents that is left alive. She just turned 90 last month. She is the quintessential idea of what a American grandmother should be. I think she must have been the inspiration for Normal Rockwell. I know that she worked as a bookkeeper, and worked with computers punching computer cards in the 50s or 60s.

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Her juju beads are so nice
She kissed my third cousin twice
Im the king of pomona

snowy

I was close with both of my grandfathers, so I'm fortunate enough to know their stories.

My maternal grandfather fell off a slide when he was 3 and broke several major bones in his body, which crippled him for life. Nowadays things would be different; he wouldn't have spent most of his life in utter pain. But as it stood he spent most of his childhood in and out of hospitals, and didn't go on to any further education, though he wanted to learn to become an electrician. At any rate, he worked several menial jobs doing custodial work when my mother was young so that my grandmother could stay home with my mother and her two sisters. They had the best of everything, though they didn't have much. Grandpa worked really hard so they could have ski lessons, music lessons, ballet, and do everything their peers did. Eventually, Grandpa got hired on as a custodian at Boeing and with the raise in pay he bought a Craftsman house built in 1929. When I was young Grandpa retired from Boeing (which had a very good retirement plan) and spent his days working on his boat or playing all kinds of games with us. He taught me darts, ping-pong, and croquet. Grandma divorced him (she was/is crazy) after 49 years of marriage, and he spent the rest of his days living in a trailer in Reno, NV. He loved motorhoming, and had been all over the Western United States. Grandpa also loved trains, ghost towns, and books about the Civil War.

My paternal grandfather was born in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. He grew up in Haarlem, which is a city about 15 minutes outside of Amsterdam by train, and close to the coast. His father worked on boats all of his life, but died when my grandpa was 14 of a sudden heart attack. Grandpa dropped out of school and took a job in a hotel. He worked in hotels up until the start of World War II. In fact, he was working in a hotel on the beach when the Germans started shelling the Dutch coastline. At any rate, during the war my grandfather was put into forced labor by the Germans, carted off from home and family to weld German locomotives in an area south of Berlin. He injured himself while welding and had to go to the hospital in Berlin. On the way back from Berlin on the train, he met a Swedish consul who gave him doctored papers. Using these papers, my grandpa was able to escape the Germans and go home. My grandpa blotted large chunks of his time in the forced labor camp out of his memory; my great-uncle told me that when my grandpa came home they ran into each other outside of Haarlem's train station, and my grandpa could never remember that happening--he was still so shell-shocked. Through the war my grandpa courted my grandmother--they were neighbors in Haarlem for a time, and met because my great-uncle was dating my great-aunt (my grandpa's brother dating my grandma's sister), and though the relationship between Aunt Joopie and Uncle Aat didn't work out, my grandparents were married for almost 50 years before my grandmother died of Alzheimer's. They immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s, when my father was a few years old. My dad still remembers the boat trip. Before coming to the U.S. they also lived in Curacao and Aruba in the Carribean. My grandpa worked as a steward for Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) until he moved to the US. Then he went back to working in hotels. After several hotel jobs, he moved back to KLM--this time into sales. He was the top salesman in his region 15 years running--right up until his retirement. His specialty was Holy Land Tours.

As for my paternal grandmother, she was an Olympic class swimmer, and sadly, due to Hitler closing the Dutch universities, missed out on the opportunity to go to university and get a degree. She was brilliant. Later in life, she taught her children to swim, and taught thousands of children all over Dade County, Florida, to swim. She taught me to swim before she got sick with the Alzheimer's. It was horrible to watch a wonderfully active, intelligent woman lose her mind. But I still have all the things she gave me, and more besides. I am told I look like her--and act like her too.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

abaya

Cool thread, and I especially love hearing that so many of you are descended from immigrants; GO IMMIGRANTS!

