Finish the Sentence Friday - Stream of Consciousness - Grandparents

Taking pause for a five minute stream of consciousness is what some of those who participate in the third Friday blog hop Finish the Sentence Friday do. Although our host, Kristi Campbell of Finding Ninee and co-host, Kenya G. Johnson of Sporadically Yours do not make a big deal out of how short or how long our posts are, nor do they try to figure out how on earth so many words could come from that stream of consciousness, or for that matter, so few words. They, like the rest of the participants, just enjoy reading the posts. I am linking my post to Finish the Sentence Friday - Stream of Consciousness - Grandparents. Click the link and you will find access to the other comments about grandparents.

My grandparents were all born in the latter half of the 19th century with one of my grandfathers being born just a few years after the end of the Civil War. Their means of transportation was by horse and buggy early on, but after the automobile revolution my grandfathers learned to drive cars. Neither of my grandmothers ever drove a car. Although airplanes had been invented, none of my grandparents ever flew in an airplane.

Now when people relocate from one state to another, we generally just say, they moved, but looking back on the big moves of my grandparents, I tend to think in terms of them migrating. 

• My paternal grandmother was born in Indiana and as a young child was moved to Kansas to live with an aunt after the death of her mother from lockjaw. She met my grandfather in Kansas. Although they went to Texas to get married, they didn't live there. After living in Kansas for a few years, early in the second decade of the 20th century they moved to California where some of their relatives had moved.

• There was a similar reason for my maternal grandparents' moves. They didn't leave Arkansas until around 1929 or 1930 at the encouragement of some of their older children living in California who felt the opportunity for employment would be better. This was time of the great depression. Before the beginning of WWII they moved north to Oregon where other children had moved.

Occupations of my grandparents:

• The occupations shown in census records listing my paternal grandfather indicate that he had been a barber, an employee of the Fargo Express Co., and a farmer and owner of a truck farm. Records for my maternal grandfather show that he was a farmer, worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and was a postmaster. He also worked in a logging mill, but there isn't a census indicating this. There is no census record indicating his last place of employment where he worked in the shipyards in Portland OR during WWII just prior to his death and a few months before I was born. 

• My grandmothers were both housewives. I remember hearing that my paternal grandmother had worked waiting tables and in the kitchen in a hotel/boarding house where she lived as a young woman, and  for a while at a cannery, I am guessing during the depression. The WPA employed my maternal grandmother for a while during the depression, but that occupation doesn't show up on a census record.

The school of hard knocks gave my grandparents most of their education, but they did have some formal education.

• My paternal grandfather completed the first year of high school and my paternal grandmother only completed the fifth grade.

• According to the census records, my maternal grandfather completed the eighth grade and my maternal grandmother completed the seventh grade.

My paternal grandparents
shown with my parents

My maternal grandparents shown with
four of their children