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My mother's folks I grew very close with. I had suffered an injury in my youth that required I live a very low-key lifestyle for many months, so I moved in with them at their Florida condo.
They were very active alert people and were in their late 70s then. Lots of card games with many friends, going to pop concerts, the clubhouse, the pool, political discussions, and endless condo association politics. My grandfather was a very funny guy and my grandma incredibly savvy--she was a pioneering business women in NYC from the 1920s-80s. I always enjoyed sharing a beer with my grandma.
And I enjoy the same with my 90+ mother-in-law these days.
By age 60 my grandfather was on an oxygen tank and couldn’t walk more than 20 feet without stopping to rest. But he was a coal miner dying of Black Lung and I’m just a pencil pusher at the same age.
With all the skincare products and sun protection and increase in physical fitness awareness and reduction of air pollutants over the last 40 or so years, I feel like the next generation of old people is going to age so much more gracefully than previous generations that the contrast is going to be unbelievable when comparing them to one another at certain ages.
Some old people of the future yes! Members of the affluent and educated class. Unfortunately, poor people today aren't aging particularly well compared to a generation ago -- much higher rates of obesity and diabetes. Less smoking helps but not enough. A poor 50 year old today will often already look elderly compared to someone wealthy who's been doing yoga and sunscreen for the past 30 years.
Maybe the most famous example is that Carroll O'Connor (Archie Bunker) was only 47 when All in the Family first aired. Jean Stapleton (Edith) was 48. And if you look at photos from that time outside of the show, that's more or less how they looked in real life, too.
HE WAS ONLY 47?!?!? AND SHE WAS ONLY 48?!?!?
I know the characters they played (and their wardrobes) don't help either but just looking at their faces... good lord, I thought they were in their 60s *easily*. Not the characters - the *actors!*
Came here to say this! It was like people reached a certain age and figured they’d just stop living, like it was the thing to do. I feel like that’s changed for the better and people just keep really living as long as they can now
My old people were awesome. They lived on a farm. I drove tractors and chased cows. My grandma had a huge garden and we canned everything.
My grandma was a twin. The two of them together was big fun. Lots of cookies and homemade lemonade.
I couldn't get enough of my grandma. I wish I could have spent much more time with her. She died in 1976 at 77.
I made sure my kids and my husband's parents (my parents were deceased) had free access to each other and it paid off. They meant the world to each other.
Same here. My grama was a source of unconditional love for me growing up. She was a master gardener and a great cook when it came to traditional German comfort food. She died in 1980 at the age of 80 and I miss her a lot.
Same here. My Grandparents were amazing and really loved my brother and I. We loved them back. Took us everywhere. Miss them and think about them all the time.
My grandparents remind me so much of the whole rat pack Frank Sinatra era. They are long gone but I would go visit them in the mid to late 80s and they’d have all their retirement friends over, having rum and Coke, laughing their asses off and just having a good old time. My grandpa would wear those baby blue collared shirts just like Morty Seinfeld and he had a friend that always had a captains hat and big sideburns. During the day, time was spend going for a boat ride, or shopping.
They were iconic, really. From the cruisewear outfits to the rum and cokes and cocktail parties, just iconic. I had this impression ALL MY LIFE that being a kid sucked, being an adult meant hard work and kids yanking on you, but being old was the best time ever with the ultimate freedom.
When I was growing up, a lot of people who owned a home also had a summer place. They built up these "camps" that later became their retirement homes and summer hang outs for the grand kids. When the sun went down the grand kids went indoors and the old folks would host regular soirees for their leisure suit pals and wives out on the deck. One of my friend's grandfather was a carpenter and his deck was a pavilion, with booths, tables, a bar, a sound system and party lights. It was the scene of kid's birthday parties, baby showers, safe after prom parties and the old man threw parties for all his WWII buddies and their wives a couple of times a year complete with Big Band music and period dress. Any guy who could still get into his uniform wore them. These people were in their sixties but could really dance and knew how to party. I remember these parties had clouds of cigarette smoke lit up by the party lights. These clouds kept the pavilion mosquito free.
Yes!! My grandparents too! They were financially comfortable but they went to „the trailer“ in the summer. They completely rid themselves of their house etc and lived in a swanky condo in the winter and a trailer in the summer. The trailer community was not like a poor trailer park setting, it was filled with retirees who clearly had money (looking at their cars and boats) and knew how to manage it (like they didn’t spend so much on stupid stuff like name brand purses). The atmosphere at night was exactly how you said with the big band music, sometimes card tournaments, dinners at the club house etc.
A lot of those people weren't crazy rich they worked hard but the economy also worked for them. They all owned homes in their 20s and gave their families a good life. What's changed is the wealthy have become so greedy that they're bleeding out the middle class. Even a couple both earning six figures may be struggling, they have a good quality of life but not much opportunity to save. The summer place is no longer a middle class thing but anyone wealthy enough to own a lake house will never experience the joys of a family shack on a quiet pond with few neighbors and the only sounds are children laughing.
They sound just like my dad's parents! The way their house was decorated was TOTALLY like that scene in "Goodfellas" right after he gets out of prison and they redecorate lol. They had a couple of Pachinko machines in the basement with the pool table. It was always a party at their place fo sho.
eta it's a huge shame this forum doesn't allow pictures because this thread could be EPIC!
Grandpa 1 passed when I was little. GM 1 was awesome. She always had ginger ale and played go fish with me.
Other grandparents took me to 49 states in their Airstream every summer from age 4 -15.
My grandfather was a badass federal agent, and my grandmother taught me to clean fish and dress game.
We fished, hunted, and hiked all over this country, and I miss them terribly.
My great grandma and great grandpa Green were lovely quiet and kind people. They lived in a small brick house in Richmond, Indiana. Grandma Green loved to cook and bake and I mostly remember her with an apron on. She also sewed and shopped. What I really remember her for was that she loved to play solitaire and I loved to watch her. She showed me how the desk she played on was a sewing machine that folded out of it. then she showed me the treadle she used to drive the sewing machine. I thought it very clever to not have to use electricity like my mom did.
There was one room in their house that no one used for much. It had photographs of horses, men, and little two wheel carts called sulkies that were used for races in which the horses had to trot, no galloping allowed. There was also a lot of tack, reins, harnesses, and bits. My Grandma told me that Grandpa Green raced sulkies when he was young.
Grandpa Green had a beautiful kitchen garden and loved to work in it. He smiled a lot and I was surprised one morning when I saw him holding his teeth in his hands to brush them. He was very old in 1963 and had been retired for a long time. In his youth he went to work building horse carriages and buggies. He retired from Fisher Auto Body, the company that made all of the auto bodies for General Motors.
My dad tells me that Charlie, that was his name, loved working on the roof of his house and was always going up there to replace shingles. When He got into his 80s his family hid all of the nails from him so he wouldn't go up there any more.
He was 103 when He died.
The two I knew were both WWII veterans. Grandpa was the strong and silent type - he worked in the trades and liked to take me fishing. Grandma was very opinionated and bossy, which probably helped explain why Grandpa kept quiet most of the time. She also knew how to cook some real mean dishes and that's how she made sure I'd visit her regularly when I was older
I had both sets of grandparents. My maternal grandparents lived down the street from us. They owned their own business and worked full time. Grandmother also taught at the local University. They were intelligent, thoughtful, had a great sense of humor, had loads of friends and were fun to be around. I used to go to their store and they let me help file invoices and do some basic engraving tasks, like bevel name tags. My paternal grandparents were selfish, narcissistic bigots. But they let me have all the ice cream I wanted and let me sit and stare at the TV the whole time I was with them. They liked me OK until I was old enough to have opinions.
All of my grandparents were fierce members of the Greatest generation. Did not give af, lived through the depression, WWII, and boy did they live their best lives ever. I miss them.
The Greatest Generation is now so under appreciated. I bought a box set of the Band of Brothers and The Pacific and made my smartass grandsons watch them. They loved them as action movies or like a video game. They were shocked that this was about a real war with real people. They thought all war movies were like Private Ryan. They think this way because WWII is either glossed over or not taught at all. The upside is now that they're older they've traveled to Normandy and Bastogne. Same thing with the Pacific which is more spread out and a lot of Pacific battlefields are kind of afterthoughts because many of the places where battles were fought are now resorts. Some of their stories were just so sad, American blood was spilled in a lot of these places and there might be a small memorial marker with a paragraph but no names. It's common that these resorts don't have any information about the battlefields and you have to ask locals.
My grandmother, born in 1906, was the kindest person I’ve ever known.
She was Catholic and her funeral Mass was celebrated by 6 priests.
Her primary day to day activities centered around her grown children and her grandchildren.
Her husband passed when she was about 40. There was almost no social safety net, and she and her 4 kids ended up in public housing. As was common then, housewives didn’t work, so she started cleaning houses and worked retail.
Strong work ethic and frugality became bedrocks of my own life. I just retired at 64 and could do it because I always lived well beneath my means.
My grandparents were all born in the 1800s.
My paternal grandfather spent New Years Eve 1899 in jail for drunk and disorderly conduct. He taught me how to weld. I have his father’s blacksmiths anvil. My paternal grandmother was a suffragette and was jailed for public disturbance and assaulting a law enforcement officer when she tried to vote for Woodrow Wilson. Kind, gentle people who spoke English, Dutch and German, They had 6 children, two killed in WW2.
My maternal grandmother was a baker who had a box of secret recipes written ‘in code’ that I later learned was Dutch. She was a Democratic Ward Captain in Jersey City, NJ where dead people voted alphabetically. My maternal grandfather was illiterate but a millwright who designed and assembled machinery, mostly for bar soap manufacturing companies. They survived the Spanish Flu - the only two in an apartment building of 20+. They spoke English, Dutch, Polish and Yiddish, had 5 children, 2 killed in WW2 and 1 who went missing in the Middle East in the ‘50s.
Dad’s parents played favorites and since we were the children of the black sheep, we were treated like crap, my grandparents (mom’s parents) treated us well, took us fishing, showed up for every event we had. Although my grandfather had some Archie Bunker tendencies
My maternal grandparents were the same as yours. Even though our parents were the black sheep I still cannot fathom why they chose to take it out on us as well. We didn’t choose our parents! My one set(paternal)were gone when I was born, and the maternal ones saw our family as the black sheep. For anyone doing that to children- your own children’s children, grow up!! That is just mean to do to children, who don’t understand what they have done to deserve such iciness- when their friends have sweet grandparents.
I don’t have much to do with my dad’s family, he keeps trying and I just don’t get it. They looked down on us for 40+ years until his mom died and the golden child tried to screw them out of the inheritance, and all of a sudden we existed. I have a weird take on family because of it, relatives are blood relations who I don’t have to like, family is who I choose
These were my grandparents too. Saw them once a week at least for twenty years and never did they hug me or show affection once. When they died, I didn't really care much. I'm very lucky my parents broke that trend and were great.
I think that's a really good description.
They both went through WWII. We are Swiss, so we weren't invaded and had no troops fighting, but some stories that my grandparents told me were still quite impressive. Both grandpas were drafted. One was guarding the border, the other one was monitoring air traffic over the country. And both families had plans on what to do and where to flee should the axis powers invade. Tough times.
My maternal grandmother was a big influence on me. She also turned gray prematurely like me. She told me about some of the things she did when she was a teenager. Like the time that she was at her boyfriend's house, and his mother said that grandmother and her boyfriend could stay in the kitchen and man the ice cream churn while the rest of the family set on the porch and enjoyed the breeze. Grandmother said nuts to that, and started scouring the pantry. She found a can of sauerkraut, opened it, and dumped it into the ice cream. Then she and John left.
She used to tell me that people who worried about their sheets and pillow cases being ironed, needed to get a hobby.
She was a rural mail carrier for 30 years. She could cook anything. She could grow anything. She gave up her email account after about 6 months because she said that she only got forwarded junk about how good the good old days were.
"Listen! Those good old days weren't that good if you were the one in the hot kitchen or in the hot fields. There is nothing better than sitting in my rocking chair quilting listening to the washing machine and the dishwasher do all the work while I watch baseball on TV."
Grandma was cool.
My maternal grandfather died before I was born and I was only 2 when the other one died, so I don't remember him. I was never aware that either of my grandmothers had hobbies as such - they were both very poor and free time and hobbies weren't really something working class people who were born in the Victorian era enjoyed. My dad's mum was quite loud and outgoing, while my mum's mum was the complete opposite, almost painfully shy. As poor as they were, they would always find money for Christmas presents for me, and they'd slip me sixpence as a little gift every time I visited them.
Both parents and grands were Appalachian, from southern Ohio and north West Virginia. Mom's and Dad's fathers both were absent; Dad's disappeared and started another family when he was four or five, and Mom's parents separated, and then when she was 16 her dad died at age 51.
Mom's mom was a vain, lazy, uninterested-in-others type. She dyed her hair jet black until she was almost 80. But Dad's mom? The opposite if there ever was one.
Picture a toothless, 3-pack-a-day, hard-working cook who worked on riverboats, just to make money for her only child. One that took "relief" (welfare, we call it now) if she had to. Dad took after her in height - she was maybe 4 feet, 9 inches. Dad (5 foot 6, he used to say!) got teased as a kid, and was beat up and lost sight in one eye. Grandma walked 12 miles every day to visit him at the hospital, after work.
She gave birth to Dad at age 16, so she was young when I came around - 42 or so. We were best buds. She had lots of interests - gardening, cooking, hanging with the wild crew at the Masonic lodge, traveling, and bowling. She used a 16-pound ball - astounding for her size. She won lots of trophies.
Maternal: Grandma was the perfect 1950s housewife. She loved her large family, being a mom + wife. She previously came from wealth and held a pretty lucrative role as a secretary for the CEO at GE and later managed banks once my mom + sibs grew up. Still, she loved the role of housewife more and retired as the ideal, picturesque grandma who made the best pies in the world.
Maternal: Grandpa worked QA for NASA during Apollo. Superhero in my eyes. God fearing man, loving, always wanted to teach you something or take you somewhere to learn. Volunteered extensively after retirement, doing Habitat for Humanity well into his 90s. Grandpa was a nice man and meant well but he was a dry alcoholic from an abusive German immigrant family that grew in severe poverty and was a penny pincher, anal retentive and had occasional borderline abusive quirks especially towards his children.
Paternal: Grandparents both were coffee plantation owners in Puerto Rico. Grandma was a firecracker, wore the pants, beat your ass with a chancla the moment you stepped out of line but also loved you to death and overfed you incredible food. You could not eat enough in her presence, you were always too skinny. You also better be in bed by 12am or the devil was coming for you, literally. She was a Jehovah's Witness so heavy religious beliefs there.My Grandfather owned a bar in addition to the farm. He was a drunk and a womanizer, never home - left my grandma to raise 5 kids mostly alone and I think she had to work so hard that's what made her so tough on her family. I only met my grandfather 2x before age 35 + both times he was wasted. During Maria, his jeep slid down a landslide and practically paralyzed him. My grandma chose to let him back in + to be his caretaker. She now joyfully makes his life a living hell to make up for all the years he made hers one. It's been interesting to watch.
*Grandpa worked QA for NASA during Apollo*
That's amazing!!
*She now joyfully makes his life a living hell to make up for all the years he made hers one.*
And that's just friggin hilarious!
My grandfather could carve anything. He kept a bucket of wood blocks soaking to whittle. He made fantastic toys for me and my sister to play with. He was a grand story teller. He repaired guitars and fiddles. He had a pet red squirrel and saved a fledgling crow, who stayed close to him when he was out puttering in the yard. He'd take me fishing. " Come on Big Sissy, let's go wet the ground for night crawlers." He was an avid reader. He used to read the tales of the Round table and 3 Musketeers to me, and since he owned the books, he'd draw the characters in the margins for me. That's how I know what knights and musketeers look like. Although he was born in the hollers of South Central Kentucky, he spoke with a lowland Scottish accent.
My granny told the most horrifying stories. Her mother was Irish and a lot of the stories came from the Hunger. She sang. She played the fiddle. She could look at a dress in a magazine, draw a pattern, and sew the dress. She saw some crocheted curtains in a magazine, liked them, and made them. Anytime she left the house, she had on a dress, hose, nice shoes, earrings, and her lip stick. In the winter, her coat , gloves and shoe matched. This was even to go grocery shopping.
When she was born, people walked, rode horses, took trains. She saw men land on the moon.
Both of them could take your skin off your back if you misbehaved with just a few words. They weren't rude. You just understood you weren't to ever do that again.
My maternal grandfather was a sour dispositioned old crank. He was born in 1901 so he would have been in his mid 60's when I was a kid. He was a "sit in HIS chair, smoking, watch sports and TV and 'LEAVE ME ALONE'" kind of grandpa. I never felt so much as an ounce of love from him.
My maternal grandmother, by contrast, was sweet and loving and always made me feel special. I adored her. She passed away when I was 18 and my grandfather a few years after that.
I've always said one of my goals in life is to never be angry old man like my grandfather. I'm in my 60's now (just retired) and my grandchildren are the light of my life. My 9 year old grandson is my motorcycle riding buddy. My 12 year old granddaughter is smart and sweet and just one of the most wonderful things in my life that I'm grateful for.
My grandfather loved music of any type. He had a 33 rpm record of the full 1812 Overture. When it got to just before the section with the cannon firing, he would turn his stereo to full volume. You could hear it across the street and the windows in his house were rattling. He was also kind of a prankster as well as a real history buff.
My grandmother got kicked out of her Catholic high school for " being a bad influence on, and a bad example to the younger girls." (Think Midwestern high school run by nuns circa 1920.)
She liked to slide down the main staircase banister on dares from her friends and expose her knees and upper legs while doing so. She also would walk up to boys and talk to them without waiting for them to talk to her first. The principal caught her skipping class and smoking a cigarette while talking to a boy. Oh, the horror!!
I never knew my paternal grandparents -- my grandfather died when my father was 17, my grandmother died when I was four months old.
My maternal grandparents were very much a part of my life, though. I lived with them for seven years, from age 6-13.
At home, my grandfather was the boss, his word was the law, we didn't question his authority and did not back talk him. I had tremendous respect for my grandfather. He rarely raised his voice and never raised a hand to anyone in anger. My grandfather's punishments for misbehaving were legendary. My cousin and I were climbing all over my grandmother's car one day, sitting on the hood, climbing up on the roof. For no other reason than we didn't bother to try to find something better to do. The neighbor told my grandfather what we'd been up to half the day, plus we were caught "red-handed" so to speak. My grandparents had a gravel driveway and we had left dusty shoe prints all over my grandma's car. Our punishment -- washing my grandmother's car every single day for a month. Rain or shine. And not half-assed spraying down with the hose and calling it good. My grandfather expected us to get out the sponges and buckets and wash her car every single day. And that's what we did. For the first few days we didn't mind the punishment, we were goofing around, getting each other wet with the hose, being crazy kids. By day 10 or so, it wasn't fun anymore. It was tedious and boring and we didn't want to do it anymore. We got through the month and never climbed on the car again. Lesson learned.