My attempt at a quick summary:

--Maternal grandma (Thai) wanted to go to college and study French, but at age 18 she had to marry and start popping out kids. After many years of that, as well as her husband's womanizing, she got a divorce (we're talking about Thailand in the 40s-50s here... she was revolutionary), worked so hard to support her kids (as a French teacher) that she had to be hospitalized at one point, and married someone else. In her 70's she was incredibly brave and moved to the U.S. to be closer to 3 of her 10 children, leaving her husband behind in Thailand. She died last year at 87 of pancreatic cancer. I miss her so much.

--Maternal grandfather (Thai) was a judge for the supreme court of Thailand. He also happened to be an asshole and my grandmother divorced him. I never met him, since he died long before I was born.

--Paternal grandmother (Icelandic) was the daughter of a doctor in Iceland. She had an identical twin who died of TB when they were 16 (in fact, she lost many relatives to TB at that time). She worked as a housekeeper for a Lutheran priest when she was 18, and ended up marrying him soon after (he was 11 years older than her, oooh). He was assigned to a parish in rural NW Iceland, and they moved there to raise their 10 children for the next 40 years. She's still very much alive and kicking, having survived breast cancer and is on the cusp of turning 80 next year. I am named after her.

--Paternal grandfather (Icelandic) was a Lutheran priest in Iceland. The priesthood had been in his family, and he was a scholar by nature, so it was a natural choice. He loved to study and read in several languages... it's so cool to flip through his old books and see all the marginalia and notes to himself on the pages. He and my grandmother raised 10 children (including triplets) in rural Iceland, with him schooling all of his children at home until they were teenagers. I met him a few times when I was quite young, and barely remember him, unfortunately. He died on the operating table during a semi-risky surgery when I was 11 years old. My stepdad and I went to Iceland and the 5 brothers asked him to help carry the casket, since my biological father had died before I was born; it was a hugely significant gesture.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Grasshopper Green

Mom:
I don't know anything about my mom's mom except that she left my grandfather when my mom was 3 and died of cancer before I was born. My mom didn't really have a relationship with her because she never really had a chance to develop one.

My mom's dad was an abusive asshole and did the world a favor when he died 3 years ago. Sounds insensitive, but after what he did to his kids, it's not.

Dad:
My grandmother was raised on the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma until she and her mother moved to California in her early teens. I really don't know that much about her younger years, and she never worked that I'm aware of. She married my grandfather in her early 20's and had ten children with him. She was a typical wife of the time...took care of the kids, did what her husband asked, and kept a comfortable home. She was stunningly beautiful when she was younger and I love looking at old pictures of her. I'll never understand what she saw in my grandfather. She was married to my grandfather for 50 something years, and after he died was reunited online with a high school boyfriend and got remarried. She loves the outdoors, traveled a lot when she was younger, and is one of the sweetest and most upbeat people I've ever known.

My grandfather was born and raised in California, and was the son of a very successful plumber. During the Depression he worked on a farm and as part of his pay, received a watermelon every day for lunch. He married my grandmother right before WWII, and then went off to fight. He was wounded on D-Day...he caught some shrapnel and lay on the beach all day until the medics could get to him. He also served and was wounded in Korea. He retired after 25 years of service and settled his family in California. He got a civil service job after that, working at the post office. He was a very domineering man and never got along well with any of his sons, and I think that set the tone for the way I felt about him in my later years. I loved him because he was my grandfather, but he wasn't a man that I'd want to know otherwise. He died in 1999 after a series of strokes; he was 80.

I was never close to my grandparents, because I never considered having any on my mom's side, and my dad's parents always lived far away from us. I was always envious of people who had close relationships with their grandparents.

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"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"

Formerly Medusa

Rodney

On my mother's side, my grandparents came over from Madeira (the Portuguese island) around 1910. Grandad came first, went to the SF Bay Area and found work in an oil refinery. He sent for my grandmother, who came in through Ellis Island with my oldest uncle. They popped out a buncha kids once they got here, and then my grandfather (I don't even know his name) died of the flu in '27 or '28, when my mom was just five years old.

