Tell me about your grandparents
I'm curious about everybody's history. I wonder how we, as a cluster of Americans from around the continent, collectively tell the American story.
On my mom's side they were both Missouri sharecroppers, born in 1913. They were Church of Christ, got married at 21, and Grandpa got them off the farm in the Depression by going to Bible college in Tennessee. He became a preacher I moved around a bit till the 40s when he got a regular gig in Chicago, where they raised my mom and her sisters.
Eventually he became a teacher/preacher at small Bible college in northern Arkansas, and finally president of a Christian junior college in suburban Philadelphia. Grandma was very active, but in the sphere allowed to women in conservative Christianity in the midcentury. She led the wives' auxiliary everything. My mom went to the high school attached to the Arkansas college, then stayed on there after Grandma and Grandpa moved to Philly. That's where she and Dad met.
My dad's mom was the granddaughter of Oklahoma Sooners and grew up on a farm. My grandpa was born in Harrison, Arkansas (sometimes called the most racist town in America) in 1899 and ran off to join the merchant Marine just before World War One, which is a pretty dangerous gig. He eventually got a safer sailor job out of Seattle. There is a mystery about what he was doing during the 1920s, but around 1930 he showed up in Tulsa working for the railroad. They were 12 years apart and they "met cute" as they say in the movies.
Nana had just graduated from a secretarial school and on her first day on the job managed to spill an entire bottle of ink across the front of her nicest white silk blouse. He came to her rescue with a spare shirt he had (not a great fit, she told me). Around '32 or '33 they were married and he was promoted to managing the railroad office in Sapulpa OK, where my dad and aunt were born. Once in the 50s, my dad's dad ran for school board on an anti-segregation pledge and lost in a close race. Somehow my dad, raised a moderate Methodist, decided to become a Church of Christ preacher and went off to that same small Christian college in northern Arkansas.
All my grandparents were FDR and Truman Democrats. We didn't talk politics much, but I suspect they got pulled right by Reagan (not by civil rights as they were all strongly pro civil rights, pro desegregation, and gradually anti Vietnam War). The vast majority of my cousins probably voted for Trump tho. My parents just got leftier and leftier with the years--probably cause we lived in Houston instead of small towns.
Anyway, that's my grandparents' story and a bit of my folks'. You don't have to write that much, but I'm very curious about the religion and politics and ethnicity and vocations and geography of your families going 2 generations back. Share what you're comfortable with and anything else you think might add to the big American story (especially including family stories that might start outside the country).
= new reply since forum marked as read
Edward Joseph Kendrick, born 1851, came to America, settled in Pennsylvania in 1866, age 15
He came over on the Clara Wheeler
Great Grandpa Kendrick's family. He is the one in the center front row. My grandfather is in the 2nd row, 2nd from the left. I have no idea how they could afford such beautiful clothes. I asked my cousin Ed, who had the original pictures, what Great Grandpa Kendrick did for a living and he didn't even know. Ed and his father, Uncle Ted and my grandfather Merritt Irwin Kendrick have a farm in Illinois.
KENDRICK FAMILY
Samuel George Kendrick, with his brother, Tom, and his wife, Anna Jacob, natives of Ireland, immigrated to America in the winter of 1848, landing in New Orleans. Four years later, they came to Pike County and settled in Derry Township on eighty acres of land. Thomas later settled in the state of Washington where his family was raised. Samuel encouraged his brother, William, to also come to America. So in 1866, William and Maria (Heffron) Kendrick and their six children: Edward Joseph, John (Jack), Belle, Jane, Mary and Kate took passage on a sailing vessel bound for America and after five weeks and three days on the ocean landed at Castle Garden, New York.
A bad storm on the ocean caused the ship to lose about two weeks sailing time. The masts on it were all torn down during the storm. They had booked passage on a larger boat, but it was already filled up and they were not allowed to board it, but were put on a smaller one. The big boat was caught in the same storm and never heard of again. So only a trick of fate placed them on the sailing vessel, Clara Wheeler, and granted them a safe landing in America. They stopped in Ohio for a few weeks to visit relatives before coming to Pike County. After a period of three years, William passed away in 1869. His widow afterwards married Joseph McFarland and her death occurred in March 1902.
