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My grandfather and great grandfather were blacksmiths in the Hegins area of PA. My dad and his uncles worked in the coal mines and later became carpenters...
One of my familial groups of blacksmiths had my G-G-Grandfather very much into the mining in Deadwood - Which also has me remembering that the other side of the family were miners. Older brother of that G-G-Grandmother pulled the body of their younger brother out of the mine - Victim to its operation.
That is where the occupations really become of interest, and how they affected the family...
My G-G-Grandmother pined for her brother - whom had escorted her on the trip from Germany - for the rest of her life...
Her husband had engaged in trying to lure in speculators from the East after a few of his mining claims were played out - And it got him into trouble and court before he died, putting his widow in the poorhouse...
My Grandmother was the daughter of the Postmaster occupation I listed earlier. The were better-to-do throughout the Great Depression because of that job, compared to the other families around. Grandma desperately tried to hide the fact that she had TWO dresses at the time, so that she would not be excluded by the other girls.
A Third Cousin and myself resolved that our family had interacted with each other because of their occupations in wagon team driving and wagon making, and living within about a six-block area of Chicago. In other words, aware of each other first by their occupations, which pulled them in to intermarry. Very focused geographical placement at a point in time (another topic here) and occupations always have a deep effect on whom our families were, and who we are and what we become...
It's the whim in life, when a door-to-door salesman is traveling, goes to the diner, and is smitten by whom becomes your Grandmother...
Mind you, that specific scenario didn't happen in my case...
It's the whim in life, when a door-to-door salesman is traveling, goes to the diner, and is smitten by whom becomes your Grandmother...
Mind you, that specific scenario didn't happen in my case...
LOL! My mom was was my dad's second wife. After WW2 he got into road construction, my mom worked at a diner. The road was all but closed and the really the only people who came in were the road construction crew, and that's where my parents met. Around 1960
LOL! My mom was was my dad's second wife. After WW2 he got into road construction, my mom worked at a diner. The road was all but closed and the really the only people who came in were the road construction crew, and that's where my parents met. Around 1960
There's more LOL than you may initially see: Notice I didn't say of whether my traveling salesman scenario met and married your Grandmother, or that he was your biological Grandfather; He could have taken to also be the father to your young mother, the child of your Grandmother by a previous fling. Did that matter to what you may have become or been in your life?
Your mention of your grandfather working in silk mills in Paterson, NJ, caught my attention. My English grandfather worked in the Paterson silk mills as well. Like many English who arrived in the U.S. from Lancashire he followed the textile trade all his life, starting out in Fall River, Mass. Later, he worked in several locations in Pennsylvania and New York State. My father also followed the weaving trade.
My wife's grandmother worked in the the textile mills in Lancashire before emigrating to Massachusetts. It seems that weaving was an itinerate trade in those days, dependent on the vagaries of the economy.
About 25 years ago we visited Blackburn and other mill towns of Lancashire that I believe inspired Charles Dickens to write his book Hard Times.
That is so interesting! My great-grandfather came from Manchester. I have never been to England, but I would like to go. I would like to see where they came from.
That is so interesting! My great-grandfather came from Manchester. I have never been to England, but I would like to go. I would like to see where they came from.
MQ,
I hope you get a chance to visit Manchester where your great-grandfather came from. A book that I think you would enjoy reading is one authored by William Woodruff titled "The Road to Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood." It was an English best seller and details Woodward's own grinding childhood of poverty until he left the Blackburn weaving community where he grew up and made his way to London. He later earned a scholarship to Oxford and became a professor of economic history. It's a rare view of hard-scrabble life in the northern Engish milltowns of the 1920s and 1930s. BTW, Amazon has several excellent reviews of the book.
One interesting thing I've noted, most of my family went into business for themselves. Including a plaster/paint business, a milliner shop, blacksmith shops, tool & die shop,in addition to several family-owned farms, which are a business.
Also, found on my m-grandmother's side, I come from a long, long line of Presbeterian (sp) ministers. seems they started in Scotland, migrated to Ireland, then to USA. So that must explain how I'm Lutheran
My great-Grandfather and his Father worked on the railroad, maternal side, we have old pictures of them working on the rails, building the railroad. Both were at the "Golden Spike" in Promentary Point, Utah. My Great-Gradnmother was a telephone operator, her Mother worked in a bar, my Grandmother was a legal secretary.
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