Whenever we went on vacation (camping) with my grandparents, my grandfather was definitely the fun grandparent. He bought us ice cream at 8:00 in the morning, let us run around the campground completely unattended -- as long as we checked in with my grandma every now and then, he stayed up late with us to play cards or board games. And he taught us how to swim. He was a very cool guy.
My grandma was awesome. I would rather have spent time hanging out with her than doing anything else. After she got cancer and didn't get around so well anymore, my cousin and I spent most of our summers hanging out with my grandma, cleaning her house, cooking for her. And watching soap operas -- Days of Our Lives and Another World -- every day. My grandma was kind of a diva -- never went anywhere without being dressed like she was meeting the queen, hair done, make up on, never went anywhere without her teeth. (LOL) One time she had to go to the hospital by ambulance and insisted on getting fully dressed, wig on, lipstick, and made me brush her dentures. I told her the ambulance crew didn't care what she looked like. She told me that if I thought she was going to go outside in her nightgown and without her wig and teeth, I was crazy. I adored my grandmother -- she was the calm in the storm that was my home life with my parents.
They were so old at 60. At least it appeared that way to me.
My grandfather worked and my grandmother was a homemaker. My grandfather was strict but fun. My grandmother was very formal. No hobbies I knew of. Paternal side. Both died between 68-72.
My maternal grandparents were like that. My grandpa was retired but then was bored and so went back to work in his 70s. I have no idea what their hobbies were or what they did when they weren't visiting my parents and me. I loved them and they loved me but I just remember sort of hanging out at my parents' house with them.
Old farmers on one side and healthy active socialites on the other side.
The old farmers died in their sixties, they were emotionally cold and seemed low key angry most of the time. They gave beautiful, luxurious gifts and said they loved us but they had very little time for anyone else.
The active healthy socialite types died in their 80's. They were lighthearted, kind, generous, my grandma was the picture of 'coastal grandmother'. They both skied, hiked, waterski, ran, boated, you name it they probably already had top of the line gear for whatever sport you wanted. They were delighted by everything about me and loved any opportunity to talk.
My mom's side were both farmers. Grandpa was on a tractor put in the field, grandma was miking cows, feeding chickens, or cooking. Busy people. My dad's side were drunks and millworkers. That grandma died from alcoholism when I was a baby; grandpa kept working mechanic jobs as he found them, just enough to pay the rent and keep him boozed up.
My mom's parents were immigrants from Holland. They had issues from going through WWII. They worked but were rather poor in the U.S. They were nice and I just remember watching the news with them. Just a lot older so they passed away when I was young.
My dad's parents were Hispanic and rich. They lived in a big house in a country club area. They were Catholic. They didn't like my mom at all. My grandma and my mom are very different. So we didn't see them too much except for holidays.
Both of my parents are gone and would be close to one hundred years old today. They were cool and easy going. No abuse at all. They were very talented. My mom played organ and according and my dad played drums. They both taught ballroom dancing.
My dad loved the big band era and my mom liked singers such as Tom Jones. Because of them I dig ’em too.
My paternal grandparents died long before I was born. My mom's dad had suffered a tbi in earlier years, and was unable to take care of himself properly, so he lived his life out in a nursing home. There is no way for me to know how he would have been had he not been injured so severely, but he was a docile man as I knew him. I only remember one grandmother, and I loved her. She was a city gal who lived in a small apartment, though. There was no big house to visit where she and my grandfather lived, with supper in the oven and an apple pie cooling on a pie rack and all that. She would stay with us for about a week every Christmas.
Not much else to say. My dad was older when I was born, so he would fit what you're asking about. He was my old people. Decent man, forward thinking in many ways. He went out of his way to be a fun dad. I'll always be grateful for that.
That's it. Boring storytime over. lol
I have one grandmother left and she is 91. She is a sweet, yet sarcastic woman, who exemplified actual Christian values, even when she lost her faith after my grampa died. She is loving, and kind, and I love her more every day.
My Dads parents were definitely not the grandma and grandpa type, they had a lot of grandchildren and probably didn’t know most of our names. My Moms parents were our grandparents. We spent weekends with them, my grandma taught me to knit, can, bake bread. She had beautiful gardens and a great dog that we all loved. She did her laundry with a wringer washer and hung it outside. My grandpa worked for the railroad and always had time for us kids, we went fishing in the summer, played horseshoes. I was born in the early 50s. A whole different world than today, I was lucky to have the childhood I did.
My grandpa (mother's side) was WONDERFUL. He was so much fun, kind and playful. He had a small cabin in the woods near his home, with a creek nearby. We would hike through the woods and visit the creek, sometimes fishing (there were some very small fish), sometimes we gathered clay from the creek-banks and took it back to the cabin and made clay treasures. My grandmother, however, was a real piece of work. Uptight, unhappy, and a bit mean. Dunno how he stayed married to her. She outlived him by far, sadly.
On my father's side, grandpa died when I was 6, so I never really knew him (he lived in California, and we ... did not). But my grandmother was a lovely woman, though we didn't see her very often (California and all). When we did visit she was gracious and kind, and spent some special time with each grandchild.
I was very lucky.
My grandpa was amazing. He was a storteller and remarkable man. An early barnstormer, squadron leader and trained pilots in WW2. After WW2 he flew rescue missions in the Arctic. I never knew how much pain he carried but as I've gotten older I know he must have had a lot from his experiences in WW2.
He wrote great long funny stories for me and I could sit and listen to his tales of adventure and daring all day. He had a wonderful sense of humour. He humoured me a lot, we'd have tea. He'd pretend to be Mrs.Brown (a victorian inside joke I didn't get at the time) and I'd be mrs.Smith. He never excluded me from things because I was a girl, he showed me how to work on a car and do wood working. We'd go out into the forest and he'd teach me what was safe to eat, how to get water and survive if I needed to.
He was an epic and gentle man. He passed away when I was just 16 from cancer. I still think about him every day and miss him.
My mother's adopted Mom, who was really her Aunt, was the most wonderful, delightful grandmother my siblings and I could possible have. We only saw her on holidays and summers but she made sure we were always having fun. She taught us to swing, to roller skate, and when we were older, to drive. She would take us anywhere we wanted to go. I remember in '84, she took me to see Ghostbusters. She never went to the movies, but because I wanted to see it, she took me. One summer, before my sister and I arrived, she saw a child about our age playing in a yard down the street from her house. She stopped and knock on the door to meet the parents and invite the girl over to her house because she wanted to make sure we had a playmate. She would also always have a gift for us every time we arrived. She would go to the local department store and ask them what was in style. Toys, clothes, and later make-up and perfume. I miss her so much and have never meet another person as exuberant as she was.
My grandfather (my dad’s father) came over from Austria by himself at fifteen and eventually got a job in the local foundry. I remember he wasn’t very big but had arms like Popeye after he ate his spinach. He liked to read detective novels and smoke his pipe in front of the big stove in his living room which was the only heat in the house. One day I went over with my dad and we went in his garage to see him. He was sitting on the steps with a slingshot watching and waiting for the rats to make their move so he could get a shot at them. That always stuck in my mind as I was only about 5 years old and thought he was a real badass.
My paternal grandmother was very close to me. I used to sit and talk with her for hours and loved staying with her. In the summer, she took us strawberry picking with us and we helped her do yardwork for extra cash (both for her and us). When I stayed with her as a child, we'd watch really old horror movies (from the 30s and 40s) on "Chiller Theater" late at night or "Dark Shadows" reruns in the afternoon. She liked to watch her "stories" (soap operas). When she got her SSI, she'd take us to the deli of the local market where she'd buy longhorn cheddar and head cheese (which I thought was gross, but she loved it). She was very poor, but kind and caring.
My paternal grandfather was also a kind man. He was a WWII vet and could fix almost anything. His hobbies included taking boxes full of disparate watch pieces (both pocket and wrist) and putting together working timepieces. He collected coins and rolled his own cigarettes. He augmented his military pension by playing poker and was very good at it when he had a good day.
I never really knew my maternal grandfather as he had black lung disease and my only memory of him was of him lying down unable to see or speak much in my grandmother's home. He had to be fed and changed like a baby. He died without my ever really knowing him.
My maternal grandmother was a gossipy, judgmental woman who was constantly upgrading her lifestyle and investing in not only keeping up with the Jonses, but surpassing them. My mother was always looking for her mother's approval, but it never came. We visited her home often because she would never visit ours. I remember sitting in her finished basement while my mother chatted with her reading from her giant stack of gossip papers ("The Star", "The National Enquirer") because I had no interest in what they were talking about. She was what we considered our "rich grandmother", and she sent my sister and me $20 for our birthdays in a card every year. I only realized after I grew up that she was just middle class (not even upper middle class), but to us very poor people, a home that was clean and well-kept looked like wealth.
Never knew my grandfathers, I’ve been told I’m a lot like my maternal GF. He died in 1942, he was gassed in WW1 and my mother believed that affected his health, he died from leukemia.
Very much regret not knowing either one of my GFs.
My maternal GM was a wild woman. Grew up half wild in Arkansas and Mississippi. After my GF died, she left her youngest behind in Miss. and moved to the Michigan UP to be with a man she met through a personal ad in a magazine. They later moved to SW Colorado and ran a roadhouse, she used to trade with Native Americans for turquoise, told me she cooked rattlesnake camping at Mesa Verde. One of a kind.
My paternal GM, also a Mississippian, was a bit more conventional, she was a caring and loving person that was able to overcome alcoholism.
They were both excellent cooks, artistic/creative in different ways and smoked like chimneys.
My grandparents raised me from age 2 to 17 (when I moved out) . My mom and grandma were pregnant at the same time. My grandma was really attached to me. My uncle was stillborn and I was the first grandchild. My grandpa.had little use for women. He impregnated my grandma 10 times, had 5 kids .
I loved my grandma so much. She was my world . She brought me cigarettes in the hospital and covered for me a lot as a teenager. I would have loved her anyway. That's how I made it to adult hood.
My mom decided to go to work when I was 2 and so my parents paid my grandparents to watch me . They were my legal guardianes as well. It was odd in the 70s to not live with your parents .
My mother’s parents were fucking awesome! I aspire to be like them. They bought cool art from the artisans, and had it all over their dope house. They were civil rights activists. They listened to jazz, and sang songs together after meals (at least when I was there). They hiked and played tennis. My dad’s side is filled with poverty, mental illness, and abandonment. So I’m just gonna think of Granny (Jean) and Popu (Stan).
I knew two of my great-grandparents (born 1903
and 1904 respectively). They died when I was 14 or 15 so I was old enough to have actual conversations with them. Both were off the boat Italian immigrants through Ellis Island. They were very happy go lucky and silly and not much different than old people today.
My grandparents however (both granddads WWII vets) were more of the strong silent type. Stern. Talked only when necessary. Didn’t show much personality unless watching baseball or American football. All good people though.
My grandpa always had a garden and make delicious pickles every year. He would make the ham and polish sausage for Easter and Christmas, and it was always wonderful. We hardly talked. My grandma was always nice, kept a very neat house. According to my mom my grandpa would disappear on the weekends, she sad my dad would do that too, go out and “buy socks” then come home 8 hours later. They weren’t drinkers or cheating, just needed space. I feel the same way.
My neighbors were nazis, like literally nazis during the reign of hitler. We were Jews. It wasn’t uncomfortable, they were pleasant people. He really loves his Bosch tools.
Main thing I remember is that they were of course from an earlier generation, born at the turn of the 20th century, and were not at all in tune with the changes and upheavals of the '60's. Rock music, politics, women's rights, desegregation, drugs, etc. I mean it was pretty foreign stuff for them. They all passed before I was old enough to initiate an indepth conversation to hear their deeper thoughts.
My grandpa was a moonshiner and pig farmer, my dads oldest aunt had been married to a Civil War vet, most had only went to the 6th grade so there wasn't a lot of reading going on .... lol
As another pointed out 40 was.the old 60 and they looked it, almost all died in their 50s or 60s
They looked really old in their 60's and their clothes looked like old people clothes. I always enjoyed visiting them, they had a much kinder and gentler atmosphere.
My grandfather (born 1902) was a retired farmer, we lived next door. He had a big garden, easy to work with old farm tractor. He also had a second home in a ocean side community and like to surf fish. He took me fishing a lot.
Thankfully my moms side was huge. She was one of 13. It was a great childhood. It was like living in Italy. The neighborhood was called Little Italy. They were the wilder side. They sent the boys to catholic school & the girls to public school. I guess they figured the girls would stay home & have babies. Which they all had a career when it wasn't cool yet for women to work. I guess they thought the girls didn't need the better education. It cost 25 cents a month for catholic school. My moms parents moved here from Italy. My father & his brother were left/abandoned with the next door neighbor. My real grandparents tried to ride the coattails of my great grandfather who was in vaudeville. My grandmother died of tuberculosis soon after & my grandfather became a bum since vaudeville was a dead circuit. I never knew any blood relatives of my dads. His brother died of polio when he was 4. But the people he was left with were wonderful. I called them nana, aunts, uncles & cousins but they weren't blood.
My dad's mom was the embodiment of the "I'm dying, you don't love me" stereotype. I didn't see her often (lived across the country) but all I remember her doing was complaining. All. The. Time. She was rude, abrasive and just didn't give a fuck. She was one hell of a cook though.
Her sister (they lived together) would sit and read all day and watch Wheel of Fortune every night. She was very quiet and is one of the big influences for me when it comes to my love of reading. She was very kind and gentle and I was always happy to see her.
My mom's parents were an enigma to us kids. We saw them a lot more than my dad's family, they lived 20 minutes away.
They never really talked to us kids. We'd go to their house every weekend for brunch, sit down, eat our food and then be told to "go play". Wherever my parents and grandparents were in the house or yard, we were to be elsewhere. I honestly don't know if I ever held a conversation with either of them.
When they passed away my mother was enraged that us kids didn't seem bothered. My dad told her it was because we didn't know them. She didn't understand that seeing someone regularly did not equal deep emotion for that person - there was no real relationship there, no bond other than, "This is your grandparent".
My grandmother was born in Italy in the 1870s. She was illiterate and was forced to marry my grandfather by her father, who seems to have been a brute. She had 7 kids by the time she was in her early 30s, two of whom died in infancy. She hated my grandfather and was happier than she’d been in years when he died. She liked to watch soap operas, and she enjoyed drinking wine with her friends. (One old lady had actually come over with her from Italy, and they were from the same village there.) she cared about her kids and grandkids, could make delicious bread in an outdoor wood-fired oven, and made a lovely spaghetti sauce (not too spicy.). Because she couldn’t read she loved to hear stories and talk with people she knew. Sadly she lost her youngest son and after he died she went downhill fast.
Grandparents were born in 1900. They spent alot of time with us grandkids and we always had fun. Simple things. They drank beer and smoked camels. When I was in my 20s I’d hang out with my grandma. We’d knock back a few beers and she would tell me stories from her heyday. And she gave good advice when I asked. I still miss them.
Let's see. My dad's mother, you could never catch her at home. She was always at church, (Never missed a day) Visiting, or at some old ladies meeting. She drove until she was 93. (Her Impala, her last car was a sea of dents)
My grandfather, was always tinkering with something. He'd go to the grocery store everyday. (Probably to get away from my nag grandmother!) He would go to Bache & Co to watch the stock market boards, two to three times a week. And read the Wall Street Journal.
My grandpa was the coolest guy on earth. Crazy handsome too. He looked like a movie star.
After retirement he had a bucket list of odd jobs and hobbies to try and did just about all of them. Whitewater rafting guide, golf course ranger, dog handler, handicapped school bus driver...
He was raised in Brooklyn and wanted to live in the country, so he bought a little property and raised a few goats, chickens and horses. He enjoyed shooting guns but never wanted to kill an animal so he just shot at old pots and pans until one day his goose (Henry) popped his little head up at the wrong time. He never shot that gun again.
The older people that were around sixty years ago, when I was eight, dressed and acted far more formally than old folks (including me) do now. Back then, after a "certain age", most people didn't ride bikes, work out at gyms, ride the waves at the beach, go for a jog in shorts and a sports bra or go for hikes. Of course these same older people may have been born in the 1800s, lived through a couple of world wars, the Depression and likely did more manual work than folks do now. Maybe they were happy just to be able to sit down at that point.
My grandmother is great. She gives the best advice and makes the best chocolate chip cookies. She'll be 101 on her birthday she shares with my father and my son, Christmas Eve. I'll be sixty on mine.
Only knew one grandparent. She and my parents were OLD. I look back and see when my parents were my age, they were so old. They didn’t go anywhere or do anything. The TV was there closest companion.
None of those apply to my grandfather. (He was the only blood grandparent I knew.) We were fairly close and he was really good to me. But he was a hard man: Left home at 17 to go to work in a factory, worked through the depression and union days of the 1930's, and ran an armaments plant during WW2. Auto executive after that. After he retired at 65 and moved, something went out of him. He outlived two wives and was widowed the last two years of his life. Sad years. He died at 75 of emphysema. Good grief could he swear!
My dad's parents were these prim and proper, straight out of a TV show about the 50's folks. My mom's dad was a Johnny Cash song come to life. I liked my dad's side better until I was old enough to hear and enjoy some good drunken bar fight stories, which my grandpa decided was when I was 12. Dude was a cautionary tale to be sure, but damn if he wasn't one of the most interesting people I've ever known.
Nana taught me to sew, arrange flowers, play Canasta and dance the foxtrot. She made most of my clothes, painted my nails and took me to church every Sunday.
My grandparents were miserable to each other. My GMA didn’t respect my GPA on both sides of my family. I can’t imagine being a bitter old person like them and watching them constantly argue was horrible. They were only pleasant to those around them but not around family
My grandparents were all born around 1890. They were all very quiet, avoided buying or doing anything that might have seemed “flashy.” They liked to live quietly in their comfort zone, possibly in reaction to the first half of the twentieth century being very tumultuous. Plenty of people in their generation were not particularly like that, but I don’t think they were unusual.
If they minded looking old or being somewhat marginalized from being perceived as old, they didn’t indicate it. They didn’t believe uncovering difficult emotions. One set was very committed to conventional wisdom and were rather judgmental, the other set less so, at least that was my perception.
My grandmothers were not afraid of anything and better than most people. I knew my grandmothers and both endured violent marriages and grew up in rural areas. One became a school teacher and taught impoverished kids across America (the only job a divorcee teacher could get in the 50s and 60s). My other grandmother was a widow in her 30s but managed to put her kids through school in India and my dad eventually earned a PhD.
Both women were joyful people who laughed more than they frowned and loved spending time with me.