The two boys, Edward and John (Jack), worked several years for their uncle, Samuel Kendrick, before coming to New Canton where they later established homes. Edward Joseph Kendrick was born in Kildare County, Ireland, April 3, 1851 and passed away October 17, 1935. On January 9, 1879 Mr. Kendrick was married to babel McFarland, daughter of George and Irene Gage McFarland. To this union were born fourteen children: John T., George, Edward, Irene, Ellis, Everett, Mary, Logan, Dora, Earl, Dewey, Merritt, Effie, and Bessie Mildred. John (Jack) Kendrick was born in Kildare County, Ireland on June 24, 1855 and passed away January 16, 1946. On August 15, 1877 he was married to Mary Wheelan, daughter of James and Isabelle Brown Wheelan. To this union were born ten children: William, James, Isabelle, Charles, Harry, Katherine, Samuel, Mary, Eliza, and John L. Both Mr. Kendricks were staunch Republicans and had always been very interested in local politics.
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There was a lot of big problems brewing in the timeframe my Great Grandfather left Ireland.
http://www.maggieblanck.com/Mayopages/LandIssues.html
Clash Between Tenants and Police, County Mayo, November 1881
At Garkill, a hamlet near Belmullet on the north-west coast of Co, Mayo, there was a confrontation between local inhabitants and the police on October 28, 1881.
THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS Nov. 12, 1881
Grawkill "perched on the side of a mountain overlooking the Atlantic" consisted of "about a dozen houses of the meanest and poorest class". A process server accompanied by about 60 police was about to serve "summonses for the rates."
"The people of the neighborhood, seeing the police approaching, gathered to the number of about three hundred. When the police were ascending the mountain path that leads to the village, they were assaulted by the crowd, from the heights above, with showers of stones. The police charged them up the hill several times but they returned to the assault. The sub-inspector in command at length gave the order to fire, which was obeyed, and some of the shots took effect, but even after some of the rioters were wounded, they did not retire. Twenty-four shots were fired. An elderly woman who received a wound in the throat and a charge of buckshot in the chest, is dead, and a young woman who received a bullet on the left side. Many others were less seriously wounded. Several of the police were injured. More than twenty persons were arrested and sent to Castlebar Jail."
Its a great picture. I agree that a 14 year old wouldn't have worn that, I doubt they would have let her style her hair in such a grown up fashion either. She is the most fashion forward of the group, and that fits with her being late teens/early 20's. Although, the lady second from the left is wearing fantastic shoes. The second from the right also has good shoes, they all have good shoes, honestly. I'm biased though, because I love shoes from the 20s/30s/40s.
Thanks again, I was searching early 1930s, so taking it back a couple of years will help. 
Most of my great-great grandparents were born in Germany or Ireland (one was from Norway) and they came over in the 1850's & 60's. The ancestors settled in Saint Louis, MO and parts of Wisconsin as young adults and met and married their spouses after the Civil War. My Dad's family is the Saint Louis group, my Mom's family is the Wisconsin group, but she eventually came with her parents to Saint Louis also.
So everyone after that was born in the USA, with the one exception of my Grandmother's father who came over from Northern Ireland as a young man around 1890. When I was born in 1951 (in Saint Louis) all 4 of my great-grandmothers were living, as well as my 4 grandparents who were still in their 50's. I was lucky to grow up knowing my grandparents for several years before they passed away.
I think it's a wonderful experience for children to know their grandparents and great-grandparents because it adds a lot of perspective to our later years with our own kids and grandchildren.
My paternal grandfather I never met. He was a sergeant in the army, born of Irish immigrant parents in the Bronx. He once went out bowling with his mates and overindulged a bit...ending up sleeping on the train to the end of the line. He died in 1971 of a massive heart attack. He was only 48. His youngest sister, a Franciscan nun who was a nurse, passed away this past Saturday at age 93.
