What did your folks do for work, from early to late?

[adamsredlines]

Dad worked for Kroger is whole life. Started as a bagger at 16 in Memphis, was an assistant store manager at 18, got his own store in Mississippi at 20 or 21....ran several stores then got into the corporate side as a regional sales manager and that took him from Memphis to Indianapolis, then finished out his years at their headquarters in Cincinnati where he retired at 55.

Mom was stay-at-home mom her whole life except for a few summers when I was in Highschool, she worked at a seasonal garden center one of the church Deacons owned.

 

[SPOONBILL]

The old man was covered with tattoos and scars
He got some in prison and others in bars
The rest he got working on old junk cars
In the daytime
They looked like tombstones in our yard
And I never seen him when he wasn't tired and mean
He sold used parts to make ends meet
Covered with grease from his head to his feet
Cussing the sweat and the Oklahoma heat
And mosquitos
And the neighbors said we lived like hicks
But they brung their cars for pa to fix anyhow
He was veteran-proud, tried and true
He'd fought 'till his heart was black and blue
Didn't know how he'd made it through the hard times

Mama she's old, far beyond her time
From chopping tobacco and I've seen her cryin'
When blood started flowin' from her calloused hand
And it hurt me
She'd just keep working, tryin' to help the old man
To the end of one row and back again like always
She's been through hell since Junior went to jail
When the lights go out she ain't never failed
To get down on her knees and pray
Because she loves him

 

[Hirschkopf]

Dad: Kansas Department of Transportation office manager > Full Time KS National Guard office clerk > Kansas State Fish and Game Warehouse manager > KDOT Engineering Technician. Part time volunteer fire department, ambulance service, and Army Reserves MP in the early years.

Mom: Grade school lunch cashier > Gibson's clerk> Kansas State Fish and Game data control technician

They both retired on the same day (younger than I am now) from their KS state jobs.

 

[GeneW]

Dad was born in 1912, Mom in 1916. I stay that only because back in those days people usually had a really good work ethic and tried to learn how to do more things.

Both went through the Great Depression, Dad got his degree in Agronomy from Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater (now today is OSU Stillwater). Dad went to work for the State Of Oklahoma and ran what they called "Experiement Stations" back then, he worked on getting better Sweet Potatoes, I'm told he did the work for a patent but the State or Oklahoma A&M got it. He knew a LOT about all kinds of livestock, I have correspondence from him to others via the US Mail back in the 30's and 40's of such. I'm amazing these letters were not lost or thrown out or burned back in the day. It's a treasure to pull those out of the box and read them. BTW postage stamps were cheap back then!

Later he went to work for the Oklahoma Unemployment Service, in the late 50's or early 60's, until he passed.

He and Mom had a Greenhouse & Nursery Business, Mom ran it during the day, Dad helped at night and weekends. They put my young butt to work as toddler, weeding, watering, keeping things neat, and I learned how to add up, with a pencil and paper, peoples purchases, collect the $$$ and make change in my head and give them the change back. No calculators yet back in that day, at least easily available.

Dad also had a small farm just outside of town, raised hogs and a few cows, raised sweet potatoes, pecan trees, etc. Anything to make $$$. He had to put 21 plates of food on the table every day. We always had a big garden, and Mom would can a lot in Mason Jars.

He also taught Welding at the Granite Reformatory, and some livestock type teachings, to the inmates. I was told that this was desired to help them when they got out of prison to hopefully get a gainful job and stay out of prison.

The story I got later on from my other older relatives, aunts and uncles and grandparents, was that back in those days, a young man who had his head on straight, and who went through the Great Depression, would learn everything he coud. Dad did, for sure. He could repair cars and tractors, weld, paint, build and repair houses and barns, all kinds of mechanic work, electrical and plumbing, knew how to grow and raise things, and a lot more. You just don't see that nowadays.

Oh yeah, just to clarify, the stories I was told, and lessons pounded into my skull, were the struggles of eating and being housed safely and all that from the Great Depression and up and through the days of World War 2 Rationing, and the inevitable recessions along the way. There was really nothing back then like things now, such as todays Welfare, Food Stamps, Section 8, free this and that. You sank or swam back then. Tough bunch of old birds they were.

