Article created by: Ieva Pečiulytė
Grandparents can be a rich well of experience and knowledge, as well as a great way to see into an older world from people who were actually there. But we often overlook the fact that our grandparents had their own grandma and grandpa.
So one netizen asked older netizens to share stories about their own grandparents and they delivered. So get comfortable, perhaps in a rocking chair for effect, upvote your favorite stories, and be sure to comment your thoughts and experiences below. We also got in touch with integrative counselor, coach, and neuroscientist Bobbi Banks to learn more about how experiences affect us.
More info: bobbibanks.com | Instagram
#1
My grandmother was born in 1912 and her family had money, all lost in the Great Depression. She married a meat manager for a grocery store chain who made a modest salary but meat was always on the table. She was very creative and could make a home look beautiful and sophisticated with second hand items, her sewing machine and paint.
She never kept clutter or hoarded. I know times were very hard for her and her husband but what little she had she kept immaculate. Poverty made her generous- once she found two little baby dresses for a 25 cents. A downstairs neighbor also had a baby girl and when she saw the deal my grandmother got, she cried, because she didn’t have a penny to spare to buy baby clothing. My grandmother gave the lady one of the little dresses and the two women became lifelong friends.
My grandmother’s hobbies were reading- forever checking out books from the public library and art. She turned a back bedroom into an art studio.
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#2
My grandparents were born in the 1880s never attended school and were basically illiterate. They ‘recognized’ words that they repeatedly saw, but couldn’t for example read a newspaper article. That said, they had incredible math skills, spoke other languages knew long poems and dozens of dirty limericks by heart.
My father’s father was a 6’ plus huge welder who always spoke about politics and made sailing ships in liquor bottles. He would let me pull the sting that hung out the bottle top making all the masts and sails stand up. He collected pencils and pens that were given out by businesses, and had cigar boxes full of them. My uncle inherited the boats in the bottles, but I lost track of him after he moved to Utah.
My father’s mom was a chubby, short tempered red head and the best baker who ever lit an oven. She made cheesecakes for fancy restaurants and diners.
My mother’s father was a short very fat black seal engineer for Colgate Palmolive who loved baseball and his hobby was making maple rocking chairs and potty seats for children. He also was a licensed barber, part-time in Hoboken,NJ and the shop had a lot of merchant sailors come in who paid with foreign money. He had cigar boxes filled with foreign bills and coins. My brother inherited his monies and sold them all to a collector.
My mother’s mother was a tall woman with a big space between her two front teeth who was addicted to TV game shows. She told me that watching the Concentration show taught her how to read. She LOVED Schaefer beer. Her icebox was full.
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#3
My grandparents were all born before 1900. My dads parents moved many times during the depression. At one point they lived with 2 boys, 2 grandmothers, 2 uncles and 2 aunts plus the two of them. It was a full house. They did anything they could to get by. My mom’s family was more well off but her parents got divorced and my grandfather married his secretary, a flapper! It was a scandal. My grandma took off for California with her 4 children. I think that was gutsy.
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#4
My dad’s parents were from a small rural town in the mid-west US.. My grandma was a SAHM, even though she got her teaching degree. When a woman married she was expected to become a homemaker. My grandpa was a mailman. He eventually made assistant postmaster for the town. My grandpa loved to garden and grew prize winning gladiola’s. My grandma was a clean-a-holic. My grandma always watched The Edge Of Night on TV.
My mom’s parents lived in a bigger town in upstate NY. My grandma worked in dietary at a local school. My grandpa worked for the local gas and electric. My grandpa played the piano and the organ. He was part of a band that played at local restaurants. He played at my wedding reception! I was thrilled. My grandma was a strict German who made sure the back of my heels and behind my ears were clean after my bath. They loved to watch the Merv Griffin Show on TV.
Interesting the moments you remember!
Both families got through the depression whole. Thank heavens.
I feel honored to have been able to “know” my grandparents.
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#5
My paternal grandfather was very poor. My paternal grandmother had 3 children with him. When the oldest was 5, she left him. They didn’t see or hear from her again for 11 years. All the children ended up having a good relationship with her. My grandfather raised the 3 children with incredible work ethics. They were all hard workers and all died around Labor Day (different years).
My maternal grandfather was also very poor. It took him a long time to find a stable job. They didn’t have indoor plumbing until 1959.
With both my parents being from poor families it very much impacted them and how they raised their children. All four of my brothers are college graduates.
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#6
All grandparents born before 1905.
Paternal grandfather was one of the few people who did well during the depression. He was a chemical purchaser for a large company in San Francisco and received a lot of “gifts” from those hoping to sell him their products. Paternal grandmother was born in England and almost abandoned to an orphanage, but her mother met a man who was heading to the US, which changed their lives for the better. I remember my grandmother as having a good sense of humor and taking care of everyone in the neighborhood to be sure nobody went hungry if they were sick. She was also wicked smart and started investing after the great market crash, and her investments are about to finish funding a third generation of her descendants through college. They both died young (65 and 75) so my memory of them is hazy.
