8247 - Grampa? What did *you* do?

[scottobear]

[Poll #691524]

Feel free to go into detail in the comments section.

Comments

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Also My Grandmother (on my mother's side)live-in boyfriend Ted (picked up after she divorced, oh the scandal!) was a computer guy who worked on the big crazy mainframes in the 50s-60s, and then later wrote for Yankee magazine.

[pageeater.livejournal.com]

Also, my grandfathers were brothers - came over here from Austria. They both married cousins as well, though the gigolo left his after five kids were born. It was a messy dysfunctional family, and they disowned me by the time I was sixteen. Imagine, *I* was considered the 'black sheep.' LOL.

[missv.livejournal.com]

What a fun poll!

My grandma on my father's side (the one who was dumped by her husband when she had three children under the age of 6 to support) was a nurse for an oral surgeon until her rheumatoid arthritis forced her into early retirement.

[eyeslikesugar.livejournal.com]

"the one who was dumped by her husband when she had three children under the age of 6 to support" -- kinda makes me feel lazy and spoiled, chldless going to school and working part-time.

[juliabee.livejournal.com]

I miss my granpy on my mom's side more than anyone in the world. I was scanning photos of him yesterday and smiling. :))

[missv.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that this was in the 1950's...when nice ladies with children simply did not work outside of the home. She was a tough cookie, my grandma. Still is.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

times change.. two generations in, you have so many opportunities!

[juliabee.livejournal.com]

Oh, and he tried hard to put up with my insane grandmother & mother for a living, too. :P

::gives a mental hug to him, & sends it out into the universe::

[eyeslikesugar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured as much, which only adds to the fact that I feel lazy and spoiled compared to her. Single moms today are more common. It's kind of how I feel when I hear at work about someone having a child at 15, graduating high school and getting their bachelors with 2 or 3 children. I am amazed.

[eyeslikesugar.livejournal.com]

Oh! Scotto.. check this out: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5674967526 I think it's a wonderful idea. XD

[juliabee.livejournal.com]

Scandal because others felt it was improper for her to live with someone, w/o marriage?

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Got to wonder whenre 1/4 of your genetic goodies came from, and how they worked. :D

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

egads! lucky to escape that squad!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

yup... this was in the early 60s and it scandalised the family.

My dad used to make fun of the uptight folks, and used the phrase "shacking up" quite frequently.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

yikes! That'll teach somebody!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

if he helped to raise you, then he did a great job, and left a fine legacy.

[eyeslikesugar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'll bet if ebay existed when I was younger, and my parents got the idea, I'd be a LOT tidier than I am now.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

or have a lot less stuff, anyhow?

[mary919.livejournal.com]

Later on my maternal Grandfather worked for Ford (I'm not certain doing what-- probably welding something) but when he was young he was a log roller in Canada. He and his best friend were log rollers together and they both lost fingers, or parts of fingers-- they'd get smashed between the logs.

So anyway, Grandpa had like 50 grandchildren and I was among the youngest. The big family joke when we were little went like this-- Grandpa & his friend would be out sitting on the porch, smoking cigars and drinking scotch, and we'd all ask what happened to their fingers.

They'd answer that they'd accidentally cut them off with the lawnmower. Then they'd wave their finger stumps in our faces and say "and they're still out there in the yard somewhere-- we never found them!"

There's nothing like the sound of all my cousins running around squealing on a nice balmy summer evening in Michigan. I seriously can hear it still-- the Midwest just SOUNDS different-- I swear.

I'm homesick. He was my Irish grandfather. He taught me to play Pinochle and Yatzee, but he died before I was old enough for him to teach me how to drink-- too bad-- he was good at it :) :) :)

[eyeslikesugar.livejournal.com]

nahh.. it's in my nature to be a packrat.

[anony-moos.livejournal.com]

Embarrassingly enough, I don't have much of a clue what they did. My dad's dad died waaaaay before I was born, but since my dad grew up on the farm I'm guessing his dad was a labourer. My other grandad died when I was about 4, all I remember was that he spent most of his time in the chair in the living room and couldn't walk too well. My nan always told me he was riding along on his motorbike with his legs out (like a kid rides a bike down a hill) and a bus drove past and hit his leg. My nan was a bit mental though, he probably just was in accident or something.

See, now I'm going to have to call my mother and bombard her with questions!

Great idea for a poll though, it got me thinking!

[peradouro.livejournal.com]

oh. my. god. This woman is a genious. And damned brave too. I might have to bid on one of those boxes, my kids dont have anything as nice as the stuff she's listing.

[legal-beagle555.livejournal.com]

Strange, to think that two generations ago everyone was "blue collar"; now, I'm a lawyer.

Where are my kids' kids' going to end up? ;-)

[danigolden.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I forgot, my dad's dad was in the Navy for quite some time too.


Also, when I was a kid I thought the grandpa that owned the electronics business made a different kind of transformer. You know, the one that's more than meets the eye. You can imagine how I felt when I asked if I could have a transformer and he brought me home something that looked like this:

[peradouro.livejournal.com]

My maternal grandfather was more than 20 yrs younger than my grandmother. They were never married because of the "scandal". My mom was the last of my grandma's kids. My grandma was 44 when my mom was born, I never knew her. She died when her husband shot her and my mom with a .45. Mom was 12. My grandfather died from speeding into a bridge support in his car. Whether he was drunk or just depressed isn't clear.

My paternal grandfather lied to my grandmother about his age so she'd marry him. He was actually 21 years older than her. This wouldn't have been so bad if he also hadn't had a family of 12 across the river who thought he'd drowned. My grandmother found out shortly before her last child was born that his other wife was extremely poor and very ill. So some of the kids were farmed out in her family to help out.