My grandparents lived through the depression in the town of Arecibo, in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. Both my parents are technically baby-boomers, but they never had the opportunities afforded to their counterparts on the mainland. All of my grandparents started their work lives in the fields, tending and harvesting sugar cane. My maternal grandmother was able to leave the fields for domestic work. That would be the line of work my mother and her two sisters would also do before and after school. My paternal grandmother wasn’t as lucky and spent all of her working life in the fields. It’s hard to imagine my tiny grandmother, all 4′ 8″ disappearing into the tall stalks of sugar with a “machete” in her hands, swinging and cutting from sun up to sundown. My maternal grandfather also spent most of his years working in the fields, but later on, when they moved to the capital city of San Juan, he started working construction. I guess you can say he traded cutting down for building up. I still remember him coming home in the evening cover in cement dust. He was strong and silent but always had a tinkle in his eyes. My father’s father was a more gregarious type. He moved up sooner by moving away. He join the U.S. Army about a year before end of the great war. So he didn’t get to see any conflict, thankfully. He took the opportunity to stay in the states for a bit and learn a new trade as a barber. I guess it aligned perfectly with his personality. From all my...
I have a pretty cool grandmother. She is more current on culture than almost anyone I know, seeing every new film release before I have, always having an opinion on every political event as it happens. When Mad Men premiered in 2007 to widespread critical acclaim, I naturally asked my grandmother if she was watching. Her response: “I don’t need to watch it. I lived it.” September 7 is National Grandparent’s Day, and thanks to the American Grandparents Association and the National Women’s Law Center, I was given the special opportunity to interview my grandmother about what it was like to be a working woman in America in the 1950s — what it truly meant to “live” Mad Men. My grandmother (or as I call her, my “Mama”) has always been a trailblazer. I grew up with stories of the 12-year old girl who was the first to be bat mitzvahed in her Orthodox synagogue in the Bronx, New York in 1944. She received a college degree and worked until she was 28, far past her contemporaries. I’ve always known her as my fearless, fierce grandmother; but until recently, all I knew of that working life were horror stories of riding the New York City subway with no air conditioning in a wool suit. My grandmother’s story sounds eerily similar to one Christina Hendricks’ character, Joan, might tell: she worked as an executive secretary at television production companies, diamond sellers and Madison Avenue advertising agencies, seated right outside her boss’s office (and ever the pioneer, eventually as a print media buyer). She received no benefits, only federally-mandated social security....
My grandfather was fired for “rabble rousing for the union” back in the 1930’s. 70 years later I was out the door of my own company. My grandpa later went on to become a shop steward and I am proud to say that today I am as well!
Both of my Grandfathers worked hard, Maternal Grandfather was an honest-to-goodness Teamster, driving a horse-drawn milk truck for years until he got a ‘regular’ truck. He stayed active in his retirement, but died ‘young’ at 74. Paternal Grandfather farmed until he was 86, he lived almost 12 years more passing away just six weeks shy of his 98th birthday. My Grandmothers stayed active all their lives, the one on the farm was ALWAYS doing something for others after her four sons were raised, and my Maternal grandmother was a volunteer extraordinaire: community service (Red Cross & Community Chest), church and military auxiliary organizations (Navy Mothers and Marine Corps Auxiliary League). I learned not only the value of a good job, providing for my family, but also we need to care for others as well. Probably why, even in my retirement, I am involved in church work, mission work, politically active and involved in union and community activism (Steering Committee, Toledo Area Jobs with Justice/Interfaith Worker...
