George Atallah, NFLPA Assistant Executive Director, External Affairs celebrates Labor Day and Grandparents Day by talking about how his grandparents helped to shape who he is...
NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith shares memories of his grandparents and how they worked and lived their lives, and recognizes them as part of the Labor Day and Grandparents Day...
My grandparents left me an extraordinary legacy from their values, their lives and their work. They worked so hard and lived in such trying conditions that they all died before I was five years old, so I have only slight direct memories of them. But I do have gifts from them in what they gave to my parents and my parents gave to me. Some of those gifts were from what they did, and some were of the lessons we learned so that we could live better lives than they did. I believe that we do not need to romanticize the past in order to learn from it. My paternal grandfather David ran a haberdashery store that initially was successful, and eventually became a small department store that sold clothing and dry goods in Syracuse, New York. My grandmother Anne worked in the store. The store did well for a while, but then lost everything around the time of the Depression, so my grandparents moved to Brooklyn to live other family members. Throughout all of this, David and Anne remained industrious and bright – they valued education for their children and set high standards for them. My maternal grandfather, Izzy Weisbard, was remembered by many as a selfish and self-centered man who did not treat others kindly. He thought my mother (who had been a valedictorian of her high school) should not go to college because women weren’t supposed to be educated. He was constantly trying to find a way to make a living, often taking advantage of others and not always working legally. I know this experience in...
Mamaw was a real pioneer – a poet, song writer and social activist of the most basic kind. She never turned anyone away and never let anyone get by with taking advantage of someone else without a memorable confrontation. A story I remember well I call, “The Wayne County Man’s Bus Rides for Justice.” My grandmother’s daughter, Margaret June, was the secretary for a lawyer. Margaret June turned away a poor man who did not have money for the lawyer …until my grandmother found a way to bypass her daughter and get legal representation for the man. The story reminds me that sometimes balancing family with justice is not easy – perhaps it will never be. One summer day, a man got off the bus from town and came toward the house. He was slight, bright and had a worn, soft feeling. But as he got closer, I saw he was worried. I called Mamaw and she came to the front door to greet him. She’d taken her apron off which she always did when we had company. He stood on the sidewalk before coming up the steps to the porch, and told her that a Mr. Ward had referred him to her to help him find a lawyer, but he didn’t have money to pay a lawyer. She asked him in, and, as always, she introduced each of us – as though we were grown up, in routine that varied little. When she finished, we all said in unison, “Hello.” And those that didn’t heard later that we were not properly welcoming our guests. If the visitor needed something serious...
My grandfather, Stanislaw Glazewski, was a laborer who came to this country from Poland in the early 1900s. All of my immigrant grandparents were peasants and laborers, not literate in their own language, who came here looking for work and opportunity. We don’t have many things to remember them by, but I do have a copy of my Grandfather’s Declaration of Intent to Become a Citizen. When he signed it in Brown County, Wisconsin in 1919, the form required him to swear that he was not an anarchist or a polygamist. He and all his sons eventually became steelworkers, at Republic Steel in South Chicago. Steelworkers worked in constant heat and around dangerous equipment. They had to fight for basic rights and protections and for good wages. Family lore suggests that my grandfather was part of some of the large strikes at Republic Steel, however no one remembers the details. I think of my family’s ascent into the middle class and of what became possible for families with good, union jobs. All of my grandfather’s children had houses, many of their children went to college, and their grand-children hold a myriad of professional jobs, from teachers, to business owners, to nonprofit managers, to IT specialists. When I think about the way my grandfather worked—hard, in dangerous situations, but with the benefits and protections of collective bargaining—I am struck by the potential of what one or two generations of good, stable income can do for a family and for subsequent generations. Photo: Amy Smoucha’s Grandfather’s Declaration of Intention upon entering the United...
