My Grandpa!

[MoMike]

I've had several likes received from another thread, so I have to tell you about my Grandpa. Now, Grandpa was brought forth in an entirely different era than we were ( born 1892), and lived in the house that HIS father built! It was well out of town when it was built, and the town grew up around it. And, going through the Great Depression, he never threw anything away, and made use out of everything. I, myself, can remember when he got inside plumbing ( water only), never had a TV, never had a telephone.

I can remember when the streets in Cantwell, MO, were still gravel ( the town was taken in by Desloge much later on). Finally, the streets were going to get paved! A load of cold mix asphalt was dumped by my Grandpas house one evening in preparation to work the next morning. Next morning, the load was gone! Nobody every figured out what happened to it, but Grandpa had a backtop floor in his garage almost 18" thick! Yeah, they dumped it by his house, so he took every lick of it!

Another time, Grandpa had a problem with dogs getting into his garbage cans and burn barrels. Grandpa took a long extention cord, cut of the end, and soldered the end to the barrel. Then sat in the garage waiting. The dogs showed up, put their paws on the barrels, and Grandpa plugged it in! Bear in mind that this was in the late 50's, and he blew fuses all over that part of town!

Even after his wife passed away, Grandpa had one of the best vegetable gardens to be found, and I know he fed many families in town before any welfare cards for food were ever heard about. If anyone needed anything, they just asked. Grandpa passed it out.

Grandpa, Walter R. Grayson, passed away in 1966. I still miss him!

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Ram Rod]

I miss my Grandpa too. Great story. He lives on through your memories. Thanks for sharing.

[dukalmighty]

I remember when my Grandpa got indoor plumbing too,I was already used to it since my Dad was in the USAF,but whenever we visited we had to use bed pans at night,or the out house in the day,not to mention baths in a metal tub with water heated on the stove,that was at both farm houses on my Mom and Dads sides of the family

[babarock]

Treasure those memories and if parents or grandparents are still with you, talk to them. Get them to tell you anything and everything. Video tape it for yourself and your young'ns.

My paternal grandfather died in 1909, grandmother in 1917. I'm not that old but Dad was in this late 60s when I came along. I know nothing about them other than PGF died in a train wreck. Dad passed in 1977 and I was to young and stupid to talk to him.

My maternal grandparents died in the mid-50s. I've been told the story that Grandpa Brown called me possum because I grinned at him so much. I have no memory of either of them. Mom passed a couple of years ago and I missed the opportunity to record her telling about growing up in East Tennessee during the depression as a share cropper family.

Don't miss the chance.

[retsupt99]

Thanks for sharing the post...cherish the memories!

[goldshellback]

It was a BIG time when my grandparents got 'city-water' ........ I still remember that too.
Grandparents are special ! I lost my Grandfather last month, it still slaps me in the face from time to time.


Thanks for sharing a few of your memories, that brought a smile to my face.

[framedcraig1]

Cherish your grandparents...if you still have them. They are THE link to your past. You will understand this perfectly...after they are gone.

[ppkheat]

All of my grandparents have passed on. I do clearly remember all of them, even a great-grandmother, and knew them all very well, they were like my second set of parents. I was lucky.

[Black Knight]

People from that era saw so much history. My wife's father was born in 1892 and is supposedly the oldest man in Virginia to father a child. He was 73 when my wife was born. He was also supposed to be one of President Woodrow Wilson's bodyguards when the President was in Staunton, VA. Imagine all the history they saw as everyday life. Imagine what we see today as our lives that someone years later will call history.

[MoMike]

At one time, Grandpa moved to Detroit to go to work in the car plants there. The Great Depression brought them back here later. I have a letter written to them by friends still in Detroit that talks of the banks closing, and when they were open, you could only get part of your money out in bank scrip notes. A very interesting letter!

I found this one afternoon while looking through a very old family album. The pages just felt funny, and when I started looking behind the pictures, I found all kinds of stuff stuck behind them. This letter was there, other stuff that showed my Grandpa had a brother that no one knew about that died right after birth, many very old pictures,and one picture I have to tell you about.

My Gr-Gr-Grandfather was in the Third Missouri Cavalry during the Civil War. We had heard many stories about him, and one distant cousin had been on a mission for many years looking for a particular picture. Before he left for the war, my gr-gr-grandpa had a dauguerretype ( I know I spelled that wrong ) made of his sweetheart, cut it out round, and carried it in his pocket watch all through the war. When he came home, he married her. I FOUND THE PICTURE! That cousin has offered me a couple of thousand dollars for it, but I won't sell.

[oneshot]

My Grandpa McNairnie was a terrific electritian in the Royal Oak/Clawson Mi. area back in the 40', 50's & 60's. He died in '69 or '70, of a brain annurism in St Helen Mi. walking out of a restaurant.
Grandpa Radzwion was born in 1902 and was butcher in Detroit, he passed in '84 when I was 24

Man those two forgot more than I'll ever know.
Boy do I miss 'em, and my two Grandmas as well.

[Walk Soft]

I never knew my dad's dad but my mom's dad was our closest neighbor.He was almost always hateful and mean except for a few times that I cherish.I knew he served in WWII and the Korean War but never really knew or considered the sacrifice till I got older.
I remember once when i was 14 my second cousin from another city had just got his license and stayed with us for a few days one summer.My Grandpa took notice and one day when he was walking the holler he seen me out and told me"If I ever hear a tale of you snortin that marijuana,I'll come up here in the middle of the night and beat you within an inch of yer life".At the time I was thinking"yeah right old man" but later I saw this as proof that he did love and care about what happened to me.
I'd give anything to have a conversation with him as an adult,but he's gone.

[grav]

Grandpa taught me how to fish. One day, when I was 6 or 7, we went brook trout fishing. We both had our hip boots on. Grandpa trudged through some thick, knee-deep mud. I got stuck and was crying "Grandpa wait!"! Fast-forward about 5 years. I wanted to show Grandpa the log cabin fort my buddies and I had built out of logs we had cut with our hatchets on some wild land about a mile walk from his house. Part of the trail was up a steep bluff heading back in the woods. I zipped right up to the top. Grandpa was winded, lagging far down the bluff. I asked, "Are you coming, Gramp?". He saw the irony in the two stories and the difference a few years makes. I heard him tell that story many times before he passed away. He died in '75 but I remember it like it was yesterday.

[DontTreadOnI]

Great memories!

My grandma passed away December 23rd of last year during the night. Woke grandpa up at 1am to go get her a mint from the kitchen and when he came back in she had suddenly passed. The family all got called to come out before they came to take her to the mortuary and I moved in with grandpa that night from a house in town so he wouldn't be alone. It's been a rough road but I'll tell you one thing, it has been so awesome getting to spend so much time with him; I never thought in a million years that we'd be roomies lol.