They were pretty active into old age. My maternal grandfather would still go up ladders and so forth into his late 70 s and early 80s. They were pretty intellectual - music, books, long discussions.
My grandmother was judgmental and negative. She told me many times that one year she as a child literally received coal in her stocking and nothing else for Christmas. I have to think that was indicative of her childhood environment. Her personality therefore made some sense.
My maternal grandparents were fun, much younger than their age. Traveled, went to galleries, museums, showed me photos of their travels, took me to museums. They were progressive when my mum and siblings were kids (my mum as teen was sometimes extremely embarrassed by her mum\* LOL, teens!), my aunt told me. And that was very long ago, my mum was the oldest born in ‘42. They were very fun grandparents, not the typical grandparents you expect but perfect for me.
\*my grandmother did not adhere to silly rules about what people her age should be wearing and same same with my grandfather.
I didn’t get to know my paternal ones because they were older than my maternal ones and they had my dad when she was 40 and he was 36. I think that grandmother would have been fun for for other grandchildren, she sounded like a sweet grandmother. The grandpa would likely have been boring, I only remember him sitting in a chair ignoring his guests (us) and reading a newspaper smoking a cigar.
My grandparents were immigrants and didn’t like to talk much. They had big gardens and were always giving away their extra fruit and vegetables. When I was five or six, my grandfather showed me how to kill a chicken and get the feathers off. He liked to sit by his garden and smoke his pipe.
On my dad’s side, my grandma was constantly cooking, or playing card games and chatting with all the kids in the neighborhood. She called herself “the neighborhood grandma,” and it was her mission to keep them all out of trouble. She was a main character her whole life. Had an 8th grade education and worked in factories and restaurants until she retired.
On my mom’s side my grandma was very reserved and precise, but also kind and gracious and funny. She’d been a nurse most of her life. She grew all her own food and made the best fried okra. My mom always said that when I walked into a room, she would do a double take, because I had her same physique and way of moving.
I didn’t know either of my grandfathers. On my dad’s side, he died of colon cancer when I was very young. But he was a tinkerer, and constantly inventing things. On my mom’s side, he was an alcoholic that I was not allowed to be alone with. The pics of him in his prime are definitely “old school cool.” That side of the family is very photogenic.
None of them were rude people. They were all very kind and intelligent, they just didn’t have much education or appreciation of books, music, etc. My mom’s mom probably was the most educated of all of them. She graduated high school and had an associates degree.
Both my grandfather's were alcoholics and didn't have a whole bunch of time for grandkids. I've been sober for nearly thirty years, I teach my grandkids stuff and have had them come to love some of grandpas music( Talking Heads, Pink Floyd and the Who) are some of their favorites.
A victory garden that took up half of the backyard. Calling out “quiet please”. When family made the mistake of stopping by the house during Lawrence Welk or Mitch Miller. Lunches of Limburger cheese and braunschweiger. Sitting pans of water on the floor heating vents for humidity in the winter. Driving an old Nash Rambler that was so rusted you could watch the street go by through the hole in the floorboards. Putting a small wooden block under the real wheel in case the emergency break and park setting in the transmission both fail at the same time. Playing pinochle every night after dinner.
My grandma was born in 1912 and lived a long amazing life to almost 95. She was a tiny woman, barely 4’11” and grew up in Missouri. She went to junior college in the late 1920s which I think was unusual for the time, and it was where she met my grandpa (a brilliant tragic man who was smart enough to get engineering patents for aircraft design when he was in his early 20s, but because of poverty and sick parents could not afford university and was a postal worker all his life).
Anyhow, when grandma met grandpa she was actually engaged to someone else - until that guy ghosted her by marrying someone else in his hometown over the summer. Grandma finished JC and became a social worker during the depression. She bought her own car (1934 Ford) and drove around visiting and helping rural families who were extremely poor and struggling.
She and Grandpa reconnected and got married and she started teaching school - first grade. He must have liked her at least a little bit then, as he was kicked out of the church (LCMS) for marrying her (a Methodist). When they married his mother moved in with them- an obese difficult woman who was bedridden and only spoke German. Grandma took care of her as well as teaching school *and* she and Grandpa were farming a few acres. He wanted to join up during WW2 but couldn’t due to rheumatic fever as a child and an enlarged heart. So they grew tobacco as their contribution to the war effort.
My aunt came along in 1944 and after the war schools began requiring teachers to have a four year degree. So grandma was taking care of everyone, teaching full time, and going to night school to get her bachelor’s degree. My mom came along in 1952 and in the same year Grandma and Grandpa bought five acres and built the house themselves. They paid for it with literally a pile of pennies my grandpa had saved (I have the newspaper clipping with a picture). Grandma’s dad was a carpenter so helped out with the design and some of the finishing work.
My mom tells stories about her childhood that grandpa and grandma didn’t really like each other much. He would give her shit about getting jilted and he was on some heavy primitive medications for depression. She talks about her and her sister going and hiding in the woodshed when g and g were fighting and chasing each other around the house with a shotgun. It happened more than once.
They were pretty poor for most of my mom’s childhood and grandpa allowed grandma $5 per week for groceries. That did not stretch far enough for a family of four in the late 50s and early 60s. So they grew a ton of their own food and had an orchard - they canned all sorts of fruits and vegetables every summer and never threw anything away.
My mom also talks about that for a vacation they drove from Missouri to Alaska - twice, since Grandma had summers off and grandpa had been with the post office for so long he had a lot of vacation time. While it sounds nice, my mom said it was often hell as grandpa insisted on camping every night; but also being on the road by 6:00am. She says she still has nightmares to this day about him falling asleep at the wheel and driving them off a cliff.
Grandpa passed in 1978 when he fell down the basement steps while carrying a load of firewood. I always found that story to be a little bit fishy, but I’ll never know. Grandma met the love of her life about a year later and got remarried at age 70. She and my step grandpa adopted a golden retriever, moved off the farm into a condo, and then spent 15 years traveling around the country and the world until he got sick and died. But they took many cross country road trips and never seemed to take life too seriously.
After he passed grandma was still very active with her church and her friends that were still alive. She traveled to Poland and Guatemala and several other smaller trips after she turned 90. It wasn’t until she was 92 or 93 that she moved into assisted living. She was healthy until the very end, finally having unexplained heart issues and passing quickly. My aunt (a physician) was with her and said the day before she passed she opened her eyes, looked around; and asked “why am I still here?” Tbh I think she left because she was lonely. All her friends, even those 20 years younger had mostly died and family was spread out doing their own thing.
I remember my grandma as someone very wise and kind who always had time for me. She would tell amazing stories especially at bedtime when it was our ritual for me to say “tell me about when you were a little girl”. She would make me broccoli with cheese sauce and other southern dishes that people don’t eat that often today. She had the most beautiful cursive handwriting.
When I got older she would tell me how proud of me she was and that she knew I could handle any challenge life threw my way. That’s when I heard from her firsthand about her broken engagement and some of the other darker stories - and she told me I was unlikely to encounter any situation in life that was significantly different from what she had experienced - and since she had made it through she knew I could too.
I miss her every day.
My grandfather lived to 95, in his own home, with all his wits intact. He loved music (especially Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan), stained glass making, and starting flowers from seed in his basement. He never talked about his stint in WWII, and he was always always kind. I miss him.
my grandparents literally traveled the world, flew their Stearman across country many times, and engaged in the Arts. they were bibliophiles and had hundreds of books. grandpa also built additions and improved the house by himself, painted and learned to proficiently read, write, and speak a foreign language. every old person seemed extremely old to me when comparing them with my beloved grandparents. hell, I feel old compared to them and I'm in my mid 50s. they were active well into their late 80s and passed late 90s.
My grandmother was still amazing until she passed about 20 years ago. She was born in 1906, she and her sister played the piano and violin in the silent movie theaters.
She got engaged to her sisters fiancee (scandal!) and lived a great dirty joke till her last days.
On the other side my grandmother was from Syria and had to run the household at barely 6 years old. Her mother kind of disappeared and no one else spoke any English.
My great grandmother was run out of Germany accused of being a witch. They settled in Wisconsin and they bought a farm, the family grew up at that farm.
I'm a psychic medium, the family members live to tell me spooky stories from the farm ☺️
Im 57 yo. man, only child and grew up on the Mason-Dixon line, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Delaware line was 5 Mike's cross country. My father was born in 1935 my mother in 1940. My grandfather was born in 1908. He was a big tall man and seldom said much. He had about a 50 Acre Farm in Cherry Hill Maryland and worked 40 years at Chrysler. He built 6 houses including the one my mother was born in. The house I was raised in was built in 1960 by him and my father at a cost of $6,000 including a well which he dug himself. The well wasn't even 20 ft deep as The story goes he used two metal coat hangers I believe and walked around until they crossed and that's where he dug. A second House was built next to the one I grew up in and that single well to this day still feeds both houses with no problem. We had about 6 acres and grew almost all of our vegetables which my mother canned and we would buy 150/200 ears of corn and my mom and me would steam and cut it all off the cob and preserved in mason jars. There was an orchard with different types of apples and trees. My mother would make applesauce and the apple pies and desserts I can smell to this day. Now back to my grandfather, this is one thing I will never forget and regret to this day. There was a cinder block barn probably 40 by 60 ft and 20 ft tall where he kept farm tractor in various other things for the farm. Over the course of three or four days he painstakingly white wash painted the entire barn, and I fucked with him the whole time because I wanted him to pay attention to me, but there was work to be done ,no time for play. There were two huge walnut trees near the barn and it was my job to pick up the walnuts and put them in buckets to soften. I guess I was just mad and thought I would get back at him for not playing catch with me or whatever else. So in a matter of minutes I had thrown a buckeful of soft black walnuts all over the side of the freshly white painted barn. He had went inside to wash up and was talking to my mom. I couldn't wait for him to come out and when he did I didn't get the reaction I'd hoped for ,to this day I don't know what I had hope to accomplish. He came out of the house and began walking towards the barn and me. He stopped in front of me and said Son you go down in that apple orchard and get a green switch off the tree I'm going to beat your ass till your nose bleeds. I can remember being terrified and ran into the house and told my mom Granddad is going to beat my ass till my nose bleeds, her response was you better go down there and get that switch or it's going to be worse . And that's exactly what I did. He never hit me once with the switch when I handed it to him and he said I hope you learned something today. From that day on I had a admiration and respect for him like no other to this day.
He passed away in 2000 which made him 92. When he was 75 he bought a hundred acres down in lower Delaware and built a house a barn and bought a combine for soybeans so we thought. As it turns out if he only planted about 15 acres of corn and soybeans . My mother asked him, Daddy why did you buy that damn combine if you're not going to farm the entire acreage? His response was" I always wanted one". That was the one and only time any of us questioned him about that combine.
When he passed it was quite an undertaking to settle the estate and took a year probably with my mother doing the majority of the work including caring for his beloved dogs,strays that had wondered onto the property that he always took in. My mother found a cardboard box and say take a look in there ,I want you to see something. Inside was every pay stub from every week for 40 years that he worked at Chrysler tightly wrapped with a rubber band. They were all handwritten and he worked 40 regular hours and 8 hours overtime as far as I could tell the entire 40 years. When he started he brought home a check for $48 a week and when he finished after 40 years it was a almost a$100. I was probably 12 at the time and that was my lesson in economics and the value of A Hard Day's Work. He worked 48 hours a week and maintained a working farm by himself and built Eight houses in total along with many outbuildings and barns. I understand now why he didn't have time for me.
So as it turns out my grandfather had bought quite a few properties down in Florida in the 40s and 50s, he owned harness racing horses which ran at Harrington in Delaware. He bought properties along the Chesapeake Bay and the C&D Canal and down further on the Sassafrass River. When it was all said and done and everything was sold , it was almost $2.5 million dollars which was split directly down the middle between my mom and her brother.
This is went off topic but I hope you kind of get an idea of what type of person he was. The dedication and the foresight to accomplish what he did is amazing. In today's world to work 40 years to accomplish something it is inconceivable it's more like 40 minutes and if something incredible doesn't happen then fuck it.There will never be Generations like the ones in the past, but everybody should learn from them and what they were able to build from the ground up.
I only knew my grandmother. None of my adoptive mother's family lived beyond their 70s, that I can recall made it out of their 70s as they all smoked heavily. She loved gardening and enjoyed her dogs. She lived in Sacramento California and wore shorts and muumuus in the hot weather. She took me places with her when I visited.we went downtown to meet my aunt for lunch . We went grocery shopping. She sang to Burl Ives and Jimmy Rogers while vacuuming the carpet. She loved Elvis. She would often have an evening cocktail with my aunt when she got home from work. She also enjoyed the occasional trip to Reno. I wish I knew more about her early life.
I enjoyed visiting with her in the summer in her small post war tract house, so different from my Midwest life the rest of the year. I had kids to play with and was given freedom to roam the neighborhoods, ride my bike and hang out at the pool. She indulged my passion for dressing my troll dolls. It was like nirvana to me.
My old folks looked old at 40. I look at pictures of my family in their 40's and they look like they're in their 50's or 60's. They were all great storytellers. Any time there was a family get together, eventually the old folks would gather in a circle and tell stories about their younger years.
My one grandpa read a lot and didn't like noise. He also was always complaining he was cold. He played cards every morning at coffee with his friends and liked to go to Vegas once a year to play blackjack.
My grandma was the sweetest, kindest woman ever. Never quite got their relationship, tbh. But they adopted my dad in their 40s, so they were definitely old grandparents (unlike my 52 year old friend with the 16 year old grandkid). They were in their 90s when they died.
My other grandparents - grandpa played crib. It was the main thing he did with us kids, teaching us to play and then playing a couple games with each of us. He smoked a lot. He was actually vice president and then president of a Legion as well, but I never saw that part of him.
I dunno what to say about my grandma. In some ways she was way ahead of her time and in others she was the most annoying woman on the planet. She hated my dad and made sure we knew it.
I feel bad for my children that they basically had 1 grandparent and she was so awful only one of my kids even cared when she died.
Two grandparents lived to my age or less but the other two were very different and very cool. Grandma was very cultured and spoke multiple languages and was very modern and social. Grandpa was more “old country” and liked drinking with the boys but was a real joker with the grandkids.
Always complaining because gas used to be 19 cents a gallon and a hamburger was 49 cents. In the 1980s, they wanted things priced like they were in 1950s.
My maternal grandparents were worried French Canadians were going to take over Canada. My grandfather hated communists more than anything, he also never touched a drop of alcohol in his life. My grandmother was an extreme bookworm. They watched the Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday night, check it out on youtube to see what I'm talking about.
My parents and grandparents were kind people. They looked older at my age than I do but that was the case with everyone at the time. They told off color jokes, didn't clutch their pearls at much, and lived happy lives.
I never knew my maternal grandfather as he died when my mom was 12. When I was a little kid my maternal grandmother lived with us because she was an invalid. Most of her sons were medical people and would fret over her(they were a close knit Sicilian family)when they came to our house. She must’ve died in the early 50’s. But my paternal grandparents lived on a farm and had horses, they milked their cows and had chickens and barns with hay lofts. My grandma was kind and played an organ that you pumped with your feet, she drove her ‘51 Chevy around never going more than about 20 mph. My grandfather(who has a striking resemblance to Butch Cassidy)was a tough, hardworking short man that wore dirty bib overalls and always had a 3 day growth of beard on his sweaty face and because he dipped Garett snuff had a little dribble of it running down the side of his mouth. My mother would say “Kiss your grandpa” but didn’t want to because he had a sweaty beard. He was a night watchman in a sawmill, carried an old holstered pistol(as part of his job)that had yellowed grips and was so dirty it would probably blow up if he tried to shoot it. He drove a 50’s model Chevy pickup that was sort of navy blue and was stained with east Texas red dirt. I remember riding in it between he and my dad and all I could see was the chrome radio grill that said “Chevrolet”. Once when my sister and I were playing in the dirt with our cars he was leaning on the picket fence watching us with amusement and said “Boy you really like playing in the dirt don’t you!” and I proudly replied “Yeah, my mom said when I grow up I’m going to be dirty just like you!” Man, did that cause some ruckus between he and my mom. He passed a way in 1958 of congestive heart failure at 60 years old, I remember they played “Rock of Ages” at his funeral.
I only had one grandparent still living. That in itself tells you something about the old days.
She was very nice. I remember Sunday chicken dinners at her big "grandma house." Unfortunately, she had a stroke when I was about ten and was in nursing homes the rest of her life. Her husband died at 55 from cerebral hemorrhage.
Paternal grandparents: My father was the last of 11 kids, and his father was pretty old when he was born. His mom died when he was only 4 yrs old. I never heard why, but a wild guess would be in childbirth.
OH good God not rude. I grew up with ( counts on fingers) 9 elderly relatives from grandparents to various aunts and a great grandmother for good measure.
Mostly they could be fun but it was manners- Id make a list but it would be a wall of text - correct grammar, respect. Oh and noooo slang.
Probably most importantly they all made points of introducing we kids to the world around us. Cool way to grow up and I recognize I was fortunate.
Both of my grandmothers were long dead before I was born. My maternal grandfather was a shitbird career criminal, and I never met him. My father’s father came to the US, from Scotland, as a teenager in the 1880s. He worked like a dog and drank like a fish. His two sons - my father and my uncle - were alcoholics as well. The half dozen or so times I saw him, his attention was focused on drinking with my father and my uncle.
grandpa on my fathers side was a crotchety ex Mormon and grandma was saintly and lovable; grandpa on my mothers side was a nasty, alcoholic train engineer and grandma was a sweetheart and a great cook.
My maternal Grandmother was OLD by the time I knew her. So, she wasn’t a lot of fun. She was nice enough, like she wasn’t mean or anything, but she wasn’t warm and fuzzy either. She was born in Poland and was very old country. My grandfather died before I was born.
My Paternal Grandmother was actually my father’s step-mom, but she was the best Grandma. She was super sweet and would play games with us, make our favorite foods, take us shopping or to do things like the zoo or park. She loved to go out to eat, and she loved to go square dancing. She was very active. She and my grandfather wintered in Florida. They always had friends and relatives over to play cards on the weekends. My grandfather loved to fish. He died when I was 8, so I didn’t know him as well.
My paternal grandfather was a WW2 vet who went into law enforcement. He was cold and harsh. He would go weeks at a time without speaking to my grandmother. They got a divorce when I was young, and he disappeared from my life until he died when I was in 5th grade. My paternal grandmother was the opposite. She was warm and loving. She was always out and about with her family. After she and Grandpa divorced, she really started living. She was always on some trip somewhere. I'd get a souvenir every time.
My maternal grandfather was a criminal. He was always up to no good. He spent a lot of my life in and out of jails and prisons. My maternal grandmother was just the best. She was full of life. She loved her family and the community. She'd be so giving of her time and talents. Who knows how she ended up with Grandpa? When she died, the entire town came to her visitation.
