Celebrate your Elders!

[Vendor-Lazarus]

A thread dedicated to our grandparents and great grandparents, in which to remember the good times and be proud of their efforts.

I'll start with my great grandmother (on my mothers mothers side).
The one who started our family's weekly coffee-break/tea-time, where we all gather together for or hour or two and talk about whats recent or just any old thing.
She was always there, ready to listen and handing out both advice and gingerbread's freely.
Sadly, I never met my great grandfather (mothers mothers) as he passed away just before I was born.
She joined him at the ripe old age of 90.

Next up is my great grandfather (fathers fathers).
I never really knew him, despite his still being alive until in my early 20's.
He lived about 500 kilometers away (a good 5-6 hours by car), out in the woods.
A bit of a solitary man, much like myself. I always wondered how much I inherited from him, personality and trait-wise.
Never knew my great grandmother (fathers fathers).
I have never met, or even heard about, my other great grand-parents either sadly.

My grandparents (fathers side) lived relatively close in my younger years, where we visited them once a month or so.
When they retired they moved to live closer to their roots, and my great grandfather.
Still visited them once a year though, until they passed away early, at 67 and 76 because of smoking related reasons.

The main reason I created this thread was because of my Grandfather (on my mothers side, grmbl, English lack of distinction).
He is celebrating his 85th birthday this year, and is still an active farmer.
Wrestling with sheep, tending fields and climbing up and down the ladder to the hay-loft.
His stamina and sheer determination makes me so proud.
He can probably still lift more weight than I ever will.


TLDR:
This became a lot longer than I initially anticipated. My apologies.
So, do you have any good memories or facts that make you proud of your grand and great grandparents?

 

[Generalissimo]

My maternal grandparents both worked for the civil service, worked their asses off for 40 years, then retired with generous pensions to northern England.

Grandad is a straight talking intellectual fellow who never fails to have something intriguing to say. You can talk for hours with him and feel mentally better off for it.

Grandmother is the most kind and generous person I know of, if you're down she'll be right with you with mugs of tea and kind words, and is all around a good person.

I adore visits by and to them, and have respect for their traits.

Paternal grandad is a real joker, despite being 75 years old. He puts on an act as a boring old man but is as lively and spry as ever.

Paternal grandmother is an adept cook and resident crazy cat woman, owning 3 loveable felines. Her food is simply wonderful.


So all respect to my elders, they certainly deserve it.

All great grandparents are at rest, but all lived to impressive ages. 95, 98, 93 and 99. Longevity definitely runs in my family.

 

[Barbas]

All are now deceased. One was a naval commander in World War II and retired to a pleasant, well-kept home with several cats and a tidy garden. The Navy took care of his pension. The second was described by many as a "real character", though I have only a few vague recollections of her. She was well known and missed throughout the neighborhood when she died.

A third spent many years living happily in the far east before moving back to England (in his own words, this was the worst mistake he ever made). The fourth moved back to England with him and died while we were still abroad in China.

They were all quite cheery people for much of the time that I remember speaking to them. Each had his or her own little quirks, like keeping a fridge full of magical and terrifying cheeses from around the world, or finishing a plate of food and sliding it under the sofa instead of taking it to the kitchen sink[footnote]Jesus Christ, grandma.[/footnote]. They were all very interesting people who I greatly respect.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

..SNIP..my granny was the kind of women who thought Tupperware was one of the greatest inventions of the modern age...she had been a professional baker before retirement and was, ofc, an AMAZING cook. she was also very big on making things like crochet...she used to make those dolls for covering loo paper rolls which are now considered the height of "kitsch"...my papa too was a big "doer" and very big on "DIY"...their garden was absolutely "immaculate" to the point it was very noticeable so if you know what i mean.

One of my grandmothers used to knit and crochet all sorts of things. I've still got paintings, the she used to sew, on the walls.
She loved to do things were she could be creative. I would actually like to learn to do some of those things as well.
People nowadays tend not to have the time to create their own stuff sadly.
I may have used some terms incorrectly here, I don't knit,crochet,sew, etc myself I'm afraid. (hmm, not yet anyway.)

btw little know fact of the day; the grandparents-grandchildern relationship is pretty much unique to Human Beings.

It appears to be more prevalent in some cultures than others. Many westerns countries today seem to "do their own thing" more and more.
( Broad general statement issued from personal experience, in no way to be taken as fact ^^ )

 

[Summerstorm]

Hm, i do regret not getting to know them very well. (My parents don't really talk about them - i really need to ask before even my parents are gone)

Well, i had no chance to know my paternal ones: They died when i was really young. (All i know is that my grandfather was "industrious", hard-working and honest and my grandmother was "beautiful, even when she got older") - So not much to go on.

