re: #197 HappyWarrior
WASP I dunno brings to mind for me Cheever short stories
Good read. My most recent ancestor arrived in 1921- my living grandmother’s mother. A poor girl from NE Slovakia who didn’t know who her father was who stayed with her uncle and his family until she married my widower great grandfather coal miner. Their son served in WWII, youngest daughter was the valedictorian and first college graduate in the family. And my grandmother had to work as a secretary and waitress for my mom and uncle’s upbringing. Mom and I’ll always be proud of her for this has lived the dream by defining herself but she hasn’t forgotten where her family started.
Sounds much like my family history, grandparents all arrived from Central Europe (Slovakia, Bohemia, Croatia, Hungary) around the turn of the last century. Uncles served in WW2.
Paternal grandfather went to work in the coal mines in Iowa, later moved to Gary, Indiana, where my dad rolled steel. All us kids “graduated” to a middle-class or even upper-middle-class existence in the case of my oldest brother and sister, who are millionaires.