As the youngest of all the grand children, I only really remember one grandpa - the father of my mother. He was a role model for me. He owned a farm, and was a very well-read person. He was happy with what he had. Always silent, always in the background, but always present. And when he had something to say, it was either important - for a necessary decision, or it was an increcibly funny one-liner. I think in his whole life, he just spoke 10% of the average person, but 100% more of imporant things.
I learned from him, that it is the search for happiness and not the search for wealth, which should be the center of our life. He found joy in the tiny things in life, loved to be sourrounded by his family or had joy by precisely and lovingly pressing the apples to produce cider. Never loud, but everybody respected him.
His only vanity was his enormous moustache, which he maintained with love and high precision.
Even, when the farm was officially transferred to one of my aunts, he stayed there as the senior farmer, helping till a very old age. He did never strive for appreciation, it naturally happened because of his nature.
My grandparents were simple country folk. They didn't have an indoor toilet until the mid 1960's. Raised their own food. Took bath's in a wash tub on the back porch. My parents went in to the military to escape that life. It was always a treat to go there to visit. Such a different life from mine. My dad's stepfather was a moonshiner.
Both of my grandfathers were amazing men, both who I credit for the many unique experiences & opportunities I’ve had in life.
-Maternal grandpa failed out of engineering school before becoming a Doctor & was a medic in WW2. He pierced my ears & lived out his days in the Low Country of SC, where he helped start a clinic for those in need ❤️🩹he was a no nonsense kinda guy who once left a comment card at Bob Evans, simply asking, “whatever happened to the good fried mush?” Yum fried mush, that sounds deeelicious!
-Paternal grandaddy worked for the railroad & was self-taught on the piano. He knew all the standards & those are the soundtrack of my childhood. I’m about to possess the grandfather clock he made with his own 2 hands. He was extremely punny. His annual summer spending gift changed my life ❤️Bye bye, and buy bonds, grandaddy! You were one of a kind 💛
Thank you for asking & thank you to my amazing grandfathers. I know I’m blessed 💕
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As the youngest son of youngest son and youngest daughter, I only had one grandparent alive and kicking while I was young. As a young woman, she met her husband in Rawlins, WY, around 1920, where she had moved on her own and had been a piano teacher. She was originally from Illinois, but her people were from Muhlenberg County, KY, and she retained that southern accent and the phrase, "I do declare." After her husband died, she became a social worker with the county. After retirement, she made the local papers for taking a solo vacation to the South Seas via tramp freighters. She was an interesting woman.
She constantly complained that I didn't enunciate-- that led me to be careful in my speech. She wasn't a very good cook. Her views on racial matters were complicated-- she was condescending, but still a life member of the NAACP.
My father’s mother hated my mother and by extension, all us kids. His father once whispered to me (when I was in my 20’s) that he loved me. But pretty much, wasn’t around them. They even went so far as to take a vacation to Alaska where we and my dad’s brother & kids lived. Our houses were back to back. I found out *by accident* that they were there. It pissed that old lady off. It meant that they had to come visit us. I think it lasted 20 minutes. They both lived into their upper 90’s.
My mother’s people were life long functioning alcoholics but they loved us to the very depths of their being. It was a real loss when they died, too soon and too young.
They were all Jewish immigrants from what is now Ukraine. They spoke pretty good English with a bit of Yiddish mixed in. They all worked hard, mostly in very small commercial spaces. They were very conventional. They never spoke about “the Old Country” or the people they left behind who were likely recent Holocaust victims. They celebrated in synagogues quietly, with much restraint. They loved baseball and TV and cars and the latest appliances and fashions and the Democrats and most of all their families.
My grandmother was always doing something. Whether it was canning every fruit and vegetable within 200 blocks that people would give her, or she was building cabinets banging nails and sawing boards until 5:00 a.m. her home was full of plants, so many plants you felt like you were in the jungle. But she was always busy. Always building something. I remember her taking out a whole wall and closing in another door in a bedroom basically moving the door from one side of the room to the other. She was in her seventies when she did that.
SUPER religious. Both my grandfathers were evangelical preachers. Everyone went to church at least 3x per week. Life revolved around the church and largely excluded anyone who wasn’t churchy.
They were teetotalers and didn’t like dancing. All music and tv allowed while there was either news, religious programming or college football.
My grandmothers were always cooking something (though one was terrible at it), sewing or doing their bible study. Only one of my grandfathers was around by the time I was born. His spare time was spent gardening, preparing his sermons or visiting people from his congregation who were sick, bereaved or had just given birth. My great grandparents were farmers, so most of their lives revolved around farm things and church.
One grandfather broke horses for a living. That pair worked too hard to survive to be very interesting.
The other grandmother grew up in LDS polygamy.
In general the men were distant, un social, the women were loving. They all thought the world was worse than when they were born in the 1890s.
Mine were the classic kids in the depression adulthood dumped them right into ww2. Hey we’re pretty great. My dad’s mom was the only religious one which caused problems when I became a young adult. Without them all I doubt I’d be here today
My grandparents were straight-up Appalachian hillbillies who worked very hard to barely scrape by. Maternal grandfather was a farmer. Took in other odd jobs to make ends meet. He used to go pick up the bodies if someone in the community died. Grandmother worked in the high school cafeteria. My paternal grandparents moved to the closest big city for better work opportunities, but they lived in a bad part of town and my father grew up there. Grandfather worked on the assembly line of a GM plant and grandmother took in laundry and ironing. Dad was determined to do better and he did. My mother left for the big city right after high school. They met at the bank where they both worked. Dad worked in banking his whole life. Mom was a SAHM.
My grandma was really into ancestry and had huge books of names and dates and the amount of research she did before the internet was astounding. now I would probably appreciate it but as a child it was so boring to look at and listen to.
Three of my four grandparents died before I was born. The forth, my mother's mother, was an old Portuguese woman with a heavy accent who told jokes from the 19th century, or close enough. :-) She was all right, but her English was broken and I had a hard time following it. She lived with her youngest son and watched a lot of soap opera.
My\`one grandfather had passed away before I was born.
My other grandfather lived to be 102, and was still gardening and other things until he was in his late 90's.
My one grandma passed away in her 90's - her eyesight had greatly diminished and she had slowed down - but still cooked three meals a day. She did stop making a lot of her baked goods a few years prior to her passing. She stopped hosting the family holidays somewhere in her late 80's.
My other grandmother passed away in her 80's - was mentally sharp until about two years before she passed away - when her mental issues started to decline, so did her physical abilities. She had to have care-givers to help her and my step-grandfather with their daily living activities for a year or so prior to their passing. They passed away approximately ten days apart.
Two of my grandparents were born in the 1890's.
They were much older as I recall and I don't remember having much of a relatioinship with them. My parents were also old when they had me which was unusual for the day.
They were all retired schoolteachers born in the 1890s. My fathers father was a master gardener, wrote articles for the local paper, always had a wooden case of coke in the green glass bottles. He still had a coal stove and a coal furnace. My fathers mother was very hard of hearing and an excellent seamstress. My mothers mother was a stern no nonsense woman who wore a dress everyday. She lived in a large Victorian home her father built. Her father was a teacher too and he was stern also according to newspaper accounts. My mothers great grandfather was also a teacher.
They were tough and didn't like to tolerate excuses. At the same time, they pushed you to grow and try to reach your potential at things and be skilled and useful. There was positive and negative in that and I think some of that toughness and motivation is sorely needed nowadays, balanced out with recognition of mental health issues.
My grandma had nine children, and her husband died not too long after the youngest was born. She was a capable, strong, no nonsense woman who could cook up a storm. It was her love language. Other than that, she wasn’t very soft. I loved her, and I know she loved me, but she didn’t show it well. She raised great kids who are very clean and neat. Over achievers. They were Hispanic and catholic in northern Utah, so definitely looked down on. She aged hard because of a hard life, and looked a lot older than I do at the same age. My great-grandmother, her mother-in-law, rolled her own cigarettes, spoke Spanish whenever we visited even though we couldn’t understand, and would talk your ear off. Her cigarettes were so loose that bits of tobacco would fall out and she’d have little burn holes all over her little zip-up house dress.
About 10 years ago my grandmother (86 years old) wanted to write a letter to her cable provider because they took The Andy Griffith Show off of Nick at Night. She was pissed off, so we got her the DVDs. Not good enough for her, she wanted it back on the air and kept calling the cable company and writing letters.
1) Grandpa A. A quiet guy, could machine anything, and did, right up until his 5th cancer took him. Learned mechanics from his son. Worried about his grandkids. Alcoholic through most of his kids' childhoods, eventually got sober and stayed that way for 25+ years.
2) Grandpa W. Extremely outgoing and jovial, fundamentalist Christian, loved all his grandkids but made no secret that he thought all the boys were much more useful/valuable than the girls. Played accordion.
3) Grandma B. Brave and smart, loved to garden. Wrote a book about growing up on the farm. Excellent health and very independent.
4) Grandma J. Immigrant from Scotland, we only found out after her & her husband's death she changed her identity when she came over, no idea why. Very religious, very mean, abusive to kids and grand kids.
They were generally pretty cool. There wS an older great aunt who was a bit of a handful to those who helped her,but she was always nice to me. Grandparents were cool as was great-grandfather. Our neighboe lastly who lived into her 90s was amazing. She was still chopping her firewood at over age 90. Very sweet lady. I didn't really know too many crotchety old people, though I know they were around. Even the eccentric guy who was not easy to get along with in some cases was always kind to me and others my age.
My grandpa (d. 1984) was always dismantling something trying to see what made it work. 90% of the time, he could and would put it back together. He was something of a polymath; he was a musician, a preacher, and a broadcast engineer who put together the transmitter for the first TV station in Midland, Texas. During World War II, he taught aircraft electronics to Army draftees.
My dad (d. 2001, age 77) was into gardening bigtime. I think it was a throwback to growing up on a farm. He also liked working on lawnmowers.
None of that "fix it" gene trickled down to me, unfortunately. I'm 65 and can't fix crap.
My grandfather was a brilliant man, who possessed a wealth of knowledge in US history, and antique furniture, and furniture restoration. He also refused to eat corn flakes that came out of a box with a black lady on it.
They looked a lot of older than their age and unhealthier than today's older people. I see people in their 80s today and they don't look a day over 60. It's amazing. My grandpa was in his 80s when he died and he looked like death warmed over. They weren't anymore cynical than today's old people, I think that is a constant with age.
I only knew my maternal grandmother. She was abusive, cruel and racist. She tortured both myself and my mother and I never developed into the person I should have because of her. She lived to be 89 and I couldn’t have been more relieved when she finally left the planet.
My Dad traveled extensively and on a budget working as he went. He had a cat and a girlfriend and a tiny camper. He had been in the signal corps in WWII and was still penpals with some of the folks he met in Europe.
My Mom died young but was a lovely woman. Worked as a bookkeeper and loved to read. Her Mom had slept with a gestapo officer to get the family safely to the USA from Germany during Hitler. Once here she made a ton of friends, belonged to the Meteorological Society and thought Elvis was sexy.
Both of my grandfathers died when I was very young and I only have vague memories of them, but I remember them both being warm and answering all my silly questions. My mother’s mother lived with us for 40 years. I could write several pages about her. She was a wonderful, supportive woman. My dad’s mom was a hoot. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a Chesterfield, pouring herself a glass of Koehler beer, and laughing with that throaty smoker’s laugh. She always had fun.
They were working class. My grandfather grew up in the coal camps in appalachia. Dropped out of school in 5th grade to work in the mines. He escaped by joining the military.
My grandmother was native american and dropped out of school to work.
After he retired from the factory they managed to travel some to Cuba and Mexico.
They mostly gardened and did a lot of hunting, fishing, hiking.
I miss them
My grandpa was great, he taught me to read when I was 4-5, taught me about gardening, and nature. He was an avid reader and I grew up on his farm. He worked for the local school system and brought me lots of books to read. Unfortunately he died when I was 9.
My other grandfather I never got to know, he died before I travelled to Hawaii in my early twenties. He was a stonecutter and carved many monuments in Hawaii, just wish I had known him.
I only met one gma. She didn't speak English and dressed like the boat just docked. She lived in an ethically homogeneous community. All the grandmas looked like that.
My Grandparents were very kind, and not afraid to speak their love. My paternal grandfather loved gardening, and gardened at least until his early 80's. All of my grandparents were quite frugal, as well. They had lived through the Great Depression and that was just part of who they were. Contrary to most stereotypes, they weren't the "get off my lawn" types at all. Like I said, kind. Kind to everyone. They also taught me the value of quiet. I read quite a bit, and so did they. But they could sit, in the gloaming, and as my grandfather put it, just dream. Of times past. Of what was to come. They were beautiful.
Dad will be 85 this fall and lives quite close. They’re having a dinner party tonight. He’ll drive two states away tomorrow, back in a couple days to come over for dinner on our deck. He’s been to Iceland, manages his yard, and is WAY more social than I am … gets up earlier too.
My maternal grandparents were great. She was a stenographer for the state supreme court and he was a salesman who invented things on the side. He was from Sweden and she was from Brooklyn and I never once saw them disagree or get mad at each other. They were really funny and they always seemed old to me. I am probably the age they were when I was a kid and I don't feel old at all.
paternal grandparents - first generation from the long mountains (thats what we call China), spoke a variant of Hokkien I don't understand. Valued grandson more than granddaughters. Even today I am disgusted by them.
maternal grandparents - born in then Malaya, their variant of Hokkien is the one commonly spoken in that part of the country, it is the more civilized one called Penang Hokkien. Chill people. Grandpa was illiterate but made scrapbooks of comic strips from newspaper for his grandchildren, regardless of their gender. I remember them fondly.
My grandfather was the antisocial type. Not rude per se, but he had a back room with a TV that, in retrospect, was a sort of man cave, very brown and heavy, completely different aesthetic to the rest of the house. And he basically secluded himself there when people came over. He might have been on the spectrum, I think now, probably not severely, but enough to be easily overstimulated. He was a bit of an enigma, you sort of assumed that he probably didn’t like us (or anyone) but he was nice when you actually saw him. Makes perfect sense now but inexplicable in those days, especially to a child.
My grandmother was the type that pottered around the house making tea and knitting and crocheting. I don’t think she read much. Very kind and doting. I think back and realise she was about my age when I was a child but she seemed much more like how you think of people twenty years older than that now, people seemed to age quicker then.
My Great Grandmother (1892-1984) was playful and witty. When we were toddlers we would “play with Nana’s cane,” and she would gently poke at us while we dodged on the floor. She was sweet. It’s a cherished memory.
They seemed to be much older at a younger age. I know a lot of people in their mid-fifties that I thought are 40-something before I discovered their age.
In the TV show “All In The Family” (which started in January of 1971), the lead male character (Archie Bunker) has a date of birth of May 18, 1924 (ascertained from details in two episodes). That means he was 46 years old when the series started. The show ended 12 years later, just shy of Archie’s 59th birthday. He always looked older than people I know of that age now. He always looked like he was of retirement age. His on-screen wife Edith was a few months younger than him, but to me she looks even older.
Had a great uncle that we would visit when I was young. I was intimidated because they had no electricity in their homes and they were always dark and creepy inside with very old people hanging out. The only electricity was an electric wire that kept the animals in the pasture. They had peacocks too, rural west Tennessee in the 70's.
Calm, measured, reasonable, helpful, hopeful, existential, in control of their actions. That's what I modeled and took away from my time being nearby decent old people. They were always exercising or swimming and expanding their mind with a new talent or a new interest. Very cerebral. Had to walk a chalk line.
It was difficult accepting dementia and old age as I got older . Whenever my elders would have a minor mistake or a minor mishap I knew to just give them some time and within a couple minutes the idea or the thought came to them I read up on their life stage because it will be my life stage and it is my life stage.
I got a kick out of reading the Bible and the book of Proverbs it talks about old age. Started realizing that the faculties and senses change. I began realizing that all the things that they did or didn't do or were about, apply to me as I will enter their life stage and walk in their shoes so to speak. I spent 12 years nearby nursing homes and hospice for family and the only case that I ever saw become self-destructive had to do with the relative wanting to die so bad they began self-harming and hitting themselves. I've never seen that in elders or along the way but maybe it's because I'm inexperienced that way. When I saw support about it and had had questions about it I was told that it's very normal and it's okay it's sad that they did that but it's part of life. When I've encountered anybody on a sick bed or not feeling well or just in general I sometimes have to wonder if they're agitation, irritability, unhappiness, is related to their physical health, and it usually is. Meaning whatever is wrong with them their illness is talking for them at that time if they're having a bad day. That's how I never took anything personal. I mean everything within the human story is part of the human story is another light stage to conclude and resolve. My elders were pragmatic and dogmatic and I carry that with me. If it goes against the law or any kind of bodily care if it risks your safety or your health, I wouldn't engage in it and I didn't do that.
When I was young the 40 year olds acted like they were 60. Like life was done as far as hobbies, self care, etc.
So imagine the 60 yrs old. But you know what.. the 80 yrs olds were TOUGH
They had muscles too. They were from a rough time and didn't complain about shyt. I admired them
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My mother's folks I grew very close with. I had suffered an injury in my youth that required I live a very low-key lifestyle for many months, so I moved in with them at their Florida condo. They were very active alert people and were in their late 70s then. Lots of card games with many friends, going to pop concerts, the clubhouse, the pool, political discussions, and endless condo association politics. My grandfather was a very funny guy and my grandma incredibly savvy--she was a pioneering business women in NYC from the 1920s-80s. I always enjoyed sharing a beer with my grandma. And I enjoy the same with my 90+ mother-in-law these days.
They sound amazing! I love this.
Much older acting than I am at 60! Older looking too.
By age 60 my grandfather was on an oxygen tank and couldn’t walk more than 20 feet without stopping to rest. But he was a coal miner dying of Black Lung and I’m just a pencil pusher at the same age.
With all the skincare products and sun protection and increase in physical fitness awareness and reduction of air pollutants over the last 40 or so years, I feel like the next generation of old people is going to age so much more gracefully than previous generations that the contrast is going to be unbelievable when comparing them to one another at certain ages.
Some old people of the future yes! Members of the affluent and educated class. Unfortunately, poor people today aren't aging particularly well compared to a generation ago -- much higher rates of obesity and diabetes. Less smoking helps but not enough. A poor 50 year old today will often already look elderly compared to someone wealthy who's been doing yoga and sunscreen for the past 30 years.
I think us millenials are aging well because we got just the right blend of leaded gasoline and microplastics.
So true, the pics prove it out.
Maybe the most famous example is that Carroll O'Connor (Archie Bunker) was only 47 when All in the Family first aired. Jean Stapleton (Edith) was 48. And if you look at photos from that time outside of the show, that's more or less how they looked in real life, too.