On my mother's family side: Never knew my grandmother (died early too) - but i knew my grandfather (he died when i was... 19... i inherited his car, and i remember my mother crying) But i never really KNEW him. We visited him every few months for an afternoon. I also just know one story of "the war" from him. But it was a brutal and short story he didn't like to tell - much was unspoken.

 

[EeveeElectro]

For the past 3 years my grandparents on my mum side haven't even acknowledged my birthday. Not even a phonecall. Yay!

All I can share is that apparently my great grandma was given four (or so) weeks left to live because she had cancer when my mum was pregnant with me and I was due to be born three months later. Apparently she told doctors "Naaah, I've got a great granddaughter due and I have to meet her."
She held on and died three days after I was born.

I wish I had stories to tell about my grandparents but I don't, they've never cared about me. I enjoy hearing other people's stories though!

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

All I can share is that apparently my great grandma was given four (or so) weeks left to live because she had cancer when my mum was pregnant with me and I was due to be born three months later. Apparently she told doctors "Naaah, I've got a great granddaughter due and I have to meet her."
She held on and died three days after I was born.

Wow, that..really moved me. Very heartfelt.
Thank you far sharing that, she sounds like she was quite the character!

 

[Scarim Coral]

While I knew little of my grandfather since he died when I was little but I respected him for what he accomplise. Apparently my ancestor are kind of like merchant and my grandfather pretty much migrate to the UK and set up a Chinese restaurants which my grandmother and mum followed sometime afterward. From there they had several more childrens (my uncles and aunt) and they prosper. My grandfather was quite a worh ethnic sort of man (my uncle said he was kind of like Mr Krab from Spongebob Squarepants) in that he got annoyed when the restuarant closed during holidays and my uncles told me the times their fingers got freezing cold from all the shrimp shells they got to peel off.

As for my granmother, she passed away last year and sadly I didn't connect with her per say (she was fluent in Chinese while I'm not) but I do thank her for all the times she looked after me when I was little when my parent were at work since her house (where my uncles and aunted used to lived in) has great memories. I liked to think she is now reunited with my granfather.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Mother's side great grand parents - Dead before I was born, no one seems to remember anything bout them.
Mother's side grand parents - Grand mother took care of her kids. That about the only thing any of her 6 children can say about her. Grand father abandoned the family. 6 months ago, he was hospitalized for general organ failure. The moment the doctor's said he was on machine support and in a coma, they pulled the plug.

Father's side great grand parents - Great grand mother took care of her kids (As above). Great grand father was a regional head of the KKK.
Father's side grand parents - My great grand mother is a kind old woman who once chopped the head off of a rattle snake that was to near her grand children, with an shovel, at the age of 78. According to my father, my grand father was a mean spirited bastard, and he's glad he died before I was born so I would never have to meet him.

EDIT: No idea why I said ax.

 

[Albino Boo]

Maternal Grandfather, navy during the war. He spent most of his war on the arctic convoys to Russia. They were attacked by U-boats, Battleships and the aircraft. Just to make matters worse the the water would kill you in 15 seconds if you went in. Took part in the D-day operations during which his destroyer was attacked by the Americans, somethings never change. His ship was sent to Norway in 1945 as part of the forces to back up the Norwegian resistance and just arrived when the Germans in Norway surrendered. When he stepped on to the quay in Bergen he was immediately mistaken for Norwegian's cousin. I have one of the white ensign of his ship. He had a heart attack in 1978 and was given 6 months to live and he died in 2000.

Maternal Grandmother, trained as nurse but caught scarlett fever and couldn't continue. Got a job in one of Rolls Royce's merlin engine plants (powered the Spitfire, Lancaster and P51-D) in clerical capacity. The man she was going to marry was killed in a Spitfire over France in 1941. She later met my Grandfather and married in 46.


Paternal Grandfather. Joined up in 1940 and joined Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME). Fell of a gangplank in Cape town when they docked and got a hernia and pneumonia. He was sent to hospital and were most of the patients were burns caulisties from brewed up tanks. He was understandably very glad to get away from there and was sent to Egypt by Train from Cape Town, something you can no longer do. He volunteered to drive the tank transporters that pulled the damaged tanks of the battlefield while the fighting was going on. He collected some shrapnel was sent to hospital who checked his records. At this point they discovered because he was blind in one eye, he was not supposed to be anywhere near the frontline. He spent the rest of the war in Egypt during which he built an abiding hatred of Australians. They nearly killed him twice by messing about with grenades. Once the Australians set one off in a cinema in Alexandria and the other time they were throwing grenades from a train.


Maternal Grandmother. She worked in the Bristol aeroplane factory where they built blenheim bombers. I didnt ever met her because she died of cancer when my father was 14. It was six weeks from diagnosis to her death.