Grandma had seven kids and no money, so she did the only thing she could: pushed the oldest ones out on their own as soon as possible, and found another husband, an Italian bootlegger. My mom stayed with Grandma the longest, but even she had to quit school in eighth grade and move out. Some of my uncles and aunts never forgave Grandma for booting them out the door. But times were tough. She lived with the bootlegger until he died, and then lived with the son she'd had with him. When I first knew Grandma she was already pushing 70, and didn't move well. But she was smart and blunt and funny, and had a large fund of dirty jokes which she'd deliver in her thick Portuguese accent. She lived to 97; at the end she couldn't even get out of bed, but she was sharp as a tack until she died, and never let anything get her down.

I'd have to look up the names of my paternal grandparents. Both died before I was born. My grandfather on that side was born before the civil war; his people had moved down from the Carolinas to Texas during the war, and stayed there for a while and got into trouble. He moved up to Oklahoma, got a farm, and started a family; several, in fact, as he kept outliving wives. He married my grandmother and that one stuck even though they fought like cats and dogs and pretty much warped my dad's brain. They were both pretty old when my Dad was born. They moved out to California, the San Joaquin Valley during the '20s after Oklahoma turned into the Dust Bowl, and got another small spread. Their many children did well enough.

Gilda

Maternal Grandfather (Russian): Russian soldier who was part of the Soviet force in the Ukraine at the height of the cold war in the mid 1950's. Met and married my grandmother and settled down with her to work as a minor official in local law enforcement.

Maternal Grandmother (Ukranian/Chinese): Daughter of a poor Ukranian man and a young Chinese woman. She met my grandfather when she was in high school and married him to get away from her abusive father. She worked on and off as a clerk for some minor government agency, but mostly was a housewife. My mother was their second child, their only girl. They sold my mother, then 18, to my father for roughly the equivilent of $3000 American in 1974.

Paternal grandfather: Chicago police officer, one the youngest children born to Irish immigrants at the height of the Great Depression, in the early to mid-thirties.

Paternal grandmother: Housewife, also the child of Irish immigrants and born in the Great Depression.

Gilda

warrrreagl

Paternal GF - successful Southern businessman who ran afoul of the IRS after WWII. He didn't trust banks after the Depression so he kept his money in cash hidden around in his house. A business rival ratted him out to the IRS and they raided his home, walking out with cases and cases of cash but never charging him with anything. He never got the cash back. Hmmmm. He eventually sold his clothing business to my parents and they ran it until they retired 10 years ago. He died with Alzheimer's while I was in college and reportedly left a fortune hidden away somewhere that the IRS couldn't find and no one else has been able to locate it yet either. He was a general prick that I was terrified of while growing up. He had mistresses scattered everywhere. However, he had an uncanny ability to pick up any musical instrument and play it as if he'd studied it for years (he never took music lessons of any kind). In his church, he sat in the front row so he could stand and conduct the congregation in hymn singing every Sunday. The only professional life I have ever known for myself is as a musician, conductor, and teacher, so...

Paternal GM - a sweet, sweet Yankee from Ohio that was the most gracious and kind LADY I ever met. Anyone who met her said the same thing. She always had little bottles of coca-cola in her fridge for the grandchildren and little dishes of pink wintergreen lozenges set out everywhere. How she ever put up with my grandfather is beyond comprehension, yet I always remember them as seeming to be very happy together. She died of a stroke while I was in college.

Maternal GF - a large, barrel-chested Southern farmer and Klansman. He had a severe alcohol problem, he stuttered badly, and he constantly got into fights. He always carried a pistol and a roll of Tums in his pocket and a billy club in his car. In other words, a "good old boy." He was always happy, jolly, and genuinely glad to see me when I was a kid. For awhile, he and his two brothers got out of farming and ran a successful truck-stop and cafe. I'm named directly after him. He died while I was in graduate school from burns suffered while accidentally (and stupidly) igniting gasoline.