HE WAS ONLY 47?!?!? AND SHE WAS ONLY 48?!?!? I know the characters they played (and their wardrobes) don't help either but just looking at their faces... good lord, I thought they were in their 60s *easily*. Not the characters - the *actors!*
There are pictures of Jean Stapleton dressed up for events, and she looked fabulous.
You mean like that one of her at studio 54?
Yes! and the CBS Anniversary party. She looked great!
With Alice Cooper, no less
My dad had a big blowout birthday party for his mom when she was 60. They set her up like Queen for a Day. 1960
Isn’t that the truth! I never wanted to be like that and swore I wouldn’t. So far, so good!
They had their shit together! Not like our Peter Pan generation. But, we have more fun.
Came here to say this! It was like people reached a certain age and figured they’d just stop living, like it was the thing to do. I feel like that’s changed for the better and people just keep really living as long as they can now
My old people were awesome. They lived on a farm. I drove tractors and chased cows. My grandma had a huge garden and we canned everything. My grandma was a twin. The two of them together was big fun. Lots of cookies and homemade lemonade.
My grandparent had a dairy farm we went to every year to help. We canned everything as well. Loved it!
My grandparents had a dairy farm in Minnesota. Best summer vacations ever.
I loved my grandparents.
And they loved me back
I had one decent one and one who’s intentions were generally good, but Jesus what a train wreck. The other two don’t deserve mention.
I couldn't get enough of my grandma. I wish I could have spent much more time with her. She died in 1976 at 77. I made sure my kids and my husband's parents (my parents were deceased) had free access to each other and it paid off. They meant the world to each other.
Same here. My grama was a source of unconditional love for me growing up. She was a master gardener and a great cook when it came to traditional German comfort food. She died in 1980 at the age of 80 and I miss her a lot.
Me, three.
Same here. My Grandparents were amazing and really loved my brother and I. We loved them back. Took us everywhere. Miss them and think about them all the time.
Me too.
Same. Only got to know two of them well but they were wonderful, kind, funny, loving.
My grandparents remind me so much of the whole rat pack Frank Sinatra era. They are long gone but I would go visit them in the mid to late 80s and they’d have all their retirement friends over, having rum and Coke, laughing their asses off and just having a good old time. My grandpa would wear those baby blue collared shirts just like Morty Seinfeld and he had a friend that always had a captains hat and big sideburns. During the day, time was spend going for a boat ride, or shopping. They were iconic, really. From the cruisewear outfits to the rum and cokes and cocktail parties, just iconic. I had this impression ALL MY LIFE that being a kid sucked, being an adult meant hard work and kids yanking on you, but being old was the best time ever with the ultimate freedom.
When I was growing up, a lot of people who owned a home also had a summer place. They built up these "camps" that later became their retirement homes and summer hang outs for the grand kids. When the sun went down the grand kids went indoors and the old folks would host regular soirees for their leisure suit pals and wives out on the deck. One of my friend's grandfather was a carpenter and his deck was a pavilion, with booths, tables, a bar, a sound system and party lights. It was the scene of kid's birthday parties, baby showers, safe after prom parties and the old man threw parties for all his WWII buddies and their wives a couple of times a year complete with Big Band music and period dress. Any guy who could still get into his uniform wore them. These people were in their sixties but could really dance and knew how to party. I remember these parties had clouds of cigarette smoke lit up by the party lights. These clouds kept the pavilion mosquito free.
Yes!! My grandparents too! They were financially comfortable but they went to „the trailer“ in the summer. They completely rid themselves of their house etc and lived in a swanky condo in the winter and a trailer in the summer. The trailer community was not like a poor trailer park setting, it was filled with retirees who clearly had money (looking at their cars and boats) and knew how to manage it (like they didn’t spend so much on stupid stuff like name brand purses). The atmosphere at night was exactly how you said with the big band music, sometimes card tournaments, dinners at the club house etc.
A lot of those people weren't crazy rich they worked hard but the economy also worked for them. They all owned homes in their 20s and gave their families a good life. What's changed is the wealthy have become so greedy that they're bleeding out the middle class. Even a couple both earning six figures may be struggling, they have a good quality of life but not much opportunity to save. The summer place is no longer a middle class thing but anyone wealthy enough to own a lake house will never experience the joys of a family shack on a quiet pond with few neighbors and the only sounds are children laughing.
They sound just like my dad's parents! The way their house was decorated was TOTALLY like that scene in "Goodfellas" right after he gets out of prison and they redecorate lol. They had a couple of Pachinko machines in the basement with the pool table. It was always a party at their place fo sho. eta it's a huge shame this forum doesn't allow pictures because this thread could be EPIC!
Grandpa 1 passed when I was little. GM 1 was awesome. She always had ginger ale and played go fish with me. Other grandparents took me to 49 states in their Airstream every summer from age 4 -15. My grandfather was a badass federal agent, and my grandmother taught me to clean fish and dress game. We fished, hunted, and hiked all over this country, and I miss them terribly.
That sounds amazing!!
My great grandma and great grandpa Green were lovely quiet and kind people. They lived in a small brick house in Richmond, Indiana. Grandma Green loved to cook and bake and I mostly remember her with an apron on. She also sewed and shopped. What I really remember her for was that she loved to play solitaire and I loved to watch her. She showed me how the desk she played on was a sewing machine that folded out of it. then she showed me the treadle she used to drive the sewing machine. I thought it very clever to not have to use electricity like my mom did. There was one room in their house that no one used for much. It had photographs of horses, men, and little two wheel carts called sulkies that were used for races in which the horses had to trot, no galloping allowed. There was also a lot of tack, reins, harnesses, and bits. My Grandma told me that Grandpa Green raced sulkies when he was young. Grandpa Green had a beautiful kitchen garden and loved to work in it. He smiled a lot and I was surprised one morning when I saw him holding his teeth in his hands to brush them. He was very old in 1963 and had been retired for a long time. In his youth he went to work building horse carriages and buggies. He retired from Fisher Auto Body, the company that made all of the auto bodies for General Motors. My dad tells me that Charlie, that was his name, loved working on the roof of his house and was always going up there to replace shingles. When He got into his 80s his family hid all of the nails from him so he wouldn't go up there any more. He was 103 when He died.
This beautiful post really made me smile ❤️ Thank you for sharing
The two I knew were both WWII veterans. Grandpa was the strong and silent type - he worked in the trades and liked to take me fishing. Grandma was very opinionated and bossy, which probably helped explain why Grandpa kept quiet most of the time. She also knew how to cook some real mean dishes and that's how she made sure I'd visit her regularly when I was older
I had both sets of grandparents. My maternal grandparents lived down the street from us. They owned their own business and worked full time. Grandmother also taught at the local University. They were intelligent, thoughtful, had a great sense of humor, had loads of friends and were fun to be around. I used to go to their store and they let me help file invoices and do some basic engraving tasks, like bevel name tags. My paternal grandparents were selfish, narcissistic bigots. But they let me have all the ice cream I wanted and let me sit and stare at the TV the whole time I was with them. They liked me OK until I was old enough to have opinions.
All of my grandparents were fierce members of the Greatest generation. Did not give af, lived through the depression, WWII, and boy did they live their best lives ever. I miss them.
The Greatest Generation is now so under appreciated. I bought a box set of the Band of Brothers and The Pacific and made my smartass grandsons watch them. They loved them as action movies or like a video game. They were shocked that this was about a real war with real people. They thought all war movies were like Private Ryan. They think this way because WWII is either glossed over or not taught at all. The upside is now that they're older they've traveled to Normandy and Bastogne. Same thing with the Pacific which is more spread out and a lot of Pacific battlefields are kind of afterthoughts because many of the places where battles were fought are now resorts. Some of their stories were just so sad, American blood was spilled in a lot of these places and there might be a small memorial marker with a paragraph but no names. It's common that these resorts don't have any information about the battlefields and you have to ask locals.
Old, giggly, watched Benny hill and heehaw, snacked on hard sugar candies from a tin.
My grandmother, born in 1906, was the kindest person I’ve ever known. She was Catholic and her funeral Mass was celebrated by 6 priests. Her primary day to day activities centered around her grown children and her grandchildren. Her husband passed when she was about 40. There was almost no social safety net, and she and her 4 kids ended up in public housing. As was common then, housewives didn’t work, so she started cleaning houses and worked retail. Strong work ethic and frugality became bedrocks of my own life. I just retired at 64 and could do it because I always lived well beneath my means.
My grandparents were all born in the 1800s. My paternal grandfather spent New Years Eve 1899 in jail for drunk and disorderly conduct. He taught me how to weld. I have his father’s blacksmiths anvil. My paternal grandmother was a suffragette and was jailed for public disturbance and assaulting a law enforcement officer when she tried to vote for Woodrow Wilson. Kind, gentle people who spoke English, Dutch and German, They had 6 children, two killed in WW2. My maternal grandmother was a baker who had a box of secret recipes written ‘in code’ that I later learned was Dutch. She was a Democratic Ward Captain in Jersey City, NJ where dead people voted alphabetically. My maternal grandfather was illiterate but a millwright who designed and assembled machinery, mostly for bar soap manufacturing companies. They survived the Spanish Flu - the only two in an apartment building of 20+. They spoke English, Dutch, Polish and Yiddish, had 5 children, 2 killed in WW2 and 1 who went missing in the Middle East in the ‘50s.
Dad’s parents played favorites and since we were the children of the black sheep, we were treated like crap, my grandparents (mom’s parents) treated us well, took us fishing, showed up for every event we had. Although my grandfather had some Archie Bunker tendencies
My maternal grandparents were the same as yours. Even though our parents were the black sheep I still cannot fathom why they chose to take it out on us as well. We didn’t choose our parents! My one set(paternal)were gone when I was born, and the maternal ones saw our family as the black sheep. For anyone doing that to children- your own children’s children, grow up!! That is just mean to do to children, who don’t understand what they have done to deserve such iciness- when their friends have sweet grandparents.
I don’t have much to do with my dad’s family, he keeps trying and I just don’t get it. They looked down on us for 40+ years until his mom died and the golden child tried to screw them out of the inheritance, and all of a sudden we existed. I have a weird take on family because of it, relatives are blood relations who I don’t have to like, family is who I choose
Cold, distant, harsh
These were my grandparents too. Saw them once a week at least for twenty years and never did they hug me or show affection once. When they died, I didn't really care much. I'm very lucky my parents broke that trend and were great.
I think that's a really good description. They both went through WWII. We are Swiss, so we weren't invaded and had no troops fighting, but some stories that my grandparents told me were still quite impressive. Both grandpas were drafted. One was guarding the border, the other one was monitoring air traffic over the country. And both families had plans on what to do and where to flee should the axis powers invade. Tough times.
My maternal grandmother was a big influence on me. She also turned gray prematurely like me. She told me about some of the things she did when she was a teenager. Like the time that she was at her boyfriend's house, and his mother said that grandmother and her boyfriend could stay in the kitchen and man the ice cream churn while the rest of the family set on the porch and enjoyed the breeze. Grandmother said nuts to that, and started scouring the pantry. She found a can of sauerkraut, opened it, and dumped it into the ice cream. Then she and John left. She used to tell me that people who worried about their sheets and pillow cases being ironed, needed to get a hobby. She was a rural mail carrier for 30 years. She could cook anything. She could grow anything. She gave up her email account after about 6 months because she said that she only got forwarded junk about how good the good old days were. "Listen! Those good old days weren't that good if you were the one in the hot kitchen or in the hot fields. There is nothing better than sitting in my rocking chair quilting listening to the washing machine and the dishwasher do all the work while I watch baseball on TV." Grandma was cool.
My maternal grandfather died before I was born and I was only 2 when the other one died, so I don't remember him. I was never aware that either of my grandmothers had hobbies as such - they were both very poor and free time and hobbies weren't really something working class people who were born in the Victorian era enjoyed. My dad's mum was quite loud and outgoing, while my mum's mum was the complete opposite, almost painfully shy. As poor as they were, they would always find money for Christmas presents for me, and they'd slip me sixpence as a little gift every time I visited them.
Never knew my grandpa but my grandma made my life worth living 😍😍😍
Both parents and grands were Appalachian, from southern Ohio and north West Virginia. Mom's and Dad's fathers both were absent; Dad's disappeared and started another family when he was four or five, and Mom's parents separated, and then when she was 16 her dad died at age 51. Mom's mom was a vain, lazy, uninterested-in-others type. She dyed her hair jet black until she was almost 80. But Dad's mom? The opposite if there ever was one. Picture a toothless, 3-pack-a-day, hard-working cook who worked on riverboats, just to make money for her only child. One that took "relief" (welfare, we call it now) if she had to. Dad took after her in height - she was maybe 4 feet, 9 inches. Dad (5 foot 6, he used to say!) got teased as a kid, and was beat up and lost sight in one eye. Grandma walked 12 miles every day to visit him at the hospital, after work. She gave birth to Dad at age 16, so she was young when I came around - 42 or so. We were best buds. She had lots of interests - gardening, cooking, hanging with the wild crew at the Masonic lodge, traveling, and bowling. She used a 16-pound ball - astounding for her size. She won lots of trophies.
Maternal: Grandma was the perfect 1950s housewife. She loved her large family, being a mom + wife. She previously came from wealth and held a pretty lucrative role as a secretary for the CEO at GE and later managed banks once my mom + sibs grew up. Still, she loved the role of housewife more and retired as the ideal, picturesque grandma who made the best pies in the world. Maternal: Grandpa worked QA for NASA during Apollo. Superhero in my eyes. God fearing man, loving, always wanted to teach you something or take you somewhere to learn. Volunteered extensively after retirement, doing Habitat for Humanity well into his 90s. Grandpa was a nice man and meant well but he was a dry alcoholic from an abusive German immigrant family that grew in severe poverty and was a penny pincher, anal retentive and had occasional borderline abusive quirks especially towards his children. Paternal: Grandparents both were coffee plantation owners in Puerto Rico. Grandma was a firecracker, wore the pants, beat your ass with a chancla the moment you stepped out of line but also loved you to death and overfed you incredible food. You could not eat enough in her presence, you were always too skinny. You also better be in bed by 12am or the devil was coming for you, literally. She was a Jehovah's Witness so heavy religious beliefs there.My Grandfather owned a bar in addition to the farm. He was a drunk and a womanizer, never home - left my grandma to raise 5 kids mostly alone and I think she had to work so hard that's what made her so tough on her family. I only met my grandfather 2x before age 35 + both times he was wasted. During Maria, his jeep slid down a landslide and practically paralyzed him. My grandma chose to let him back in + to be his caretaker. She now joyfully makes his life a living hell to make up for all the years he made hers one. It's been interesting to watch.
*Grandpa worked QA for NASA during Apollo* That's amazing!! *She now joyfully makes his life a living hell to make up for all the years he made hers one.* And that's just friggin hilarious!
My grandfather could carve anything. He kept a bucket of wood blocks soaking to whittle. He made fantastic toys for me and my sister to play with. He was a grand story teller. He repaired guitars and fiddles. He had a pet red squirrel and saved a fledgling crow, who stayed close to him when he was out puttering in the yard. He'd take me fishing. " Come on Big Sissy, let's go wet the ground for night crawlers." He was an avid reader. He used to read the tales of the Round table and 3 Musketeers to me, and since he owned the books, he'd draw the characters in the margins for me. That's how I know what knights and musketeers look like. Although he was born in the hollers of South Central Kentucky, he spoke with a lowland Scottish accent. My granny told the most horrifying stories. Her mother was Irish and a lot of the stories came from the Hunger. She sang. She played the fiddle. She could look at a dress in a magazine, draw a pattern, and sew the dress. She saw some crocheted curtains in a magazine, liked them, and made them. Anytime she left the house, she had on a dress, hose, nice shoes, earrings, and her lip stick. In the winter, her coat , gloves and shoe matched. This was even to go grocery shopping. When she was born, people walked, rode horses, took trains. She saw men land on the moon. Both of them could take your skin off your back if you misbehaved with just a few words. They weren't rude. You just understood you weren't to ever do that again.
My maternal grandfather was a sour dispositioned old crank. He was born in 1901 so he would have been in his mid 60's when I was a kid. He was a "sit in HIS chair, smoking, watch sports and TV and 'LEAVE ME ALONE'" kind of grandpa. I never felt so much as an ounce of love from him. My maternal grandmother, by contrast, was sweet and loving and always made me feel special. I adored her. She passed away when I was 18 and my grandfather a few years after that. I've always said one of my goals in life is to never be angry old man like my grandfather. I'm in my 60's now (just retired) and my grandchildren are the light of my life. My 9 year old grandson is my motorcycle riding buddy. My 12 year old granddaughter is smart and sweet and just one of the most wonderful things in my life that I'm grateful for.
My grandfather loved music of any type. He had a 33 rpm record of the full 1812 Overture. When it got to just before the section with the cannon firing, he would turn his stereo to full volume. You could hear it across the street and the windows in his house were rattling. He was also kind of a prankster as well as a real history buff. My grandmother got kicked out of her Catholic high school for " being a bad influence on, and a bad example to the younger girls." (Think Midwestern high school run by nuns circa 1920.) She liked to slide down the main staircase banister on dares from her friends and expose her knees and upper legs while doing so. She also would walk up to boys and talk to them without waiting for them to talk to her first. The principal caught her skipping class and smoking a cigarette while talking to a boy. Oh, the horror!!
Eastern European. Very hard-working, no-nonsense, quiet, emotionally unavailable.
I never knew my paternal grandparents -- my grandfather died when my father was 17, my grandmother died when I was four months old. My maternal grandparents were very much a part of my life, though. I lived with them for seven years, from age 6-13. At home, my grandfather was the boss, his word was the law, we didn't question his authority and did not back talk him. I had tremendous respect for my grandfather. He rarely raised his voice and never raised a hand to anyone in anger. My grandfather's punishments for misbehaving were legendary. My cousin and I were climbing all over my grandmother's car one day, sitting on the hood, climbing up on the roof. For no other reason than we didn't bother to try to find something better to do. The neighbor told my grandfather what we'd been up to half the day, plus we were caught "red-handed" so to speak. My grandparents had a gravel driveway and we had left dusty shoe prints all over my grandma's car. Our punishment -- washing my grandmother's car every single day for a month. Rain or shine. And not half-assed spraying down with the hose and calling it good. My grandfather expected us to get out the sponges and buckets and wash her car every single day. And that's what we did. For the first few days we didn't mind the punishment, we were goofing around, getting each other wet with the hose, being crazy kids. By day 10 or so, it wasn't fun anymore. It was tedious and boring and we didn't want to do it anymore. We got through the month and never climbed on the car again. Lesson learned. Whenever we went on vacation (camping) with my grandparents, my grandfather was definitely the fun grandparent. He bought us ice cream at 8:00 in the morning, let us run around the campground completely unattended -- as long as we checked in with my grandma every now and then, he stayed up late with us to play cards or board games. And he taught us how to swim. He was a very cool guy. My grandma was awesome. I would rather have spent time hanging out with her than doing anything else. After she got cancer and didn't get around so well anymore, my cousin and I spent most of our summers hanging out with my grandma, cleaning her house, cooking for her. And watching soap operas -- Days of Our Lives and Another World -- every day. My grandma was kind of a diva -- never went anywhere without being dressed like she was meeting the queen, hair done, make up on, never went anywhere without her teeth. (LOL) One time she had to go to the hospital by ambulance and insisted on getting fully dressed, wig on, lipstick, and made me brush her dentures. I told her the ambulance crew didn't care what she looked like. She told me that if I thought she was going to go outside in her nightgown and without her wig and teeth, I was crazy. I adored my grandmother -- she was the calm in the storm that was my home life with my parents.
