#if she'd been born 50 years later she'd have been a force to be reckconed with

[bobcatmoran]

Watching the newest season of "Make Some Noise," and a prompt reminded me of a story that came out about my paternal grandma's father (i.e. my great-grandpa) when that branch of the family gathered together for a funeral a few years back.

Great-Grandpa D worked for the railroads on coal trains during the Great Depression, but the demand for coal went down during the summer, when folks weren't using it for heating, and he'd take all sorts of odd jobs to fill the seasonal gap in order to support his family of 8 children (they were devout Catholics and Grandma, the eldest child and the only girl until sibling #8, wound up going to boarding school mostly because they literally did not have room for her at home). One of those jobs was working as a cooper to make barrels for a big name, major bourbon distillery.

Great-Grandpa would bring a flask to work in his lunchbox, which didn't phase anyone at that time and place, but the flask would be empty. He'd fill it up from one of the barrels at the distillery, and bring it home to fill up a barrel he'd made there. Once he had a full barrel of bourbon, he'd sell it off for a tidy sum, and then repeat the process.

I'd probably stan him more, except when Grandma was valedictorian of her boarding school graduating class and got a full ride scholarship to a local college, he said she couldn't take it since she needed to come home and help take care of her younger siblings.

#life outside the internet #i was so mad on grandma's behalf and still am #she's so smart #managed the family's finances for years at a level that impressed uncle who was an acual accountant #sharp as a tack with card games well into her 90s #if she'd been born 50 years later she'd have been a force to be reckconed with #as it is she's the beloved matriarch of 3 generations who gathered together to move her into her new assisted living apartment #in only a few hours #she still knows a terrifying amount about all the first ladies #having read basically every biography published on them