My grandfather was from the south and my grandmother was from NJ. My grandfather worked in a sugar refinery and he was the shift foreman. He worked swing shifts so he might be home all weekend, or he might be working in the day time or at night. When I was little, he retired after working in the same place for 45 years. After he retired, he did gardening and fixing stuff up around the house. He and my grandmother lived in a big Victorian house which was built in the late 1800’s. The house was beautiful and was really like a part of the family. I get sad when I think about how it was sold after the two of them died, and now it’s been altered when it used to have pristine woodwork and gorgeous huge stained glass windows.
My grandmother did not work and she didn’t drive (which was not uncommon in those days). She was very maternal and nurturing to me and to her other two grandchildren. She was always cooking and baking and sewing. She knew how to embroider and crochet and knit and all those things. She could also upholster furniture, which I really wish I learned from her. She didn’t use recipes for a lot of things, and she tried to teach me how to bake. She used to take me and some of the neighborhood kids to NYC and shows at Radio City and museums and all kinds of things like that. She treated the neighborhood kids, who were friends of the family, like they were her own. She also used to go to a local area and rake it and it later became a park. Before she used to rake it, it was nothing but overgrown weeds. She used to read to me and I credit her with my love of reading and my love of books. We’d lay in bed and she would read me stories and teach me the words. She’d also recite nursery rhymes and she’d sing little songs to me.
My grandfather’s job put their three daughters through college – they all had college degrees. Politically, he was a Republican. He had the attitude of, you don’t look for a handout unless you’re disabled. You go to work and do your best to support yourself and your family. He invested in the stock market at a time when most Americans didn’t. He’d read the New York Times every day and he’d look at the stock prices in the back of the Times.
Politically, I don’t know what my grandmother was because she never talked about politics, at least not that I can remember. My grandmother died when I was 14 and my grandfather died when I was 30.