July 23. A piece of family history.
Stopped by my Dad's house at about the half-way point on our trip back from Tennessee for an overnight visit. He took us to Mout Airy, NC last night for dinner, and we slept in until about 9am today. He's been going through some of my Mom's stuff, trying to figure out what to do with it, so we looked at some of it and talked about it. For some reason, our discussions lead us to the old cedar chest where some family heirloom quilts are stored. When we opened the chest, there was a removable shelf in the top with various compartments for storing small things. And in one of the compartments, among other things, was the bill for my brother's birth in 1959 which costs a whopping total of $176.50 and included a 5 night stay in the local hospital. Beneath the bill was these pay stubs. I guess $176.50 was a lot of money when you make about $40 per week.
I had always known that one of the local industries in the mountains where my Mom and Dad's family grew up was the local rubber plant. My Mom's father I knew worked there, and her mother also I think (although I remember her working for a company that made sweat shirts and sweat pants because we always received supplies of defective sweatshirts when we visited). I just never knew my Dad had worked there as well. This led our discussion is a multitude of directions. When my father returned from Germany after finishing his military service, with a baby (my Sister, who was born in Germany), he held a multitude of jobs. One of the jobs was driving a dump truck. The Federal government was in a big push to build the Interstate road system, and they were building I-81 through Wytheville VA at that time. So he had some small part in the costruction of Interstate 81, which I didn't know. After that, he drove a milk truck picking up milk from local farmers, driving it to be pasteurized and sold, and returning the empty milk cans back to the farmers. I remember when I was really little helping to milk cows, and the milk cans would be put in a large wooden box built in a creek bed to keep the milk cold until the milk truck came to take it away. This job I know about. Evidently, the next job in the line was the rubber plant. He worked there for a while until he realized there was no future in it. His military training had been in Field Radio Repair, and he quit his job at the rubber plant to take a job in Charlottesville, Va with Sperry, at which point he had to move away from his homeplace with my mom and my sister.
He said that my mom's dad, my grandfather, was not happy about it. He point blank told my dad that he was never going to amount to anything and he ought to just grit his teeth and keep working in the job had. Which is a side of my grandfather that I never knew. As it turns out, the job in Charlottesville was the job that that provided him training which allowed him to get an even better job at IBM, at which he worked until he retired. My grandfather wasn't ofen wrong or judgemental, but in this instance I'm glad my dad followed his instinct and not the voices of the nay-sayers around him.
July 23. A piece of family history.
Stopped by my Dad's house at about the half-way point on our trip back from Tennessee for an overnight visit. He took us to Mout Airy, NC last night for dinner, and we slept in until about 9am today. He's been going through some of my Mom's stuff, trying to figure out what to do with it, so we looked at some of it and talked about it. For some reason, our discussions lead us to the old cedar chest where some family heirloom quilts are stored. When we opened the chest, there was a removable shelf in the top with various compartments for storing small things. And in one of the compartments, among other things, was the bill for my brother's birth in 1959 which costs a whopping total of $176.50 and included a 5 night stay in the local hospital. Beneath the bill was these pay stubs. I guess $176.50 was a lot of money when you make about $40 per week.
I had always known that one of the local industries in the mountains where my Mom and Dad's family grew up was the local rubber plant. My Mom's father I knew worked there, and her mother also I think (although I remember her working for a company that made sweat shirts and sweat pants because we always received supplies of defective sweatshirts when we visited). I just never knew my Dad had worked there as well. This led our discussion is a multitude of directions. When my father returned from Germany after finishing his military service, with a baby (my Sister, who was born in Germany), he held a multitude of jobs. One of the jobs was driving a dump truck. The Federal government was in a big push to build the Interstate road system, and they were building I-81 through Wytheville VA at that time. So he had some small part in the costruction of Interstate 81, which I didn't know. After that, he drove a milk truck picking up milk from local farmers, driving it to be pasteurized and sold, and returning the empty milk cans back to the farmers. I remember when I was really little helping to milk cows, and the milk cans would be put in a large wooden box built in a creek bed to keep the milk cold until the milk truck came to take it away. This job I know about. Evidently, the next job in the line was the rubber plant. He worked there for a while until he realized there was no future in it. His military training had been in Field Radio Repair, and he quit his job at the rubber plant to take a job in Charlottesville, Va with Sperry, at which point he had to move away from his homeplace with my mom and my sister.
He said that my mom's dad, my grandfather, was not happy about it. He point blank told my dad that he was never going to amount to anything and he ought to just grit his teeth and keep working in the job had. Which is a side of my grandfather that I never knew. As it turns out, the job in Charlottesville was the job that that provided him training which allowed him to get an even better job at IBM, at which he worked until he retired. My grandfather wasn't ofen wrong or judgemental, but in this instance I'm glad my dad followed his instinct and not the voices of the nay-sayers around him.