What were the thoughts of your grandparents back in the day ?

One grandfather operated a small dairy farm and work as a railroad conductor nights. A lot fell on my grandmother, who didn't work outside the farm except for a stint as a store clerk.

The other had his own small farm but was a cobbler with his own shop after the kids got big enough to handle most farm chores. My other grandmother worked in a diesel engine plant during the war, and stayed there afterward.

Nobody talked about the Depression years. I think it was rough and they wanted that chapter closed.
 

hollydolly said:
What years were the great depression...was this the decade between 29 and '39 , Maywalk ?

Both my parents were born during those years altho' my father was 8 years older than my mother..

Both of them lived through the second world war.... my mother just barely school age and my father already a teenager when the war started..
Click to expand...

YES Holly. It was during those years. I was 9 years old when the war started in September 1939 and we were machine gunned in the hop fields three weeks into the war. Then bombed out twice during the London Blitz.
 
Only my maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather were alive when I was born. My grandmother, who died when I was ten, I gather broke out of the mold for women back in the day. She won writing contests, and with her late husband who immigrated from England ran something called a dry goods store. Unknown to her, he heavily bought stocks on speculation, and lost a fortune when that market crashed during the Great Depression in America…

My grandfather was a carpenter, and I gather had a very tenuous life during the Depression years when work dried up…
 
My maternal grandmother was very much a part of my life. My mother almost died having me and my grandmother stayed at our house and took care of me and my brother until my mother was better. By the time I came along she was separated from my grandfather but would not divorce him due to being Catholic. He was a drinker and would just leave and travel around the country doing who knows what. One time he left for two years saying he was going for a pack of cigarettes. Then showed up like nothing happened and she let him come back. I could write a book about her life as I spent a lot of time with her. Her parents had come to the US from Czechoslovakia in the late 1800's.

My father's parents I did not really know very well. My grandmother died before I was born. Though I knew my grandfather, he lived at my aunt's house and we would go see him. I was little and he did not speak English (even though he had been in this country for many years) so I could not talk to him. Him and my grandmother had come here from Poland about 1912 or so. I believe life was hard for them due to the language and they wanted to be farmers which they were not in Poland. They were very poor and my father had many stories about how tough it was.

My mother's family on the other hand managed well during the depression because of my grandmother. She grew up on a farm and was a hard worker. She did so many things to support her 6 children because she could not count on my grandfather. She worked at EJ's (big shoe factory) during the day and had a huge garden and chickens even though she lived in the city. Too much about her to write here. I loved her and she was a very loving woman and taught me how to do many things. I would spend nights at her house quite often as we lived only 8 miles from her.
 
Lewkat said:
I haven't a clue nor do I care.
Click to expand...
Kind of the same here. One grandfather died long before I was born. Of the other 3, one grandmother seemed to be preoccupied with how she was of the opinion that everyone around her was going to burn in Hell when they died. (But not her, of course, since she considered herself a "good Christian.") The other grandmother and the one grandfather never paid enough attention to me so that I have much sense of what they worried about. No, wait, I think that one grandmother was mainly preoccupied with not p*ssing off that grandfather, you know, staying under everyone's radar.
 
I only knew my grandfathers for a short time before they died. I never knew either of my grandmothers. From the dates of their births in the late Victorian era, they would have lived through the 'Great war' and the 'Spanish flu' pandemic. My maternal grandmother died towards the end of the pandemic, and I wonder if that was the cause.
 
I had 4 grandfathers... One paternal..One maternal... ( that's an irony)..One paternal Great grandfather.. and one paternal step grandfather

I lived with my paternal step grandfather and my paternal granny when I was 4 until I was 6... by which time my parents had to have me back to start schoo..already a years late ....

My great grandfather , father of my paternal grandmother, lived until he was in his 90's.. I was a young teen when he died.. but the sad thing about him was that he was an upright, suited and booted man, with a big white moustache.. he would walk to the pub every day down his road, which had barely any traffic going through it..( 1960s) have a tot of whisky and return home where he lived with one of his daughters my auntie...and this one day he did that exact thing, and a double decker bus mounted the pavement and killed him...

no photos of him sadly, but he looked like this


40002145762_e8c2f4f583_b.jpg
 
My maternal grandfather lived to 99 so I knew him well. He was a Marine veteran of WW1 and also before the war served in the Caribbean and Central America. He mostly told funny stories about the Marines and the war, except the battle of Blanc Mont Ridge. Harrowing ordeal.
After the war he worked in management for Ma Bell. He was furloughed during the depression. He contacted a congressman who owed him a favor and got a federal position. I know he was quite worried before that. My grandmother was an RN and probably could have worked, but to his mind, that just wasn’t possible. He was VERY old school.
 
I guess I never paid attention to whether my grandparents talked about their younger days.

My mom talked about living in different states when she was a kid (where my grandfather had carpenter/contractor work), and that would have been during the depression and dust bowl years, so my maternal grandparents were most likely concerned with staying employed.