Grumpy. Quiet/Distant. My parents didn't like them much.
They were so old at 60. At least it appeared that way to me. My grandfather worked and my grandmother was a homemaker. My grandfather was strict but fun. My grandmother was very formal. No hobbies I knew of. Paternal side. Both died between 68-72.
My maternal grandparents were like that. My grandpa was retired but then was bored and so went back to work in his 70s. I have no idea what their hobbies were or what they did when they weren't visiting my parents and me. I loved them and they loved me but I just remember sort of hanging out at my parents' house with them.
Old farmers on one side and healthy active socialites on the other side. The old farmers died in their sixties, they were emotionally cold and seemed low key angry most of the time. They gave beautiful, luxurious gifts and said they loved us but they had very little time for anyone else. The active healthy socialite types died in their 80's. They were lighthearted, kind, generous, my grandma was the picture of 'coastal grandmother'. They both skied, hiked, waterski, ran, boated, you name it they probably already had top of the line gear for whatever sport you wanted. They were delighted by everything about me and loved any opportunity to talk.
My mom's side were both farmers. Grandpa was on a tractor put in the field, grandma was miking cows, feeding chickens, or cooking. Busy people. My dad's side were drunks and millworkers. That grandma died from alcoholism when I was a baby; grandpa kept working mechanic jobs as he found them, just enough to pay the rent and keep him boozed up.
My mom's parents were immigrants from Holland. They had issues from going through WWII. They worked but were rather poor in the U.S. They were nice and I just remember watching the news with them. Just a lot older so they passed away when I was young. My dad's parents were Hispanic and rich. They lived in a big house in a country club area. They were Catholic. They didn't like my mom at all. My grandma and my mom are very different. So we didn't see them too much except for holidays.
Both of my parents are gone and would be close to one hundred years old today. They were cool and easy going. No abuse at all. They were very talented. My mom played organ and according and my dad played drums. They both taught ballroom dancing. My dad loved the big band era and my mom liked singers such as Tom Jones. Because of them I dig ’em too.
My paternal grandparents died long before I was born. My mom's dad had suffered a tbi in earlier years, and was unable to take care of himself properly, so he lived his life out in a nursing home. There is no way for me to know how he would have been had he not been injured so severely, but he was a docile man as I knew him. I only remember one grandmother, and I loved her. She was a city gal who lived in a small apartment, though. There was no big house to visit where she and my grandfather lived, with supper in the oven and an apple pie cooling on a pie rack and all that. She would stay with us for about a week every Christmas. Not much else to say. My dad was older when I was born, so he would fit what you're asking about. He was my old people. Decent man, forward thinking in many ways. He went out of his way to be a fun dad. I'll always be grateful for that. That's it. Boring storytime over. lol
Not boring at all!
By today’s standards, they were gracious, well read, well spoken and devout. By the standards of their time, they were just normal people.
I have one grandmother left and she is 91. She is a sweet, yet sarcastic woman, who exemplified actual Christian values, even when she lost her faith after my grampa died. She is loving, and kind, and I love her more every day.
My Dads parents were definitely not the grandma and grandpa type, they had a lot of grandchildren and probably didn’t know most of our names. My Moms parents were our grandparents. We spent weekends with them, my grandma taught me to knit, can, bake bread. She had beautiful gardens and a great dog that we all loved. She did her laundry with a wringer washer and hung it outside. My grandpa worked for the railroad and always had time for us kids, we went fishing in the summer, played horseshoes. I was born in the early 50s. A whole different world than today, I was lucky to have the childhood I did.
My grandpa (mother's side) was WONDERFUL. He was so much fun, kind and playful. He had a small cabin in the woods near his home, with a creek nearby. We would hike through the woods and visit the creek, sometimes fishing (there were some very small fish), sometimes we gathered clay from the creek-banks and took it back to the cabin and made clay treasures. My grandmother, however, was a real piece of work. Uptight, unhappy, and a bit mean. Dunno how he stayed married to her. She outlived him by far, sadly. On my father's side, grandpa died when I was 6, so I never really knew him (he lived in California, and we ... did not). But my grandmother was a lovely woman, though we didn't see her very often (California and all). When we did visit she was gracious and kind, and spent some special time with each grandchild. I was very lucky.
My grandpa was amazing. He was a storteller and remarkable man. An early barnstormer, squadron leader and trained pilots in WW2. After WW2 he flew rescue missions in the Arctic. I never knew how much pain he carried but as I've gotten older I know he must have had a lot from his experiences in WW2. He wrote great long funny stories for me and I could sit and listen to his tales of adventure and daring all day. He had a wonderful sense of humour. He humoured me a lot, we'd have tea. He'd pretend to be Mrs.Brown (a victorian inside joke I didn't get at the time) and I'd be mrs.Smith. He never excluded me from things because I was a girl, he showed me how to work on a car and do wood working. We'd go out into the forest and he'd teach me what was safe to eat, how to get water and survive if I needed to. He was an epic and gentle man. He passed away when I was just 16 from cancer. I still think about him every day and miss him.
My mother's adopted Mom, who was really her Aunt, was the most wonderful, delightful grandmother my siblings and I could possible have. We only saw her on holidays and summers but she made sure we were always having fun. She taught us to swing, to roller skate, and when we were older, to drive. She would take us anywhere we wanted to go. I remember in '84, she took me to see Ghostbusters. She never went to the movies, but because I wanted to see it, she took me. One summer, before my sister and I arrived, she saw a child about our age playing in a yard down the street from her house. She stopped and knock on the door to meet the parents and invite the girl over to her house because she wanted to make sure we had a playmate. She would also always have a gift for us every time we arrived. She would go to the local department store and ask them what was in style. Toys, clothes, and later make-up and perfume. I miss her so much and have never meet another person as exuberant as she was.
My grandfather (my dad’s father) came over from Austria by himself at fifteen and eventually got a job in the local foundry. I remember he wasn’t very big but had arms like Popeye after he ate his spinach. He liked to read detective novels and smoke his pipe in front of the big stove in his living room which was the only heat in the house. One day I went over with my dad and we went in his garage to see him. He was sitting on the steps with a slingshot watching and waiting for the rats to make their move so he could get a shot at them. That always stuck in my mind as I was only about 5 years old and thought he was a real badass.
My paternal grandmother was very close to me. I used to sit and talk with her for hours and loved staying with her. In the summer, she took us strawberry picking with us and we helped her do yardwork for extra cash (both for her and us). When I stayed with her as a child, we'd watch really old horror movies (from the 30s and 40s) on "Chiller Theater" late at night or "Dark Shadows" reruns in the afternoon. She liked to watch her "stories" (soap operas). When she got her SSI, she'd take us to the deli of the local market where she'd buy longhorn cheddar and head cheese (which I thought was gross, but she loved it). She was very poor, but kind and caring. My paternal grandfather was also a kind man. He was a WWII vet and could fix almost anything. His hobbies included taking boxes full of disparate watch pieces (both pocket and wrist) and putting together working timepieces. He collected coins and rolled his own cigarettes. He augmented his military pension by playing poker and was very good at it when he had a good day. I never really knew my maternal grandfather as he had black lung disease and my only memory of him was of him lying down unable to see or speak much in my grandmother's home. He had to be fed and changed like a baby. He died without my ever really knowing him. My maternal grandmother was a gossipy, judgmental woman who was constantly upgrading her lifestyle and investing in not only keeping up with the Jonses, but surpassing them. My mother was always looking for her mother's approval, but it never came. We visited her home often because she would never visit ours. I remember sitting in her finished basement while my mother chatted with her reading from her giant stack of gossip papers ("The Star", "The National Enquirer") because I had no interest in what they were talking about. She was what we considered our "rich grandmother", and she sent my sister and me $20 for our birthdays in a card every year. I only realized after I grew up that she was just middle class (not even upper middle class), but to us very poor people, a home that was clean and well-kept looked like wealth.
Never knew my grandfathers, I’ve been told I’m a lot like my maternal GF. He died in 1942, he was gassed in WW1 and my mother believed that affected his health, he died from leukemia. Very much regret not knowing either one of my GFs. My maternal GM was a wild woman. Grew up half wild in Arkansas and Mississippi. After my GF died, she left her youngest behind in Miss. and moved to the Michigan UP to be with a man she met through a personal ad in a magazine. They later moved to SW Colorado and ran a roadhouse, she used to trade with Native Americans for turquoise, told me she cooked rattlesnake camping at Mesa Verde. One of a kind. My paternal GM, also a Mississippian, was a bit more conventional, she was a caring and loving person that was able to overcome alcoholism. They were both excellent cooks, artistic/creative in different ways and smoked like chimneys.
My grandparents raised me from age 2 to 17 (when I moved out) . My mom and grandma were pregnant at the same time. My grandma was really attached to me. My uncle was stillborn and I was the first grandchild. My grandpa.had little use for women. He impregnated my grandma 10 times, had 5 kids . I loved my grandma so much. She was my world . She brought me cigarettes in the hospital and covered for me a lot as a teenager. I would have loved her anyway. That's how I made it to adult hood. My mom decided to go to work when I was 2 and so my parents paid my grandparents to watch me . They were my legal guardianes as well. It was odd in the 70s to not live with your parents .
My mother’s parents were fucking awesome! I aspire to be like them. They bought cool art from the artisans, and had it all over their dope house. They were civil rights activists. They listened to jazz, and sang songs together after meals (at least when I was there). They hiked and played tennis. My dad’s side is filled with poverty, mental illness, and abandonment. So I’m just gonna think of Granny (Jean) and Popu (Stan).
I knew two of my great-grandparents (born 1903 and 1904 respectively). They died when I was 14 or 15 so I was old enough to have actual conversations with them. Both were off the boat Italian immigrants through Ellis Island. They were very happy go lucky and silly and not much different than old people today. My grandparents however (both granddads WWII vets) were more of the strong silent type. Stern. Talked only when necessary. Didn’t show much personality unless watching baseball or American football. All good people though.
Maternal grandfather loved classical music and opera, paternal grandfather loved jazz. All grandparents read a lot.
My grandparents were from the old country and liked to tell a lot of stories before they came to the USA. They were adorable.
My grandpa always had a garden and make delicious pickles every year. He would make the ham and polish sausage for Easter and Christmas, and it was always wonderful. We hardly talked. My grandma was always nice, kept a very neat house. According to my mom my grandpa would disappear on the weekends, she sad my dad would do that too, go out and “buy socks” then come home 8 hours later. They weren’t drinkers or cheating, just needed space. I feel the same way. My neighbors were nazis, like literally nazis during the reign of hitler. We were Jews. It wasn’t uncomfortable, they were pleasant people. He really loves his Bosch tools.
Main thing I remember is that they were of course from an earlier generation, born at the turn of the 20th century, and were not at all in tune with the changes and upheavals of the '60's. Rock music, politics, women's rights, desegregation, drugs, etc. I mean it was pretty foreign stuff for them. They all passed before I was old enough to initiate an indepth conversation to hear their deeper thoughts.
My grandpa was a moonshiner and pig farmer, my dads oldest aunt had been married to a Civil War vet, most had only went to the 6th grade so there wasn't a lot of reading going on .... lol As another pointed out 40 was.the old 60 and they looked it, almost all died in their 50s or 60s
They looked really old in their 60's and their clothes looked like old people clothes. I always enjoyed visiting them, they had a much kinder and gentler atmosphere.
My grandfather (born 1902) was a retired farmer, we lived next door. He had a big garden, easy to work with old farm tractor. He also had a second home in a ocean side community and like to surf fish. He took me fishing a lot.
I adored my maternal grandmother. I would play canasta with her and her friends and was perfectly happy hanging with the old ladies.
Thankfully my moms side was huge. She was one of 13. It was a great childhood. It was like living in Italy. The neighborhood was called Little Italy. They were the wilder side. They sent the boys to catholic school & the girls to public school. I guess they figured the girls would stay home & have babies. Which they all had a career when it wasn't cool yet for women to work. I guess they thought the girls didn't need the better education. It cost 25 cents a month for catholic school. My moms parents moved here from Italy. My father & his brother were left/abandoned with the next door neighbor. My real grandparents tried to ride the coattails of my great grandfather who was in vaudeville. My grandmother died of tuberculosis soon after & my grandfather became a bum since vaudeville was a dead circuit. I never knew any blood relatives of my dads. His brother died of polio when he was 4. But the people he was left with were wonderful. I called them nana, aunts, uncles & cousins but they weren't blood.
My dad's mom was the embodiment of the "I'm dying, you don't love me" stereotype. I didn't see her often (lived across the country) but all I remember her doing was complaining. All. The. Time. She was rude, abrasive and just didn't give a fuck. She was one hell of a cook though. Her sister (they lived together) would sit and read all day and watch Wheel of Fortune every night. She was very quiet and is one of the big influences for me when it comes to my love of reading. She was very kind and gentle and I was always happy to see her. My mom's parents were an enigma to us kids. We saw them a lot more than my dad's family, they lived 20 minutes away. They never really talked to us kids. We'd go to their house every weekend for brunch, sit down, eat our food and then be told to "go play". Wherever my parents and grandparents were in the house or yard, we were to be elsewhere. I honestly don't know if I ever held a conversation with either of them. When they passed away my mother was enraged that us kids didn't seem bothered. My dad told her it was because we didn't know them. She didn't understand that seeing someone regularly did not equal deep emotion for that person - there was no real relationship there, no bond other than, "This is your grandparent".
My grandmother was born in Italy in the 1870s. She was illiterate and was forced to marry my grandfather by her father, who seems to have been a brute. She had 7 kids by the time she was in her early 30s, two of whom died in infancy. She hated my grandfather and was happier than she’d been in years when he died. She liked to watch soap operas, and she enjoyed drinking wine with her friends. (One old lady had actually come over with her from Italy, and they were from the same village there.) she cared about her kids and grandkids, could make delicious bread in an outdoor wood-fired oven, and made a lovely spaghetti sauce (not too spicy.). Because she couldn’t read she loved to hear stories and talk with people she knew. Sadly she lost her youngest son and after he died she went downhill fast.
Grandparents were born in 1900. They spent alot of time with us grandkids and we always had fun. Simple things. They drank beer and smoked camels. When I was in my 20s I’d hang out with my grandma. We’d knock back a few beers and she would tell me stories from her heyday. And she gave good advice when I asked. I still miss them.
Let's see. My dad's mother, you could never catch her at home. She was always at church, (Never missed a day) Visiting, or at some old ladies meeting. She drove until she was 93. (Her Impala, her last car was a sea of dents) My grandfather, was always tinkering with something. He'd go to the grocery store everyday. (Probably to get away from my nag grandmother!) He would go to Bache & Co to watch the stock market boards, two to three times a week. And read the Wall Street Journal.
My grandpa was the coolest guy on earth. Crazy handsome too. He looked like a movie star. After retirement he had a bucket list of odd jobs and hobbies to try and did just about all of them. Whitewater rafting guide, golf course ranger, dog handler, handicapped school bus driver... He was raised in Brooklyn and wanted to live in the country, so he bought a little property and raised a few goats, chickens and horses. He enjoyed shooting guns but never wanted to kill an animal so he just shot at old pots and pans until one day his goose (Henry) popped his little head up at the wrong time. He never shot that gun again.
The older people that were around sixty years ago, when I was eight, dressed and acted far more formally than old folks (including me) do now. Back then, after a "certain age", most people didn't ride bikes, work out at gyms, ride the waves at the beach, go for a jog in shorts and a sports bra or go for hikes. Of course these same older people may have been born in the 1800s, lived through a couple of world wars, the Depression and likely did more manual work than folks do now. Maybe they were happy just to be able to sit down at that point.
My grandmother is great. She gives the best advice and makes the best chocolate chip cookies. She'll be 101 on her birthday she shares with my father and my son, Christmas Eve. I'll be sixty on mine.
Only knew one grandparent. She and my parents were OLD. I look back and see when my parents were my age, they were so old. They didn’t go anywhere or do anything. The TV was there closest companion.
I had a few aunts born near the turn of the previous century. I’m not kidding, they smelled and I didn’t like being around them.
None of those apply to my grandfather. (He was the only blood grandparent I knew.) We were fairly close and he was really good to me. But he was a hard man: Left home at 17 to go to work in a factory, worked through the depression and union days of the 1930's, and ran an armaments plant during WW2. Auto executive after that. After he retired at 65 and moved, something went out of him. He outlived two wives and was widowed the last two years of his life. Sad years. He died at 75 of emphysema. Good grief could he swear!
My grandfather left a lasting mark on my father, but that didn't carry over to me. For me, I greatly loved his enjoyment of messing with kids.
Generally kind. Likeable.
My dad's parents were these prim and proper, straight out of a TV show about the 50's folks. My mom's dad was a Johnny Cash song come to life. I liked my dad's side better until I was old enough to hear and enjoy some good drunken bar fight stories, which my grandpa decided was when I was 12. Dude was a cautionary tale to be sure, but damn if he wasn't one of the most interesting people I've ever known.
My dad’s parents were like non mafia side characters in the Sopranos. My mom’s parents were like characters out of a Steinbeck novel.
Nana taught me to sew, arrange flowers, play Canasta and dance the foxtrot. She made most of my clothes, painted my nails and took me to church every Sunday.
My grandparents were miserable to each other. My GMA didn’t respect my GPA on both sides of my family. I can’t imagine being a bitter old person like them and watching them constantly argue was horrible. They were only pleasant to those around them but not around family
My grandparents were all born around 1890. They were all very quiet, avoided buying or doing anything that might have seemed “flashy.” They liked to live quietly in their comfort zone, possibly in reaction to the first half of the twentieth century being very tumultuous. Plenty of people in their generation were not particularly like that, but I don’t think they were unusual. If they minded looking old or being somewhat marginalized from being perceived as old, they didn’t indicate it. They didn’t believe uncovering difficult emotions. One set was very committed to conventional wisdom and were rather judgmental, the other set less so, at least that was my perception.