Maternal GM - a sweet, tortured soul who was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her senior year of high school was 1932 and there were only three students. There wasn't enough money to hire a teacher, so their teacher taught as a trade for room and board with the three students' families. She wanted to go to nursing school and prepared her whole life to be a nurse. However, her father could only afford to send one of his children to postsecondary school and he didn't choose her. She spent the rest of her life as a good mother and grandmother who always longed for more. Her restlessness eventually led her to be committed to an institution where she received shock treatments in the 60's. She frequently heard voices. My grandfather divorced her in the late 60's. She and my mother fought and argued constantly, but all of us grandchildren got along with her perfectly fine. My mother sent her to a nursing home at one point in order to be rid of her, and the nursing home kicked her back out - she was too well to be there. She eventually died in another nursing home about 6 years ago at the age of 86.

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

Crack

you have quite the background there! Russian/Ukranian/Chinese/Irish.
I wish I had more of a background like that. All I really have is Irish/Cherokee Indian.

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

~Halx

Eweser

My maternal grandfather was a carpenter. He and my grandmother lived in many different places. I don't know if any of their seven (six survivied) children were born in the same place. They ended up not too far from where I now live. I was always kind of....uncomfortable around him, and I think it's just because our personalities clashed. He loved to fish at the lake by their house, and when we'd go swimming he would fish. He would always drift into our swimming area and then yell at us for interrupting his fishing. My brother and cousins and I love to tell stories about him nowadays. He died of Alzheimer's in 1997.

My maternal grandmother was a cranky old woman, but loved us a lot even though she never told anyone "I love you." She used to use a long knife to peel potatoes, cut watermelon, etc and she'd gesture with it when she was talking. We always would tease her by bobbing and weaving like she was getting too close to us. She died of complications from a heart attack on Christmas Eve 2002. She spent some time in the hospital before she passed away and I went to visit her almost every day. It made me feel closer to her than I ever had and I'm grateful I had that time.

My paternal grandfather was the most awesome man I've ever met. He would be the closest thing to a "hero" I have. He was a farmer his whole life and there wasn't anything us grandkids would want that he wouldn't get us. There are too many stories to tell here. I've never heard a bad word spoken about him. He and my grandmother were married for 50+ years and when we had to put her in the nursing home because of Alzheimer's, he had a breakdown because he couldn't take care of her anymore. We put him in with her, the same room, and he eventually came out of it and was sharp as a tack until he passed away. It was terribly painful to see that, but at the same time made me hope I'd have a marriage/love that was that great. His parents were German and he was one of five children and he and three others were born in America. My great-grandmother learned to write English with him as he learned in school. I don't believe he had past an 8th grade education.

Looking back on what I can remember, I think I am probably a lot like my paternal grandmother. Stubborn, quick tempered, and tom-boyish (is that a word?). We clashed like you wouldn't believe. Neither one wanted to give in to the other. She started showing signs of Alzheimer's when I was quite young, so it's hard to remember a lot about what she was like before then. My brother was always her favorite, and she took up for him against me (I totally deserved it) all the time. My grandfather loved to tease her, especially at the dinner table. He'd tell a story and she'd say "Now Walter!". He would just grin at us. I see my dad do that occasionally.

Man, I miss my grandparents.

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"Whoever wrote this episode should die!"

Ustwo

We all have backrounds much like that only they have been lost to time.

I am part Welsh and recently read that the Welsh seem to be orignally from Russia (we are talking Ice age) and also seem to have moved into Spain as well. I wouldn't ever think of myself as Russian, but its there none the less.

Even the Cherokee which are classifed as 'clovis' in terms of anthropology (based on the clovis style spear point) were thought for a long time to be part of the first group of humans to live in the Americas comming over from Asia. Its becoming apparent that there were people living here prior to the clovis peoples and they were superceeded by the clovis people, the problem is no one knows their origin. A 9000 year old skull which made such a fuss gave this for facial reconstruction.