Maternal grandfather was a minister who knew five languages & was well educated, but took an oath of poverty. Stern to his children (my mother’s generation) but a lovely and kind man to me. Maternal grandmother only finished 3rd grade, and definitely had the depression-era frugality everyone else is mentioning, but that was deepened by their vow to live a simple life. They never lived in the US, but I visited them often in their country. I remember once when they visited us when I was about 12 years old, and grandma saw tuna on sale at the store for about 25 cents a can. She bought ten tins and put them in her suitcase to take back home with her on the plane, where tuna was much more expensive. It was the highlight of her trip, apparently, and the only souvenir she bought. Their congregation often brought them food and produce in lieu of money donations, so grandma did a lot of canning and preserves. In their old age, both took up painting, and I have oil paintings in my home that they created. They lived to be 98 and 102, and met all of their great-grandchildren. After they passed, my mother found love letters my grandfather had written to my grandmother – some when they were well into their 90s, so it was a lifelong passionate romance apparently.
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#7
All my grandparents are gone. But when they were here they loved to smoke, and drink scotch, and smoke and eat steaks cooked on the grill every weekend. And smoke. And drink scotch. And watch Lawrence Welk with scotch and a cigarette.
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#8
Actually, both of my parents were born before 1920. My grandmothers 1880s or 90s.
I don’t mean to whine, but having two parents, both raised by single mothers, fathers passed away, who were teenagers in the depression probably left a mark on me. I don’t waste anything (no it’s not hoarding. Who said that?) and am still pretty tight with money.
My grandmothers were both tough old broads. Very kind, but they didn’t really want to have much to do with little snot nosed kids, they had raised theirs. A lot of qualities but I think I define them by some quirky eating habits. My German grandma came from the Fatherland, grew up in Milwaukee. She used to keep her Limburger cheese on the ledge outside her bedroom window and make Limburger, Braunschweiger, onion and mustard sandwiches. She had very distinctive breath.
My Irish grandmother lived to 102. I remember when she was in her 90s finding her drinking PBR and watching professional wrestling. (she loved Gorgeous George) She had pulled out her dentures because they would get things stuck in them and was gumming peanuts.
I wish I had met my grandfathers, but they both died in the 1930s.
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#9
Raised by my grandparents both born in 1906. He worked 3 jobs a day for most of his life and she brought up 4 children. Talk was something that did not go on a lot because they were too busy. The stories they told me and the famous people he knew just blew me away. We had no hot water tank before my 15th birthday and the apt was heated by a coal pot belly stove. Ringer washing machine and ice box. Party line telephone. I was very sad when they passed.
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#10
My gramps was an Engineer for a railroad. He was also a master gardener and won many times in the contests, the ones where the old ladies go around and rate peoples yard.
My grams did nothing, I barely ever saw her not on her chair. Im pretty sure she cooked, I dont really remember.
They were always OLD, even though they were younger than I am in the days I remember them, they were old.
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#11
Grandparents born 1860-1880 depending. Always talked about the Depression, both grandfather’s fought in WWI. They came from big families-10 kids or more-raised on farms. Mothers side from Minnesota, fathers side from Missouri. Heard things like “working a team of horses for field work”, shucking corn, one room schools with one teacher for all grades, sharing a bed with many other siblings, still born births were a topic, as was life before cars. Funny stories of dirt roads turning to mud when it rained.
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#12
What a great question! both parents born in the 20s. Looking back, I can see a lot of ways they were scarred by the Great Depression and WW2. It showed more in things they didn’t say than in things they did say.
Grandparents on one side were part of the WW1 generation, grandparents on the other side were born during Reconstruction. I often wonder how the effects of those events might have affected their descendants.
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#13
My paternal grandmother was born in 1901, and my grandfather in 1893. They emigrated from Italy. My grandmother had 14 children, 12 survived to adulthood. She was really very old-school Italian. She had many health issues and was in and out of hospitals when I was young, I didn’t see her much, other than holidays and an occasional Sunday visit. My grandfather died before I was born. He was in the U.S. Cavalry during WWI and ran a fruit and vegetable stall at the local marketplace.
My maternal grandmother was born in 1906. She was a wonderful woman, who treated everyone the same, and with respect, and she demanded the same from her kids and grandkids as well She had a hard life, her father died when she was 14 and she had to go to work instead of high school. Learning was important to her, and she saved as a teen and bought a set of encyclopedias and said she read them all cover to cover. She registered to vote the day after women got the right, and never missed voting in an election. She was frugal, but not cheap, and she was very generous with her time. I was very close to her, as she lived a five minute walk from my house. I spent hours with her listening to her stories, while she cooked or was teaching me to sew. She passed in 1985, and I still miss her.
My maternal grandfather was born in 1900 and was a piece of work If he didn’t drink part of his pay on a Friday, he made decent money for the times. He was in the Navy from 1919-1921 and was stationed in Honolulu in what would become Pearl Harbor. He was a very cold person, and if things didn’t directly involve him, he didn’t care. He eventually stopped drinking in the 1950s, and although he was nicer, he still was cold. He had his own little den, and that’s where he spent most of his time.
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#14
My grand parents and great grand parents were all alive in my childhood. My great great grandfather fought in the civil war. My father was born in 1930, so right in the middle of a lot of events. They never talked about it but I can tell you, they were seriously depressed. As an adult, I can look back on them and just see how much their lives were affected by reconstruction, then the civil war then WW1 and then the great depression. But they never spoke about it
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#15
Only 2 were alive by the time I was born. One was very mean. The other married one very mean.
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