What was the job of your grandmother?

My maternal grandmother was a model, not as we think of it today, but she worked in a department store and modelled the clothes for customers.

Her own mother worked in the mills in Oldham.

My grandfather spotted her on one of his trips to buy for his shop in York, billed as ‘the largest linen drapers in the North’, they ‘courted’ for five years then married and had four children who lived a very privileged lifestyle.

My paternal grandmother was Scottish, I don’t know if she had a job before marrying my grandfather but she died of TB aged 32 leaving my father aged 3years old and my two aunts aged 5years old and 10 months. I have often wondered how she must have worried about leaving her babies.

I didn’t know my paternal grandfather as he had died long before I was born.

Correction: My paternal grandmother (born 1886) trained as a nurse etc.

My maternal grandmother (born 1885) was a seamstress and made tailored costumes and dresses for ladies. When times were really bad she took in washing. Her husband never found permanent employment after returning from WWI. They had six children. I never met either of my grandfathers who both died before I was born. My grandmother continued to sew after retiring and often made clothes for her GCs. There were 29 of us.

My maternal grandmother (born 1886) trained as a nurse and married a doctor in 1911. They had two children and were well off enough to employ nannies. Both children went to boarding school from the age of six. My grandmother drove a sports car. She flew supplies in a light aircraft during WWI. My grandfather never learned to drive and had a chauffeur. He served in the Medical Corps with the ANZACS in WWI.

My maternal grandmother was an army wife, travelled all over the world and so did not have a job. My paternal grandmother was an WW1 widow with young children and she did not have a job either as far as I know.

Up until the 60 s when I worked in London in the civil service if a woman married she had to leave. Something to do with taking a mans job when she now had a husband to bring home the proverbial bacon. I was only 15 or 16 and thought it shocking. It was then I became interested in women’s rights, or the lack of them. The equal pay act was enforced 50 years ago this year, yet we still don’t have parity.
As for my grandmothers, I only had one and I don’t know what she did. Something manual I would imagine. The family were not well off.

My maternal grandmother died in childbirth and my paternal grandmother worked in the poor house in Stockport as well as trying to feed five children. My paternal grandfather was an alcoholic pedlar, so no use to anyone.

My maternal grandmother was a farmer’s wife with 8 children in 1920s/1930s in a farm with no running water and a well in the nearest field.

She cooked three meals a day, baked her own bread and cakes and didn’t have a washing machine until the early 60s. The kitchen floor was scrubbed daily and chamberpots were still used overnight…☹️

She kept chickens and pigs and harvested rhubarb, plums, apples for jams and chutneys and another sideline was teaching
tonic sol-fa.

We enjoyed farm holidays there from Spring through to autumn half term and I rarely saw her sitting down! Maybe a cuppa whilst listening to Mrs Dales Diary each afternoon when she would nod off occasionally as I read quietly.

She rose at 6am each morning and never went to bed before 10pm and whilst the wireless was on all day I never saw her watching television in the sitting room!

She was my example of a SAHM and worked a darn sight harder, for longer every day of the week, than I or my mother ever did and didn’t “retire” from the farm until she was 75.

My maternal grandmother was a teacher in the school where my grandfather was headmaster. She taught the younger children. I don’t know dates, but she was born c. 1875.

My paternal grandmother, who was Irish, left school at about 12 and worked as a housemaid, then housekeeper. She was fanatical about her children having a better education than she had, and my father got a scholarship to university, as did his younger sister. This was in the 1920s.

My paternal grandmother worked for her father who was a photographer in partnership with his brother- in -law, they had a studio in both south London and Marseilles. Great grandfather had lived in France on and off. My grandmother as a young woman, went down to France with her father pre WW1 to assist him in his studio. My paternal grandfather, Maltese, also a photographer, left the confines of his small island to go to France and worked for my great grandfather for a while, which is how my grandparents met. When the war broke out he fought in the British Army and came back to London and set up his own photography studio after he fell out with the great grandfather. My grandparents married and they lived over his studio shop for a while in cramped accommodation, eventually they bought a house in Wimbledon, but that was probably not until the '30s. I don't know what my grandmother did after that because she had children throughout the 20s and 30s, so I imagine she was quite busy being a housewife and mother.