Looking like Patrick Stewart this has caused a bit of confusion. Undoubtedly there are forever lost links and stories with this, perhaps you are even related to this other group of people, but we can't ever know for sure.

I'd really love to see my true family tree and its a shame we humans have such short attention spans to really pay attention to those who came before us.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

abaya

Well, if you go back far enough, we're all from Olduvai Gorge in Africa.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

highthief

Everyone can take part in National Geographic's "Genographic Project" which analyze your DNA as part of a larger world wide survey to determine your ancient ancestry and where your forefathers truly came from. It won't give you the name and occupation of your great-grandfather - it will tell you where your ancestors came from in the deep past.

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/...rticipate.html

Male DNA donors will have their male ancestry determined and female donors will have their maternal ancestry investigated.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

Ustwo

Thats pretty cool and I think I'll be doing that.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

xepherys

This is a really deep and interesting thread. I've only read the first few so far, but will definitely need to come back and finish reading. Here's my info:

Maternal Grandfather: My Grandpy Hurley was a great, great man. He's the one person that I've ever truly seen as a role model for who I want to be. When I was younger he would take me and my cousins out into the field and woods behind his house to go snake hunting (this is in the Detroit suburubs, not out in the sticks, so it was a rare treat). He'd play whiffle ball with us and take us for walks. He was a smart man, too. Sharp to the last. I also remember he had BEAUTIFUL penmanship. Not uncommon for people from his generation, but still something that is rare today. I know he served as a Cavalry Officer in the Phillipines during WWII. Sadly, I never talked to him much about it. I went to Basic Training many years after he passed away, but I had a picture of him in his uniform in my locker, and his memory helped me get through the toughest days. He passed when my first son was just starting to show in his mom's belly. We didn't want to tell my grandpa becuase I was petrified he'd be upset (we were quite too young). Literally on his death bed, he told me and Brett's mom that everything would be okay and touched her belly. He had known. It still makes my tear up to think about what a wonderful great granddad he would've been. Even in his oldest age, before cancer struck, the neighborhood kids would come by and ask my grandma if he could come out and play. They all called him, "Mr. Bob". With all of his grandkids and step-grandkids grown up, he had a lot of time to treat the neighborhood kids just like they were part of his family, and took them on the same walks, snake hunts and played the same whiffle ball with them. God I miss him!


Maternal Grandmother: My Grandma Ella died when my mom was only 16. I never met her, but I've heard a lot from my mom and my mom's aunts. From everything I can tell, she was a lot like my grandfather and had a very adventerous spirit. Her, her two sisters and her brother came over to this country from Ukraine when they were very young. The sisters were all very different. My Aunt Ann is the surviving sister, and someone with whom I've spent a lot of time growing up. After 29 years, I've never been as close to her as I'd like, but there's still time. My step-grandmother and I didn't get along very well. She was a nice lady, mostly, but had a jealous streak. At one point, when I was young, she had kicked my grandfather out of the house and he stayed with my mother and I for a month or so. I never forgave her for that, even though everyone else did. She outlived my grandpa for a few years, and after his death, my mom and her grew quite close (which they had never been before). I was there when she passed away as well. I do feel guilty for never letting her off the hook, but that's life I guess...


Paternal Grandfather: My Grandpa Williams was, actually, a jerk. He was a coal miner when my dad and his siblings were growing up. His job moved them state to state throughout the south. He was an alcoholic (and in the end, so was my father). He was mean and grouchy. He had retired by the time I remember him, and would lay around on the couch smoking cigars and barking orders. Bah!


Paternal Grandmother: My Grandma Williams was an interesting lady. Very much the hillbilly, but funny and a good listener. I never spent a lot of time around her, and none of my memories are good or bad, just very neutral.

maleficent

the things we remember...