 

[Glock 'em down]

My parents owned a small, hometown market/deli (pre convenience store) in Claremore, Oklahoma in the 70s. Dad also worked for Phillips 66 as a service station attendant/asst. manager on the Will Rogers turnpike.

In the summer of 1978, he received word of a position opening at the Hanna, Oklahoma station on the Indian Nation turnpike, which was closer to his hometown, Holdenville. So they sold the store and the house and we moved to Holdenville in the spring of 79. My oldest brother was furious! It was gonna be his senior year at Claremore High School, and he had to leave it all behind and go to a new, rural, country school, Moss.

In late 1983, T. Boone Pickens was having a heyday buying out all oil companies that he could get his hands on. Phillips Petroleum being one of them. The Hanna station where my father worked was one of the first ones on the list, so he was transferred to the station in Bristow. So dad bought a small, but livable travel trailer and moved to Bristow, working during the week and coming home on most weekends.

By fall of 1985, the Bristow station was also closed, and they were gonna send dad to a station in Vinita, Oklahoma. Not appreciating that 3 hour drive from home, he was offered a partial retirement and he took it at the age of 50 years old.

But retirement was not in the cards for my folks. In 1990, they bought a local cafe/deli in town and ran it for about six years, before one of their employees took interest in ownership, and they sold it to her lock, stock and barrel.

By 1996, they finally paid off their home and cars and settled in for a good long retirement, that they did enjoy until their deaths. Mom died from a UTI that had gone septic on June 10, 2018...dad just 11 days later from cancer.

 

[emapples]

Lets see my old man worked for Telex most of his career, then Memorex Telex, then Worldcom, then Willtell….got shitcanned during the dot com bust and never worked again I don’t Think

 

[OkieJoe72]

Dad ran a country store (groceries, beer, bait, and BS) for about 40 years. He worked seven days a week for all of those forty years starting around 5:00 AM and quitting around 10:00 PM. He never missed a day. He built the store after he got fired as a math teacher for holding a kid out of the window. He is the toughest man that I’ve ever known. The store, Bubba’s, is still in operation, but it is ran more like a convenience store nowadays. We still own the property, but the store is leased to a tenant that runs it. I grew up in that store stocking, sweeping, picking up trash, and pumping gas.

Mom was a high school English teacher. She dedicated her life to teaching and also pleading with me to not act like my dad. She received her doctorate in the early 90’s, and she became an assistant superintendent for a vo-tech. She retired from Oklahoma, and she then moved to Arizona where she worked another 20 years as an administrator for a vocational school out there. The day before she passed away, I received a very nice letter written by a former student that she taught at Elgin HS in the early 70’s. The letter told about how much she enjoyed having my mom as a teacher and how my mom affected her life in a positive way. I never got to read the letter to my mom, but we read it at her funeral service.

 

[Aku]

Farmer, rancher, welder, carpenter, gardener. Then WWII joined the Navy. Then, farmer, rancher, welder, carpenter, gardner, school janitor and kitchen help, FFA sponsor, letter carrier, locksmith, Mason.
Mother, made sure we were fed, healthy, did school work, and didn't run over her tulips with the lawn mower.

 

[Poke78]

Dad: born 1919, both parents dead by the time he turned 12, raised by his oldest brother. Worked in the KS oil field until he went in the Army Air Corps in the run-up to WW2, served in N. Africa & England, returned to KS after the war, worked some as a meat cutter, a short while with Halliburton, then returned to Texaco where he had worked before the war. Stayed there as a pumper or roustabout until his passing in 1973.

Mom: born 1924, her dad was a railroad sheet metal repair welder for Santa Fe, her mom was a telephone operator. Went to nursing school out of HS, graduated 1945, worked as an RN the rest of her work life for clinics, hospitals, surgeons, and, finally in a nursing home. Retired & eventually spent her last couple of weeks in the same nursing home where she had worked.

 

[Chief Sapulpa]

…dad was a Battle of the Bulge survivor. He was pinned down in the snow long enough to have his feet develop frostbite…

My dad was there as well and he too got frostbite but only in his hands.
He was radio operator for General Hobbs 30th Division and arrived Day 3 at Normandy.