I know my maternal grandmother was some sort of auxiliary in the women's war effort, stationed in Biggin Hill I believe during WW1, I have a picture of her in a uniform. I don't know whether she worked after she had children, my maternal granddad was in the Navy during that war, apparently they met whilst looking in the same shop window so I'm told and married in 1919. I think money was tight and they lived in North London with my grandfather's parents, my great grandfather, who came from Alsace had a factory manufacturing women's clothing, I only recently found out he was actually Jewish, a bit text book in that all that branch of extended family were in the rag trade, his brother was a very wealthy milliner. That great grandfather had several houses, and he let my grandparents live in one half of a house he owned, they lived next door, I don't know what would have become of them if they hadn't had that safety net, they were fairly skint around that time, maternal grandmother's people on one side were poor Irish immigrants and equally poor on the English side of the family. I think they may have both worked for the great grandfather on and off. Eventually, sometime in the 30s they got enough money together to put a deposit down on a house and moved out to Bromley. I don't really remember either of my grandmothers having jobs when I was a child.

My paternal grandmother never worked. She was one the older girls in a family of 13 and helped look after her younger siblings until she got married.
I never knew my maternal grandmother.

My grandmother's first job was as a cook in a large Jewish house in Glasgow. Many of her recipes had that connection ie Apple Kugel. once she was married and had a fairly large family, she worked as a cleaner in the local church. My other gran never worked after she was married as far as I know.

My maternal grandma ran her own dancing school in London and taught several famous actors to dance , we have lovely photos of her with people like Jack Hawkins , when she wasn't dancing she and her third husband travelled the world , my mother has always said her mother was born ahead of her time !

My maternal grandmother did the accounts for the family business. Alongside that she was a very good home maker. She also won shooting prizes at Bisley.
Their death meant I never knew my paternal grandparents.

She had 10 children but used to sew and make clothes. Grandad owned a factory but I don’t think she was involved with that, it was heavy industry. My other Grandma helped in their jewellery store when she wasn’t looking after her 3 children.

That's an interesting question - going to check Ancestry census files sometime soon and see if I can unearth anything.
I'm doing a family tree and have been badgering family for any old photos and news cuttings they may have to add in to family members personal histories.

My paternal grandmother worked in Fry’s chocolate factory in Bristol. My maternal grandmother ran a market stall in Liverpool not sure what she was selling.

My paternal grandmother died before I was born and didn’t work before marriage
My maternal grandmother was a trained singer of light opera changing venues weekly. My mum said she had a glorious voice. After marriage all that stopped and she had three children. Her husband died aged 40 and she then started dressmaking to keep the family out of the workhouse.

Both my grandmothers were farmer’s wives, busy running the dairies, looking after the poultry flocks etc. my mother was the same but not me

Sadly both grandmothers had died by the time I was born. 😢

My maternal grandmother worked in an up market store in Plymouth until her marriage after which she worked at home - unpaid of course.

My paternal grandmother never worked as far as I can see. Remained a housewife all her life.

Maternal grandmother was a switchboard operator before her marriage. Much later in her married life, when my gfather was unemployed, she worked as a cleaner. Apart from those periods she was a 'housewife'.

My paternal grandmother was a shop assistant before marriage. After that, a housewife.

I only knew my paternal grandmother was a housewife married to a miner. I have no idea if she ever worked. My father was forced to leave school at 14 so she would have left at a young age also. This was in Scotland.

I never knew my maternal grandmother. She was a farmer's wife and had 8 children, one of whom died around 2. She died at a young age also. This was in Southern Ireland.

My maternal grandmother was a professional pianist. Her husband left her when the children were quite young. At one stage, she owned a sweet shop in the Lake District, but it didn't do well, so she bought a house, which she rented out. She then inherited another house from her parents and lived on rental income.

My paternal grandmother was a GPO telephonist. She stopped work when she married my grandfather.

One of my grandfather's sisters went to university, which was quite unusual for a woman in those days, and was a history teacher.

Maternal grandmother a teacher, paternal a potter painter.

My maternal grandmother married very young, had three children, husband died WW1, youngest child was 2.
She married again, had two children ,died in childbirth with
my mother

Paternal grandmother, daughter of Baptist minister, she worked in the parish visiting parishioners etc . Married a
coal miner, 5 children