I dont know what made me think this - one of the things I do remember about my mother's mother, was her amazing baking ability.. she made the most incredible lemon menangue pies, from scratch, that were sooo good..for christmas and thanksgiving she also always made mincemeat pie - no one would eat it but my father who only ate to make my grandma feel good, and turns out, she only made it because my father always ate it... (I have a very weird family)

She also had the most amazing collection of costume jewelry that my sister and I were allowed to play with when we came to visit.. it was so sparkley and shiney... (and my mother says most of it was good stuff too) Grandma was also a lady... she always wore high heels and hose when she went out buy she was paranoid about ever looking heavy - so... she woudl wear a skirt, slip, and stockings with garter belts - because pantyhose were just tacky) but never wore undies because she didn't want the extra layer of clothes.

She also had a major fit when I got my ears pierced in 4th grade (only just off the boat little italian girls did that - what was my mother thinking) and the fit got bigger when I started wearing glasses... Girls cant' wear glasses... not in public.. Ah gran... she was an odd bird... oh yeah and she had purple hair.. she had gray hair that she used to have the ahir dresser put rinses in to get rid of the yellowishness that some gray hair gets- and the rinse left her with a purplish tint...

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warrrreagl

This reminded me of a comedian I was listening to on SIRIUS yesterday afternoon who wondered why everybody is "part Cherokee?" Nobody seems to be part Iroquois or part Chickasaw or part Pawnee.

Interesting and funny.

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

Crack

quite simple really... the Cherokee were... *promiscuous*

Just an idea, please don't be offended if you are actually mostly, or full blooded Cherokee! I mean you no harm.

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

~Halx

warrrreagl

I don't think anybody will get offended....unless you had mentioned Cherokee parenting skills or their children. THEN you would have had a nuclear war on your hands.

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

guthmund

Uh oh...My great-grandmother was full blooded Cherokee. She was also batshit crazy and "raised" several batshit crazy kids, including my maternal grandmother. She's still alive (the grandmother, not the batshit crazy Cherokee) and still crazy after all these years.

My maternal grandfather once told me he married because she was pretty and had, what he thought was anyway, a bit of a wild streak running through her. He didn't put it all together until much, much later. He had a brief stint in WWII, I believe and he helped build the big Alaskan pipeline up north, so, he wasn't home a whole lot. It got worse after he divorced 'Crazypants.' With nothing to tie him down, he criss-crossed America with his sons, now grown, working odd jobs, mostly in construction. The only clear memories I have of the man in his youth are associated with Cardinal baseball, which he loved to listen to. He's passed on, but I still love to listen.

There isn't much to say about my paternal grandparents. My paternal grandfather isn't my biological grandfather. He's outlived my paternal grandmother, who died some seven years ago. They're countryfolks; Got married young, found religion, opened a fairly fundamentalist Christian church out in the sticks, and built themselves up a congregation. He still speaks there occasionally from what I hear.

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No signature. None. Seriously.

TotalMILF

My maternal grandfather had an upholstering business, and frequently stapled himself to furniture. He couldn't fight in WWII because his three older brothers were already US soldiers. He used to have a family band before his brothers shipped off to Europe, and apparently they were pretty good, although they never cut an album or anything. Eventually he retired, and he died of cancer in 1993.

My maternal grandmother was a homemaker, and eventually went to work at a plastic factory after her four children were mostly grown. After Grandpa died she had to go back to work (at 70) to pay off his remaining medical bills. Isn't that fucked up? She worked for several years as a caregiver for mentally/physically challenged adults before my Mom started paying her to watch my brothers and I after school (something she'd do for free, but my Mom knew her financial situation). After she got on her feet again she moved to Georgia with her newly divorced son (my uncle Greg), and a year after that he retired and they both moved back to Minnesota, where they currently reside:-)