My paternal grandmother was one of a kind. She too was born of Irish immigrant parents, and raised in the Bronx. She got a degree in nursing and and then a Masters degree in nursing as well, and was a school nurse for many years. She and my granddad moved to New Jersey in 1965, and I grew up in the house they bought. My parents had the garage converted to an apartment for her, and I got to grow up with her caring for me. She had the patience of a saint: my earliest memories are of sitting on her kitchen floor with every pot, pan, and spice jar "cooking" with her. She would let me comb her hair while we watched Kojak or Golden Girls. We went to mass every Sunday and then she took me for donuts or breakfast. She was one of a very proud neighbourhood of Irish Republicans; she'd probably be mortified I'm living in England I was devastated when she moved after my parents separated (even though she only moved 2 miles away). She supported me in everything I did. She believed in the separation of Church and State, despite being a super devout Catholic. She was always there for her kids and grandkids. I miss her every day.
My mom's parents were born of Italian immigrants. My grandpa played baseball and had a tryout with the Yankees...and then blew out his knee in the Navy during WWII. He worked hard his whole life, coming from pretty much nothing at all, and raised 5 kids and got to travel around the world. He was one of my biggest supporters. I was devastated when he died in 2012.z
Now my maternal grandma was a force of nature. Her father survived the Messina earthquake in 1907 that killed his parents and 6 siblings. So he migrated to the US, became friends with Al Capone, but stayed in New York where he met my grand-grandma. In the '20s, they ran a speakeasy in NYC and in Philly, which was pretty rad. Anyway, my grandma was their middle child. She was a diminutive lady with a sharp with and sharp tongue. She didn't take shit from anyone. When I was a kid, we'd have "cooking camp" so my parents could get away from my sisters and I. I learned to make so many things from scratch. She got Lewi-Body dementia. That was horrendous and I am sad to think of how she suffered mentally in her final years.
Thanks to all (so far) for sharing your stories.
and in the words of Oliver Twist: "MORE PLEASE!"
My maternal grandmother was very German in her mannerisms, and it was always a treat for us to go visit her and Grandpa in New York City. I never knew much about her background except her family name, which was Feiler. My grandfather was the descendant of deadbeat Mississippi riverboat gamblers who fled north to the anonymity of New York City to escape their debts. He grew up dirt poor, joined the army and fought in World War One in France. He felt forced to write his mom letters saying how nice Europe was, all the while suffering in worse misery than he had ever could have imagined.
Never having the money to get a formal higher education, he did what he could to get by. After the war, he and my grandmother got married in New York, having two daughters just as the Great Depression hit. He made a few dimes every day from a few families bringing their neighborhood kids to school and back. He finally got himself a job with a Madison Avenue advertising firm, who soon recognized his wit and humor, and put it to good use. For years, his wit turned into successful ad campaigns, and he retired with enough money to buy himself and his wife a comfortable apartment on the upper east side (89th street). Such slogans as "Smirnoff Vodka, it leaves you breathless!" and "quick as a wink, you're in the pink with Pepto Bismol" sprang from his imagination. One time, in the 1960s, my mom was driving us all through Washington DC to meet my dad there for something. LBJ was president, and the War on Poverty and the population explosion were the talk of the day. Out of the blue, my grandfather said he was going to start a "War on Puberty to stop the Copulation Explosion." My mom was laughing so hard, she nearly lost control and came close to running the car up the steps of the FBI building. My grandmother got Alzheimers, and faded away at age 80, at which point he took up painting as a hobby. His humor shone through still, and his most famous painting, a parody of a corporate board meeting, now hangs in my dining room. It's called "The Blockheads," and with good reason.
At age 99, he sent out a Christmas card with a photo of himself (looking quite his age) with the caption, "Compliments of the Seasoned." He lasted three more years, his wit full intact until he died in his sleep one October night at age 102.