My grandmothers were not afraid of anything and better than most people. I knew my grandmothers and both endured violent marriages and grew up in rural areas. One became a school teacher and taught impoverished kids across America (the only job a divorcee teacher could get in the 50s and 60s). My other grandmother was a widow in her 30s but managed to put her kids through school in India and my dad eventually earned a PhD. Both women were joyful people who laughed more than they frowned and loved spending time with me.
My grandparents like to day drink. My other grandmother liked to paint and spend time with other creatives.
They were pretty active into old age. My maternal grandfather would still go up ladders and so forth into his late 70 s and early 80s. They were pretty intellectual - music, books, long discussions.
My grandmother was judgmental and negative. She told me many times that one year she as a child literally received coal in her stocking and nothing else for Christmas. I have to think that was indicative of her childhood environment. Her personality therefore made some sense.
My maternal grandparents were fun, much younger than their age. Traveled, went to galleries, museums, showed me photos of their travels, took me to museums. They were progressive when my mum and siblings were kids (my mum as teen was sometimes extremely embarrassed by her mum\* LOL, teens!), my aunt told me. And that was very long ago, my mum was the oldest born in ‘42. They were very fun grandparents, not the typical grandparents you expect but perfect for me. \*my grandmother did not adhere to silly rules about what people her age should be wearing and same same with my grandfather. I didn’t get to know my paternal ones because they were older than my maternal ones and they had my dad when she was 40 and he was 36. I think that grandmother would have been fun for for other grandchildren, she sounded like a sweet grandmother. The grandpa would likely have been boring, I only remember him sitting in a chair ignoring his guests (us) and reading a newspaper smoking a cigar.
My grandparents were immigrants and didn’t like to talk much. They had big gardens and were always giving away their extra fruit and vegetables. When I was five or six, my grandfather showed me how to kill a chicken and get the feathers off. He liked to sit by his garden and smoke his pipe.
My old people were into antiques and country living so they seemed even older than they were. They were nice. They used to bake things for us.
On my dad’s side, my grandma was constantly cooking, or playing card games and chatting with all the kids in the neighborhood. She called herself “the neighborhood grandma,” and it was her mission to keep them all out of trouble. She was a main character her whole life. Had an 8th grade education and worked in factories and restaurants until she retired. On my mom’s side my grandma was very reserved and precise, but also kind and gracious and funny. She’d been a nurse most of her life. She grew all her own food and made the best fried okra. My mom always said that when I walked into a room, she would do a double take, because I had her same physique and way of moving. I didn’t know either of my grandfathers. On my dad’s side, he died of colon cancer when I was very young. But he was a tinkerer, and constantly inventing things. On my mom’s side, he was an alcoholic that I was not allowed to be alone with. The pics of him in his prime are definitely “old school cool.” That side of the family is very photogenic. None of them were rude people. They were all very kind and intelligent, they just didn’t have much education or appreciation of books, music, etc. My mom’s mom probably was the most educated of all of them. She graduated high school and had an associates degree.
Both my grandfather's were alcoholics and didn't have a whole bunch of time for grandkids. I've been sober for nearly thirty years, I teach my grandkids stuff and have had them come to love some of grandpas music( Talking Heads, Pink Floyd and the Who) are some of their favorites.
A victory garden that took up half of the backyard. Calling out “quiet please”. When family made the mistake of stopping by the house during Lawrence Welk or Mitch Miller. Lunches of Limburger cheese and braunschweiger. Sitting pans of water on the floor heating vents for humidity in the winter. Driving an old Nash Rambler that was so rusted you could watch the street go by through the hole in the floorboards. Putting a small wooden block under the real wheel in case the emergency break and park setting in the transmission both fail at the same time. Playing pinochle every night after dinner.
My grandma was born in 1912 and lived a long amazing life to almost 95. She was a tiny woman, barely 4’11” and grew up in Missouri. She went to junior college in the late 1920s which I think was unusual for the time, and it was where she met my grandpa (a brilliant tragic man who was smart enough to get engineering patents for aircraft design when he was in his early 20s, but because of poverty and sick parents could not afford university and was a postal worker all his life). Anyhow, when grandma met grandpa she was actually engaged to someone else - until that guy ghosted her by marrying someone else in his hometown over the summer. Grandma finished JC and became a social worker during the depression. She bought her own car (1934 Ford) and drove around visiting and helping rural families who were extremely poor and struggling. She and Grandpa reconnected and got married and she started teaching school - first grade. He must have liked her at least a little bit then, as he was kicked out of the church (LCMS) for marrying her (a Methodist). When they married his mother moved in with them- an obese difficult woman who was bedridden and only spoke German. Grandma took care of her as well as teaching school *and* she and Grandpa were farming a few acres. He wanted to join up during WW2 but couldn’t due to rheumatic fever as a child and an enlarged heart. So they grew tobacco as their contribution to the war effort. My aunt came along in 1944 and after the war schools began requiring teachers to have a four year degree. So grandma was taking care of everyone, teaching full time, and going to night school to get her bachelor’s degree. My mom came along in 1952 and in the same year Grandma and Grandpa bought five acres and built the house themselves. They paid for it with literally a pile of pennies my grandpa had saved (I have the newspaper clipping with a picture). Grandma’s dad was a carpenter so helped out with the design and some of the finishing work. My mom tells stories about her childhood that grandpa and grandma didn’t really like each other much. He would give her shit about getting jilted and he was on some heavy primitive medications for depression. She talks about her and her sister going and hiding in the woodshed when g and g were fighting and chasing each other around the house with a shotgun. It happened more than once. They were pretty poor for most of my mom’s childhood and grandpa allowed grandma $5 per week for groceries. That did not stretch far enough for a family of four in the late 50s and early 60s. So they grew a ton of their own food and had an orchard - they canned all sorts of fruits and vegetables every summer and never threw anything away. My mom also talks about that for a vacation they drove from Missouri to Alaska - twice, since Grandma had summers off and grandpa had been with the post office for so long he had a lot of vacation time. While it sounds nice, my mom said it was often hell as grandpa insisted on camping every night; but also being on the road by 6:00am. She says she still has nightmares to this day about him falling asleep at the wheel and driving them off a cliff. Grandpa passed in 1978 when he fell down the basement steps while carrying a load of firewood. I always found that story to be a little bit fishy, but I’ll never know. Grandma met the love of her life about a year later and got remarried at age 70. She and my step grandpa adopted a golden retriever, moved off the farm into a condo, and then spent 15 years traveling around the country and the world until he got sick and died. But they took many cross country road trips and never seemed to take life too seriously. After he passed grandma was still very active with her church and her friends that were still alive. She traveled to Poland and Guatemala and several other smaller trips after she turned 90. It wasn’t until she was 92 or 93 that she moved into assisted living. She was healthy until the very end, finally having unexplained heart issues and passing quickly. My aunt (a physician) was with her and said the day before she passed she opened her eyes, looked around; and asked “why am I still here?” Tbh I think she left because she was lonely. All her friends, even those 20 years younger had mostly died and family was spread out doing their own thing. I remember my grandma as someone very wise and kind who always had time for me. She would tell amazing stories especially at bedtime when it was our ritual for me to say “tell me about when you were a little girl”. She would make me broccoli with cheese sauce and other southern dishes that people don’t eat that often today. She had the most beautiful cursive handwriting. When I got older she would tell me how proud of me she was and that she knew I could handle any challenge life threw my way. That’s when I heard from her firsthand about her broken engagement and some of the other darker stories - and she told me I was unlikely to encounter any situation in life that was significantly different from what she had experienced - and since she had made it through she knew I could too. I miss her every day.
My grandfather lived to 95, in his own home, with all his wits intact. He loved music (especially Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan), stained glass making, and starting flowers from seed in his basement. He never talked about his stint in WWII, and he was always always kind. I miss him.
Smoked like effing chimneys, both of them. My grandfather was sweet and my grandmother a bitch who watched TV all day.
my grandparents literally traveled the world, flew their Stearman across country many times, and engaged in the Arts. they were bibliophiles and had hundreds of books. grandpa also built additions and improved the house by himself, painted and learned to proficiently read, write, and speak a foreign language. every old person seemed extremely old to me when comparing them with my beloved grandparents. hell, I feel old compared to them and I'm in my mid 50s. they were active well into their late 80s and passed late 90s.
My grandmother was still amazing until she passed about 20 years ago. She was born in 1906, she and her sister played the piano and violin in the silent movie theaters. She got engaged to her sisters fiancee (scandal!) and lived a great dirty joke till her last days. On the other side my grandmother was from Syria and had to run the household at barely 6 years old. Her mother kind of disappeared and no one else spoke any English. My great grandmother was run out of Germany accused of being a witch. They settled in Wisconsin and they bought a farm, the family grew up at that farm. I'm a psychic medium, the family members live to tell me spooky stories from the farm ☺️
Im 57 yo. man, only child and grew up on the Mason-Dixon line, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Delaware line was 5 Mike's cross country. My father was born in 1935 my mother in 1940. My grandfather was born in 1908. He was a big tall man and seldom said much. He had about a 50 Acre Farm in Cherry Hill Maryland and worked 40 years at Chrysler. He built 6 houses including the one my mother was born in. The house I was raised in was built in 1960 by him and my father at a cost of $6,000 including a well which he dug himself. The well wasn't even 20 ft deep as The story goes he used two metal coat hangers I believe and walked around until they crossed and that's where he dug. A second House was built next to the one I grew up in and that single well to this day still feeds both houses with no problem. We had about 6 acres and grew almost all of our vegetables which my mother canned and we would buy 150/200 ears of corn and my mom and me would steam and cut it all off the cob and preserved in mason jars. There was an orchard with different types of apples and trees. My mother would make applesauce and the apple pies and desserts I can smell to this day. Now back to my grandfather, this is one thing I will never forget and regret to this day. There was a cinder block barn probably 40 by 60 ft and 20 ft tall where he kept farm tractor in various other things for the farm. Over the course of three or four days he painstakingly white wash painted the entire barn, and I fucked with him the whole time because I wanted him to pay attention to me, but there was work to be done ,no time for play. There were two huge walnut trees near the barn and it was my job to pick up the walnuts and put them in buckets to soften. I guess I was just mad and thought I would get back at him for not playing catch with me or whatever else. So in a matter of minutes I had thrown a buckeful of soft black walnuts all over the side of the freshly white painted barn. He had went inside to wash up and was talking to my mom. I couldn't wait for him to come out and when he did I didn't get the reaction I'd hoped for ,to this day I don't know what I had hope to accomplish. He came out of the house and began walking towards the barn and me. He stopped in front of me and said Son you go down in that apple orchard and get a green switch off the tree I'm going to beat your ass till your nose bleeds. I can remember being terrified and ran into the house and told my mom Granddad is going to beat my ass till my nose bleeds, her response was you better go down there and get that switch or it's going to be worse . And that's exactly what I did. He never hit me once with the switch when I handed it to him and he said I hope you learned something today. From that day on I had a admiration and respect for him like no other to this day. He passed away in 2000 which made him 92. When he was 75 he bought a hundred acres down in lower Delaware and built a house a barn and bought a combine for soybeans so we thought. As it turns out if he only planted about 15 acres of corn and soybeans . My mother asked him, Daddy why did you buy that damn combine if you're not going to farm the entire acreage? His response was" I always wanted one". That was the one and only time any of us questioned him about that combine. When he passed it was quite an undertaking to settle the estate and took a year probably with my mother doing the majority of the work including caring for his beloved dogs,strays that had wondered onto the property that he always took in. My mother found a cardboard box and say take a look in there ,I want you to see something. Inside was every pay stub from every week for 40 years that he worked at Chrysler tightly wrapped with a rubber band. They were all handwritten and he worked 40 regular hours and 8 hours overtime as far as I could tell the entire 40 years. When he started he brought home a check for $48 a week and when he finished after 40 years it was a almost a$100. I was probably 12 at the time and that was my lesson in economics and the value of A Hard Day's Work. He worked 48 hours a week and maintained a working farm by himself and built Eight houses in total along with many outbuildings and barns. I understand now why he didn't have time for me. So as it turns out my grandfather had bought quite a few properties down in Florida in the 40s and 50s, he owned harness racing horses which ran at Harrington in Delaware. He bought properties along the Chesapeake Bay and the C&D Canal and down further on the Sassafrass River. When it was all said and done and everything was sold , it was almost $2.5 million dollars which was split directly down the middle between my mom and her brother. This is went off topic but I hope you kind of get an idea of what type of person he was. The dedication and the foresight to accomplish what he did is amazing. In today's world to work 40 years to accomplish something it is inconceivable it's more like 40 minutes and if something incredible doesn't happen then fuck it.There will never be Generations like the ones in the past, but everybody should learn from them and what they were able to build from the ground up.
They weren't called The Greatest Generation for nothing.
I only knew my grandmother. None of my adoptive mother's family lived beyond their 70s, that I can recall made it out of their 70s as they all smoked heavily. She loved gardening and enjoyed her dogs. She lived in Sacramento California and wore shorts and muumuus in the hot weather. She took me places with her when I visited.we went downtown to meet my aunt for lunch . We went grocery shopping. She sang to Burl Ives and Jimmy Rogers while vacuuming the carpet. She loved Elvis. She would often have an evening cocktail with my aunt when she got home from work. She also enjoyed the occasional trip to Reno. I wish I knew more about her early life. I enjoyed visiting with her in the summer in her small post war tract house, so different from my Midwest life the rest of the year. I had kids to play with and was given freedom to roam the neighborhoods, ride my bike and hang out at the pool. She indulged my passion for dressing my troll dolls. It was like nirvana to me.
My old folks looked old at 40. I look at pictures of my family in their 40's and they look like they're in their 50's or 60's. They were all great storytellers. Any time there was a family get together, eventually the old folks would gather in a circle and tell stories about their younger years.
My one grandpa read a lot and didn't like noise. He also was always complaining he was cold. He played cards every morning at coffee with his friends and liked to go to Vegas once a year to play blackjack. My grandma was the sweetest, kindest woman ever. Never quite got their relationship, tbh. But they adopted my dad in their 40s, so they were definitely old grandparents (unlike my 52 year old friend with the 16 year old grandkid). They were in their 90s when they died. My other grandparents - grandpa played crib. It was the main thing he did with us kids, teaching us to play and then playing a couple games with each of us. He smoked a lot. He was actually vice president and then president of a Legion as well, but I never saw that part of him. I dunno what to say about my grandma. In some ways she was way ahead of her time and in others she was the most annoying woman on the planet. She hated my dad and made sure we knew it. I feel bad for my children that they basically had 1 grandparent and she was so awful only one of my kids even cared when she died.
Two grandparents lived to my age or less but the other two were very different and very cool. Grandma was very cultured and spoke multiple languages and was very modern and social. Grandpa was more “old country” and liked drinking with the boys but was a real joker with the grandkids.
Always complaining because gas used to be 19 cents a gallon and a hamburger was 49 cents. In the 1980s, they wanted things priced like they were in 1950s.
My grandmother hated me, my mother was the best cook on the planet.
My maternal grandparents were worried French Canadians were going to take over Canada. My grandfather hated communists more than anything, he also never touched a drop of alcohol in his life. My grandmother was an extreme bookworm. They watched the Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday night, check it out on youtube to see what I'm talking about.
My parents and grandparents were kind people. They looked older at my age than I do but that was the case with everyone at the time. They told off color jokes, didn't clutch their pearls at much, and lived happy lives.
I never knew my maternal grandfather as he died when my mom was 12. When I was a little kid my maternal grandmother lived with us because she was an invalid. Most of her sons were medical people and would fret over her(they were a close knit Sicilian family)when they came to our house. She must’ve died in the early 50’s. But my paternal grandparents lived on a farm and had horses, they milked their cows and had chickens and barns with hay lofts. My grandma was kind and played an organ that you pumped with your feet, she drove her ‘51 Chevy around never going more than about 20 mph. My grandfather(who has a striking resemblance to Butch Cassidy)was a tough, hardworking short man that wore dirty bib overalls and always had a 3 day growth of beard on his sweaty face and because he dipped Garett snuff had a little dribble of it running down the side of his mouth. My mother would say “Kiss your grandpa” but didn’t want to because he had a sweaty beard. He was a night watchman in a sawmill, carried an old holstered pistol(as part of his job)that had yellowed grips and was so dirty it would probably blow up if he tried to shoot it. He drove a 50’s model Chevy pickup that was sort of navy blue and was stained with east Texas red dirt. I remember riding in it between he and my dad and all I could see was the chrome radio grill that said “Chevrolet”. Once when my sister and I were playing in the dirt with our cars he was leaning on the picket fence watching us with amusement and said “Boy you really like playing in the dirt don’t you!” and I proudly replied “Yeah, my mom said when I grow up I’m going to be dirty just like you!” Man, did that cause some ruckus between he and my mom. He passed a way in 1958 of congestive heart failure at 60 years old, I remember they played “Rock of Ages” at his funeral.
I only had one grandparent still living. That in itself tells you something about the old days. She was very nice. I remember Sunday chicken dinners at her big "grandma house." Unfortunately, she had a stroke when I was about ten and was in nursing homes the rest of her life. Her husband died at 55 from cerebral hemorrhage. Paternal grandparents: My father was the last of 11 kids, and his father was pretty old when he was born. His mom died when he was only 4 yrs old. I never heard why, but a wild guess would be in childbirth.
OH good God not rude. I grew up with ( counts on fingers) 9 elderly relatives from grandparents to various aunts and a great grandmother for good measure. Mostly they could be fun but it was manners- Id make a list but it would be a wall of text - correct grammar, respect. Oh and noooo slang. Probably most importantly they all made points of introducing we kids to the world around us. Cool way to grow up and I recognize I was fortunate.
Both of my grandmothers were long dead before I was born. My maternal grandfather was a shitbird career criminal, and I never met him. My father’s father came to the US, from Scotland, as a teenager in the 1880s. He worked like a dog and drank like a fish. His two sons - my father and my uncle - were alcoholics as well. The half dozen or so times I saw him, his attention was focused on drinking with my father and my uncle.
grandpa on my fathers side was a crotchety ex Mormon and grandma was saintly and lovable; grandpa on my mothers side was a nasty, alcoholic train engineer and grandma was a sweetheart and a great cook.
More no nonsense. Work, eat and drink.
My maternal Grandmother was OLD by the time I knew her. So, she wasn’t a lot of fun. She was nice enough, like she wasn’t mean or anything, but she wasn’t warm and fuzzy either. She was born in Poland and was very old country. My grandfather died before I was born. My Paternal Grandmother was actually my father’s step-mom, but she was the best Grandma. She was super sweet and would play games with us, make our favorite foods, take us shopping or to do things like the zoo or park. She loved to go out to eat, and she loved to go square dancing. She was very active. She and my grandfather wintered in Florida. They always had friends and relatives over to play cards on the weekends. My grandfather loved to fish. He died when I was 8, so I didn’t know him as well.
