What did yer Grandpa do for work

[The Irish Doggy]

Paternal: Paper Mill Manager

Maternal: Engineer at Wright Paterson Air Force Base - Tried to enlist in the Army for WW2, but they didn't let him because they wanted him building and designing plane engines.

[SheikYerbuti]

My mom's dad was a dressmaker.

 

My dad's side owned a corner candy store.

 

Both in Brooklyn.

[Bier Meister]

father's father: electrician

 

mother's father: grocer

[Gopher]

My mom's dad was a farmer who spent the last several year's of his life bedridden, due to diabetes and other health issues. Not sure what all of the issues were, but I'm pretty sure they were mostly caused by a combination of diet (didn't drink or smoke, but ate meat/potatoes for nearly every meal, like many of that generation did) and years and years of tough manual labor. I wish I would have known him before he got to that point, but the majority of what I remember about him involves his poor health, and my grandmother caring for him 24/7. She was an amazing person... slaved for him day and night, and never once complained (that I remember). Ironically, after caring for him for the last 20 years of his life, she died first, of cancer (and he passed away a few days/weeks later, in a nursing home).

 

We lost my Dad's father to a stroke a few months later (three of my four grandparents died during my final year of college). He was a WWII vet, who had been involved in the liberation of some of the concentration camps in Europe. I remember, as a kid, looking through all of the war memorabilia in his den, and being completely in awe... Pistols, bayonets, uniforms, and lots of photos, etc. After the war, he did a few different things, one of which was work for a company that manufactured airplanes/airplane parts. My dad wrote a short book about my grandfather, shortly before he died. It was fascinating, from what I recall. This thread is a reminder that I need to read it again.

 

My other grandmother has outlived the rest of my grandparents by about 15 years (so far). She remarried, and her second husband died a few years ago.