My dad's father was the son of a poor tailor from Charleston, South Carolina. He somehow was accepted at Harvard, but since he was penniless, he worked his way through college as a janitor. This guy, who I only knew as an elegant, well-spoken grandfather, cleaning other people's shit as a means of getting an education was unimaginable to me, but it was a different world, then. The poor tailor's son from Charleston got his bar exam, and for a few years even served as deputy mayor of New York City, ending up as a justice on the New York State Supreme Court. He and his wife were both heavy smokers, and neither lived to the age of 70.
My dad's mom was a powerhouse in her own right. She was the daughter of a Jewish immigrant from what is now Slovakia. He became a prominent New York Attorney in the first third of the 20th century. Her mom was a Russian immigrant (family name Popkin) with prematurely white hair who came off the boat at age 4. My grandmother, whose hair also turned prematurely white, got involved in politics at an early age. She was labor liason for Mayor La Guardia in New York, but was fired for being too cozy with labor, and not cozy enough with Republican mayor LaGuardia. She later (1948) worked as a New York fundraiser for the mayor of Minneapolis, who was making his first run for the US Senate. I still have one the fund-raising letters she sent out. His name was Hubert Humphrey, and he did indeed win his Senate race. Our family connection to the "Minnesota Democratic Mafia" remains unbroken to this day, although I have never even set foot there. She was also a supporter of living modern artists, and their apartment was full of oddball (to me) paintings and small sculptures. I remember a couple of strange bronze sculptures by a Swiss from Ticino, called Alberto Giacometti. When she died at the young age of 66, the grandchildren were allowed to request items from her "collection" to keep in the family. I wanted (and got) an abstract painting of squares in shades of blue by an American painter from New York. I had always liked it, and my parents knew that. My dad only had to pay a couple of hundred dollars inheritance tax, as the artist was still living. My cousin wanted one of the bronze sculptures by Giacometti, but Giacometti had died a year before my grandmother, and the work was assessed at $16,000. To keep it in the family, his dad would have had to fork over half, i.e. $8000, in inheritance taxes, an amount he couldn't afford at the time. It sold at public auction a year later, in 1967, for $25,000. My cousin must have been sick when he saw that same sculpture come up for sale at an auction in New York some forty years later, with my grandmother still listed as a previous owner. It sold for $4 million.
Needless to say, with a background like that, my parents were not exactly boring, either. My dad became a prominent journalist, moved down to Virginia, where I was born. He commuted into Washington every day, preferring to report on people in the limelight, rather than stand in it himself. But even with his low-key style, he became sort of an icon in his own right. Just as he sought a path that did not require him to be constantly held to his father's standard, I did the same. Some shoes are just too big to fill. Neither I nor my siblings even bothered to try. My mom did her own thing, too, volunteering for community classical orchestras, building a cello (her main instrument, along with the piano) for fun, and teaching immigrants English. Learning to do things for herself at an early age from her depression-era childhood, she was also a carpenter, electronic tinkerer and gardener. She also kept a keen eye on the DC political scene, which was pretty much inevitable anyway, since it came home to the dinner table every night. What did Art (Buchwald) or Helen (Thomas) have to say about this or that? As might be expected, although we never entered politics directly, we still kept up with it, and my brother and I maintained my father's political contacts as well as made our own. His friends in the Senate were named Javits, Humphrey, Mondale, Kennedy, Church, etc. Mine are named Kelly, Ossoff and Hickenlooper. Same idea, different cast of characters.
The beat goes on.
Great idea for a thread, by the way. Complimenti!
It is good that since those days, religion has faded.
According to some of the Catholics, the Protestant grandmother called the oldest kid a "Catholic bastard."
Then the Protestant mother was under pressure to turn Catholic. She finally did for a 50th anniversary renewal of vows ceremony. She was good friends with the priests anyway, along the way. One called her "brand X" but in fondness, they were said to be great friends.
She would cook them a big breakfast while they were at midnight mass when they were young - they loved the tradition of coming home at 1 a.m. to eggs and bacon! She could only do that because she didn't have to go to Mass! 
I guess they kept away from arguing over doctrine, though. I don't think mother (my grandmother) was all that rabid a Protestant!