Part of the paternal side were farmers, but I have no clue how they made it through the dust bowl, I think they were on an edge of the affected area. Maybe there were enough streams, tho I don't know if irrigation existed then. Last year when I was cleaning out my house to sell I listened to an old recording from the 1950s of my Dad "interviewing" relatives at a anniversary party, but from what I remember the talk was rather boring about oats having been good enough (as opposed to the new fangled animal feeds of the 1950s) and stuff about survival rates of baby farm animals.
 
My adopted father was born in 1911 and his father immigrated from Germany right after the turn of the century. I never met my grandfather. He died before I was born. His mother was a very cold person and I was never close to her. My adopted mother's parent's didn't like me and never paid much attention to me. My mother was the second oldest of 7 girls and she was taken out of school in the 8th grade to help with her siblings and then went to help her grandmother that took in laundry. My grandfather worked for a coal company and delivered coal to homes. I'm sure they struggled financially. They lived in a small house with all those kids.
 
hollydolly said:
I had 4 grandfathers... One paternal..One maternal... ( that's an irony)..One paternal Great grandfather.. and one paternal step grandfather

I lived with my paternal step grandfather and my paternal granny when I was 4 until I was 6... by which time my parents had to have me back to start schoo..already a years late ....
Click to expand...
We have that in common, my maternal grandmother raised me until I was 4 with some aid from my grandfather. He worked alot and she thought he was a bad influence on me. I learned to cuss, smoke and drink from him and he was musically talented. Grandmother introduced me to Elvis music and rock & roll but instilled the value of love and understanding that have kept me alive to this day. My parents were very young, working hard and retrieved me to a good home and school. (yuchhhh!)

Just curious..I thought grandfathers only came 2 per customer?
 
Last edited:
I only knew my mom's parents, dad's folks died long before I was born. I guess I never gave them much thought or asked them any questions, though now I know a bit of their history. I believe they lived fairly uninteresting lives, didn't travel, no clubs or hobbies that I know of, no big extended family or traditions.

They were like the majority of humans, you live, you die, a couple generations later you're totally forgotten.
 
C50 said:
I only knew my mom's parents, dad's folks died long before I was born. I guess I never gave them much thought or asked them any questions, though now I know a bit of their history. I believe they lived fairly uninteresting lives, didn't travel, no clubs or hobbies that I know of, no big extended family or traditions.

They were like the majority of humans, you live, you die, a couple generations later you're totally forgotten.
Click to expand...
I talk of my grandparents like they told us things, but they didn't... I only knew the very odd things I picked up here and there.. but you saying about being forgotten..reminded me that my great grandfather was the first of 2 people to die in a road accident..my teenage niece was the second... 30 years later..

.. yet she nor her mother, my youngest sister had ever met my great grandfather or ever have been aware of his existence... Only us older kids knew him and then only vaguely... so to think he was responsible for her being here on the planet ..yet within a very short time.. ( except for me and possibly my brother ) he has been forgotten by one arm of the family
 
RadishRose said:
I have no idea what their thoughts were. I only saw them once a year, but later more often. They never talked about their thoughts. One didn't really speak English; not that I could I could understand without an aunt there to translate.
Click to expand...
Rose..my grandfather ( nor my parents tbh)..ever spoke to me of their background, their upbringing, their hopes and dreams). and I only met my maternal grandparents twice to my knowledge.

WE had much more to do with my paternal grandparents , seeing them every week....but they never said anything either...I can only surmise what their lives were like growing up.. given what they had to live through and in what circumstances..that they must have been thinking

I truly wish they'd been more open... who knows what they did with their lives that I know nothing of... sadly there's no-one left to ask
 
Last edited:
MadMongoose66 said:
We have that in common, my maternal grandmother raised me until I was 4 with some aid from my grandfather. He worked alot and she thought he was a bad influence on me. I learned to cuss, smoke and drink from him and he was musically talented. Grandmother introduced me to Elvis music and rock & roll but instilled the value of love and understanding that have kept me alive to this day. My parents were very young, working hard and retrieved me to a good home and school. (yuchhhh!)

Just curious..I thought grandfathers only came 2 per customer?
Click to expand...
read my post again...:)
 
My grandparents on my dad’s side was very fortunate. They came here from Greece and they were very well off over there, plus my Pappy, as we called him, was a professional fighter while in Greece. When he came here, he fought, but was secretly hurt in his third year and that ended his fighting career.

After that, he decided to open up his own restaurant and that did very well, so opened up his second and then third. They were very wise people and did very well.
 
For my grandparents, English was a second language. They spoke French, and they had French accents. Visiting Quebec and hearing that French accent reminds me so much of them. I was a modern child of the 1950s, and at times, they let me see what being born with an'18' instead of a '19' in the year of your birth meant. They called a car a "machine". And there had only been one "Great War". Their dads were in the US Civl War.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
For my grandparents, English was a second language. They spoke French, and they had French accents. Visiting Quebec and hearing that French accent reminds me so much of them. I was a modern child of the 1950s, and at times, they let me see what being born with an'18' instead of a '19' in the year of your birth meant. They called a car a "machine". And there had only been one "Great War". Their dads were in the US Civl War.
Click to expand...
are you bi-lingual ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top