My paternal grandfather was a WW2 vet who went into law enforcement. He was cold and harsh. He would go weeks at a time without speaking to my grandmother. They got a divorce when I was young, and he disappeared from my life until he died when I was in 5th grade. My paternal grandmother was the opposite. She was warm and loving. She was always out and about with her family. After she and Grandpa divorced, she really started living. She was always on some trip somewhere. I'd get a souvenir every time. My maternal grandfather was a criminal. He was always up to no good. He spent a lot of my life in and out of jails and prisons. My maternal grandmother was just the best. She was full of life. She loved her family and the community. She'd be so giving of her time and talents. Who knows how she ended up with Grandpa? When she died, the entire town came to her visitation.
My grandparents had to watch their "stories" every afternoon - Days of Our Lives and Another World.
As the youngest of all the grand children, I only really remember one grandpa - the father of my mother. He was a role model for me. He owned a farm, and was a very well-read person. He was happy with what he had. Always silent, always in the background, but always present. And when he had something to say, it was either important - for a necessary decision, or it was an increcibly funny one-liner. I think in his whole life, he just spoke 10% of the average person, but 100% more of imporant things. I learned from him, that it is the search for happiness and not the search for wealth, which should be the center of our life. He found joy in the tiny things in life, loved to be sourrounded by his family or had joy by precisely and lovingly pressing the apples to produce cider. Never loud, but everybody respected him. His only vanity was his enormous moustache, which he maintained with love and high precision. Even, when the farm was officially transferred to one of my aunts, he stayed there as the senior farmer, helping till a very old age. He did never strive for appreciation, it naturally happened because of his nature.
My grandparents were simple country folk. They didn't have an indoor toilet until the mid 1960's. Raised their own food. Took bath's in a wash tub on the back porch. My parents went in to the military to escape that life. It was always a treat to go there to visit. Such a different life from mine. My dad's stepfather was a moonshiner.
Both of my grandfathers were amazing men, both who I credit for the many unique experiences & opportunities I’ve had in life. -Maternal grandpa failed out of engineering school before becoming a Doctor & was a medic in WW2. He pierced my ears & lived out his days in the Low Country of SC, where he helped start a clinic for those in need ❤️🩹he was a no nonsense kinda guy who once left a comment card at Bob Evans, simply asking, “whatever happened to the good fried mush?” Yum fried mush, that sounds deeelicious! -Paternal grandaddy worked for the railroad & was self-taught on the piano. He knew all the standards & those are the soundtrack of my childhood. I’m about to possess the grandfather clock he made with his own 2 hands. He was extremely punny. His annual summer spending gift changed my life ❤️Bye bye, and buy bonds, grandaddy! You were one of a kind 💛 Thank you for asking & thank you to my amazing grandfathers. I know I’m blessed 💕 -
As the youngest son of youngest son and youngest daughter, I only had one grandparent alive and kicking while I was young. As a young woman, she met her husband in Rawlins, WY, around 1920, where she had moved on her own and had been a piano teacher. She was originally from Illinois, but her people were from Muhlenberg County, KY, and she retained that southern accent and the phrase, "I do declare." After her husband died, she became a social worker with the county. After retirement, she made the local papers for taking a solo vacation to the South Seas via tramp freighters. She was an interesting woman. She constantly complained that I didn't enunciate-- that led me to be careful in my speech. She wasn't a very good cook. Her views on racial matters were complicated-- she was condescending, but still a life member of the NAACP.
Frugal to a fault but maybe it’s starting to make sense ecologically
My father’s mother hated my mother and by extension, all us kids. His father once whispered to me (when I was in my 20’s) that he loved me. But pretty much, wasn’t around them. They even went so far as to take a vacation to Alaska where we and my dad’s brother & kids lived. Our houses were back to back. I found out *by accident* that they were there. It pissed that old lady off. It meant that they had to come visit us. I think it lasted 20 minutes. They both lived into their upper 90’s. My mother’s people were life long functioning alcoholics but they loved us to the very depths of their being. It was a real loss when they died, too soon and too young.
My generalized picture of old people is of them gathered around the kitchen table playing pinochle, listening to the ball game on the radio.
They were all Jewish immigrants from what is now Ukraine. They spoke pretty good English with a bit of Yiddish mixed in. They all worked hard, mostly in very small commercial spaces. They were very conventional. They never spoke about “the Old Country” or the people they left behind who were likely recent Holocaust victims. They celebrated in synagogues quietly, with much restraint. They loved baseball and TV and cars and the latest appliances and fashions and the Democrats and most of all their families.
My grandmother was always doing something. Whether it was canning every fruit and vegetable within 200 blocks that people would give her, or she was building cabinets banging nails and sawing boards until 5:00 a.m. her home was full of plants, so many plants you felt like you were in the jungle. But she was always busy. Always building something. I remember her taking out a whole wall and closing in another door in a bedroom basically moving the door from one side of the room to the other. She was in her seventies when she did that.
SUPER religious. Both my grandfathers were evangelical preachers. Everyone went to church at least 3x per week. Life revolved around the church and largely excluded anyone who wasn’t churchy. They were teetotalers and didn’t like dancing. All music and tv allowed while there was either news, religious programming or college football. My grandmothers were always cooking something (though one was terrible at it), sewing or doing their bible study. Only one of my grandfathers was around by the time I was born. His spare time was spent gardening, preparing his sermons or visiting people from his congregation who were sick, bereaved or had just given birth. My great grandparents were farmers, so most of their lives revolved around farm things and church.
One grandfather broke horses for a living. That pair worked too hard to survive to be very interesting. The other grandmother grew up in LDS polygamy. In general the men were distant, un social, the women were loving. They all thought the world was worse than when they were born in the 1890s.
Mine were the classic kids in the depression adulthood dumped them right into ww2. Hey we’re pretty great. My dad’s mom was the only religious one which caused problems when I became a young adult. Without them all I doubt I’d be here today
My grandparents were straight-up Appalachian hillbillies who worked very hard to barely scrape by. Maternal grandfather was a farmer. Took in other odd jobs to make ends meet. He used to go pick up the bodies if someone in the community died. Grandmother worked in the high school cafeteria. My paternal grandparents moved to the closest big city for better work opportunities, but they lived in a bad part of town and my father grew up there. Grandfather worked on the assembly line of a GM plant and grandmother took in laundry and ironing. Dad was determined to do better and he did. My mother left for the big city right after high school. They met at the bank where they both worked. Dad worked in banking his whole life. Mom was a SAHM.
My grandma was really into ancestry and had huge books of names and dates and the amount of research she did before the internet was astounding. now I would probably appreciate it but as a child it was so boring to look at and listen to.
My grandparents were radical left activists, until age caught up with them as they approached 90. It was heartbreaking to watch their decline.
Three of my four grandparents died before I was born. The forth, my mother's mother, was an old Portuguese woman with a heavy accent who told jokes from the 19th century, or close enough. :-) She was all right, but her English was broken and I had a hard time following it. She lived with her youngest son and watched a lot of soap opera.
My\`one grandfather had passed away before I was born. My other grandfather lived to be 102, and was still gardening and other things until he was in his late 90's. My one grandma passed away in her 90's - her eyesight had greatly diminished and she had slowed down - but still cooked three meals a day. She did stop making a lot of her baked goods a few years prior to her passing. She stopped hosting the family holidays somewhere in her late 80's. My other grandmother passed away in her 80's - was mentally sharp until about two years before she passed away - when her mental issues started to decline, so did her physical abilities. She had to have care-givers to help her and my step-grandfather with their daily living activities for a year or so prior to their passing. They passed away approximately ten days apart. Two of my grandparents were born in the 1890's.
They were much older as I recall and I don't remember having much of a relatioinship with them. My parents were also old when they had me which was unusual for the day.
I loved my grandparents - lifelong IMB, WW2 vet (5 battle stars), played golf and tennis and my gramma was a SAHM.
They were all retired schoolteachers born in the 1890s. My fathers father was a master gardener, wrote articles for the local paper, always had a wooden case of coke in the green glass bottles. He still had a coal stove and a coal furnace. My fathers mother was very hard of hearing and an excellent seamstress. My mothers mother was a stern no nonsense woman who wore a dress everyday. She lived in a large Victorian home her father built. Her father was a teacher too and he was stern also according to newspaper accounts. My mothers great grandfather was also a teacher.
They were tough and didn't like to tolerate excuses. At the same time, they pushed you to grow and try to reach your potential at things and be skilled and useful. There was positive and negative in that and I think some of that toughness and motivation is sorely needed nowadays, balanced out with recognition of mental health issues.
My grandma had nine children, and her husband died not too long after the youngest was born. She was a capable, strong, no nonsense woman who could cook up a storm. It was her love language. Other than that, she wasn’t very soft. I loved her, and I know she loved me, but she didn’t show it well. She raised great kids who are very clean and neat. Over achievers. They were Hispanic and catholic in northern Utah, so definitely looked down on. She aged hard because of a hard life, and looked a lot older than I do at the same age. My great-grandmother, her mother-in-law, rolled her own cigarettes, spoke Spanish whenever we visited even though we couldn’t understand, and would talk your ear off. Her cigarettes were so loose that bits of tobacco would fall out and she’d have little burn holes all over her little zip-up house dress.
I wish I was able to ask my grandpa what his grandpa was like!
About 10 years ago my grandmother (86 years old) wanted to write a letter to her cable provider because they took The Andy Griffith Show off of Nick at Night. She was pissed off, so we got her the DVDs. Not good enough for her, she wanted it back on the air and kept calling the cable company and writing letters.
They drank, gambled, smoked, argued, shouted, and swore. On Sundays they went to church. Kinda like Goodfellas but without the executions.
1) Grandpa A. A quiet guy, could machine anything, and did, right up until his 5th cancer took him. Learned mechanics from his son. Worried about his grandkids. Alcoholic through most of his kids' childhoods, eventually got sober and stayed that way for 25+ years. 2) Grandpa W. Extremely outgoing and jovial, fundamentalist Christian, loved all his grandkids but made no secret that he thought all the boys were much more useful/valuable than the girls. Played accordion. 3) Grandma B. Brave and smart, loved to garden. Wrote a book about growing up on the farm. Excellent health and very independent. 4) Grandma J. Immigrant from Scotland, we only found out after her & her husband's death she changed her identity when she came over, no idea why. Very religious, very mean, abusive to kids and grand kids.
They were generally pretty cool. There wS an older great aunt who was a bit of a handful to those who helped her,but she was always nice to me. Grandparents were cool as was great-grandfather. Our neighboe lastly who lived into her 90s was amazing. She was still chopping her firewood at over age 90. Very sweet lady. I didn't really know too many crotchety old people, though I know they were around. Even the eccentric guy who was not easy to get along with in some cases was always kind to me and others my age.
My grandmother was not nice but our older neighbors were nice and really interesting. It was Florida so there were a lot of "characters."
My grandpa (d. 1984) was always dismantling something trying to see what made it work. 90% of the time, he could and would put it back together. He was something of a polymath; he was a musician, a preacher, and a broadcast engineer who put together the transmitter for the first TV station in Midland, Texas. During World War II, he taught aircraft electronics to Army draftees. My dad (d. 2001, age 77) was into gardening bigtime. I think it was a throwback to growing up on a farm. He also liked working on lawnmowers. None of that "fix it" gene trickled down to me, unfortunately. I'm 65 and can't fix crap.
My grandfather was a brilliant man, who possessed a wealth of knowledge in US history, and antique furniture, and furniture restoration. He also refused to eat corn flakes that came out of a box with a black lady on it.
They looked a lot of older than their age and unhealthier than today's older people. I see people in their 80s today and they don't look a day over 60. It's amazing. My grandpa was in his 80s when he died and he looked like death warmed over. They weren't anymore cynical than today's old people, I think that is a constant with age.
I only knew my maternal grandmother. She was abusive, cruel and racist. She tortured both myself and my mother and I never developed into the person I should have because of her. She lived to be 89 and I couldn’t have been more relieved when she finally left the planet.
My Dad traveled extensively and on a budget working as he went. He had a cat and a girlfriend and a tiny camper. He had been in the signal corps in WWII and was still penpals with some of the folks he met in Europe. My Mom died young but was a lovely woman. Worked as a bookkeeper and loved to read. Her Mom had slept with a gestapo officer to get the family safely to the USA from Germany during Hitler. Once here she made a ton of friends, belonged to the Meteorological Society and thought Elvis was sexy.
Both of my grandfathers died when I was very young and I only have vague memories of them, but I remember them both being warm and answering all my silly questions. My mother’s mother lived with us for 40 years. I could write several pages about her. She was a wonderful, supportive woman. My dad’s mom was a hoot. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a Chesterfield, pouring herself a glass of Koehler beer, and laughing with that throaty smoker’s laugh. She always had fun.
They were working class. My grandfather grew up in the coal camps in appalachia. Dropped out of school in 5th grade to work in the mines. He escaped by joining the military. My grandmother was native american and dropped out of school to work. After he retired from the factory they managed to travel some to Cuba and Mexico. They mostly gardened and did a lot of hunting, fishing, hiking. I miss them
My grandpa was great, he taught me to read when I was 4-5, taught me about gardening, and nature. He was an avid reader and I grew up on his farm. He worked for the local school system and brought me lots of books to read. Unfortunately he died when I was 9. My other grandfather I never got to know, he died before I travelled to Hawaii in my early twenties. He was a stonecutter and carved many monuments in Hawaii, just wish I had known him.
My great grandma lived to be 102 the stories she told were really cool. I want to write some of her tales down
I only met one gma. She didn't speak English and dressed like the boat just docked. She lived in an ethically homogeneous community. All the grandmas looked like that.
My Grandparents were very kind, and not afraid to speak their love. My paternal grandfather loved gardening, and gardened at least until his early 80's. All of my grandparents were quite frugal, as well. They had lived through the Great Depression and that was just part of who they were. Contrary to most stereotypes, they weren't the "get off my lawn" types at all. Like I said, kind. Kind to everyone. They also taught me the value of quiet. I read quite a bit, and so did they. But they could sit, in the gloaming, and as my grandfather put it, just dream. Of times past. Of what was to come. They were beautiful.
Dad will be 85 this fall and lives quite close. They’re having a dinner party tonight. He’ll drive two states away tomorrow, back in a couple days to come over for dinner on our deck. He’s been to Iceland, manages his yard, and is WAY more social than I am … gets up earlier too.
They smelled like aged nicotine. All of them.
My maternal grandparents were great. She was a stenographer for the state supreme court and he was a salesman who invented things on the side. He was from Sweden and she was from Brooklyn and I never once saw them disagree or get mad at each other. They were really funny and they always seemed old to me. I am probably the age they were when I was a kid and I don't feel old at all.
I am 75 now and I remember my grandparents gardening, belonging to lodges, travelling, going bowling and curling well into their 80’s.
paternal grandparents - first generation from the long mountains (thats what we call China), spoke a variant of Hokkien I don't understand. Valued grandson more than granddaughters. Even today I am disgusted by them. maternal grandparents - born in then Malaya, their variant of Hokkien is the one commonly spoken in that part of the country, it is the more civilized one called Penang Hokkien. Chill people. Grandpa was illiterate but made scrapbooks of comic strips from newspaper for his grandchildren, regardless of their gender. I remember them fondly.
My grandfather was the antisocial type. Not rude per se, but he had a back room with a TV that, in retrospect, was a sort of man cave, very brown and heavy, completely different aesthetic to the rest of the house. And he basically secluded himself there when people came over. He might have been on the spectrum, I think now, probably not severely, but enough to be easily overstimulated. He was a bit of an enigma, you sort of assumed that he probably didn’t like us (or anyone) but he was nice when you actually saw him. Makes perfect sense now but inexplicable in those days, especially to a child. My grandmother was the type that pottered around the house making tea and knitting and crocheting. I don’t think she read much. Very kind and doting. I think back and realise she was about my age when I was a child but she seemed much more like how you think of people twenty years older than that now, people seemed to age quicker then.
My Great Grandmother (1892-1984) was playful and witty. When we were toddlers we would “play with Nana’s cane,” and she would gently poke at us while we dodged on the floor. She was sweet. It’s a cherished memory.
They smelled of smoke and beer. All of them. I’m 59.
They seemed to be much older at a younger age. I know a lot of people in their mid-fifties that I thought are 40-something before I discovered their age. In the TV show “All In The Family” (which started in January of 1971), the lead male character (Archie Bunker) has a date of birth of May 18, 1924 (ascertained from details in two episodes). That means he was 46 years old when the series started. The show ended 12 years later, just shy of Archie’s 59th birthday. He always looked older than people I know of that age now. He always looked like he was of retirement age. His on-screen wife Edith was a few months younger than him, but to me she looks even older.
Had a great uncle that we would visit when I was young. I was intimidated because they had no electricity in their homes and they were always dark and creepy inside with very old people hanging out. The only electricity was an electric wire that kept the animals in the pasture. They had peacocks too, rural west Tennessee in the 70's.
Calm, measured, reasonable, helpful, hopeful, existential, in control of their actions. That's what I modeled and took away from my time being nearby decent old people. They were always exercising or swimming and expanding their mind with a new talent or a new interest. Very cerebral. Had to walk a chalk line. It was difficult accepting dementia and old age as I got older . Whenever my elders would have a minor mistake or a minor mishap I knew to just give them some time and within a couple minutes the idea or the thought came to them I read up on their life stage because it will be my life stage and it is my life stage. I got a kick out of reading the Bible and the book of Proverbs it talks about old age. Started realizing that the faculties and senses change. I began realizing that all the things that they did or didn't do or were about, apply to me as I will enter their life stage and walk in their shoes so to speak. I spent 12 years nearby nursing homes and hospice for family and the only case that I ever saw become self-destructive had to do with the relative wanting to die so bad they began self-harming and hitting themselves. I've never seen that in elders or along the way but maybe it's because I'm inexperienced that way. When I saw support about it and had had questions about it I was told that it's very normal and it's okay it's sad that they did that but it's part of life. When I've encountered anybody on a sick bed or not feeling well or just in general I sometimes have to wonder if they're agitation, irritability, unhappiness, is related to their physical health, and it usually is. Meaning whatever is wrong with them their illness is talking for them at that time if they're having a bad day. That's how I never took anything personal. I mean everything within the human story is part of the human story is another light stage to conclude and resolve. My elders were pragmatic and dogmatic and I carry that with me. If it goes against the law or any kind of bodily care if it risks your safety or your health, I wouldn't engage in it and I didn't do that.
When I was young the 40 year olds acted like they were 60. Like life was done as far as hobbies, self care, etc. So imagine the 60 yrs old. But you know what.. the 80 yrs olds were TOUGH They had muscles too. They were from a rough time and didn't complain about shyt. I admired them