My paternal grandmother, after graduating college, joined the US army. After training she was commissioned to 1st Lieutenant. She met my grandfather in a gas chamber during an NBC exercise near the Port of Embarkation in San Francisco. They got married a month later, then he shipped off to Austria and she went to New York City to train a company of female soldiers from Puerto Rico. At some point she had tea with Eleanor Roosevelt in the library room of the house that was "12 Oaks" in Gone With the Wind (You know the room they were in when Scarlet first meets Rhett, and then throws a glass at him? Yeah - that's the room). After the war was over they moved to Germany for a few years, and then back to Michigan. She was head librarian at the local library for 40-some years, and was grand marshall one year during the town's 4th of July parade. It was funny cuz they had her sitting in the back of a convertible, but she's so freakin' short that you could barely see her. Everyone's like, "where's Betty? Oh, wait, I think that's her hair..." She died of cancer in 2001.

My paternal grandfather was a career Army man. He started at PVT and worked his way up to Master Sergeant over the years. During WWII he was a codetalker, since he spoke Navajo. I think they're also called Windtalkers, like the movie. At some point he received a field commission to 1LT. Eventually he retired. He died of cancer in 1984.

Giant Hamburger

My grandfather played some right field for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1934-36.

maleficent

Now THAT is a cool factoid..

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uncle phil

on the paternal side - my father's father was in the polish cavalry in the early 1900s and smelled something funny - no, it wasn't the physical horseshit - and asked his commanding officer for guidance. said officer said, "joe, go to america while you can." joe went, ignored the "which way, ej" comments as well as the "go to the mines, joe" directions and found a place in erie, pa. from there he went back to poland to bring rose back. i have no idea where the money came from or whatever. they both came back, sailing out of hamburg, on a ship that was berthed next to the titanic in great britain before the fateful journey began. anyhow, they both made it back to erie, pa. old joe worked for and retired from hammermill paper company in erie, pa in 1943. rose was a housewife and mother to four, one of whom was my father.

on the maternal side - susie was a nurse when she married my grandfather. grandpa walter was a motorcycle courier in WWI and, after a period of time, ended up losing his leg as a result of being wounded in chateau-thierry, france. in the meanwhile he was a guard at the elmira reformatory in upstate new york and retired in the late 1940s.

i'm proud of all of them...

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"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
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"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
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never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

Sgoilear

Both of my maternal grandparents grew up in Bowling Green, Ohio and lived through the Depression. My grandpa worked at Libby glass through the depression and some of the most treasured family heirlooms are what he brought home. He married my grandmother before he went off to world War two where he fought in the Italy. After that he and my grandmother moved to Buffalo, Wyoming where they ran a small motel for 30 years. They sold it and moved to Arizona where they spent the remander of their lives.

My grandmother was an excellant cook and taught me how to make on tasty pie crust from scratch. She was a real whiz with money and managed everything while Grandpa did handyman work. Grandma also china painted for several years and I have several pieces that she did for me hanging from my walls.

I never really knew my paternal grandparents. A car accident claimed Dad's father when my Dad was fourteen and my grandmother died of lung cancer when I was still young.

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"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -George Bernard Shaw

genuinegirly

I was very young when my parents started telling me the stories about my grandparents' lives. Most were deceased or senile by the time I was coherant, except I did become quite close with my remaining grandmother when I was 20.

Both of my grandmothers were artists. They both worked at one point as colorists for their husbands, who were professional photographers. One of my grandmothers worked best in pastels, though she has few remaining masterpieces. The other's pallete was bright with oil paints- nature scenes and large renditions of hibiscus flowers. Even after years of art history and training - I still appreciate their work, though they were never featured in galleries or received any level of fame. I grew up in a home where their artwork covered the walls. I grew close to them through their art.

My grandfathers never fought in any wars. They were precisely the wrong generation. Thankfully. Though they worked as civilian support during WWII. My paternal grandmother was a true "Rosie the Riveter" - riveting airplanes for the war effort. We have a rather large professional group photo of the opposite grandparents (maternal grandmother, paternal grandfather) working at the same factory. They are on opposite ends of a huge group of workers, and it is likely that they never met. Still, it is a fun photo!

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