Our grandmothers' achievements - what did yours do?

This not so much as an achievement, more of a "I know you are testing me "
My grandmother at the age of about 15 started a new job as a ladys maid, one of her jobs was to clean the bedroom, on the floor in the corner was a sixpence ( a lot of money in those days) she knew it was there to test her so she added a penny of her own money ( again that would have been a lot of money for her) to the sixpence and left it there. That told the lady she was working for I know that was put there to see if I am honest, now how honest are you ????

My Grandmother nursed my Grandfather after he was crushed in a mining accident , when he was well enough she brought him up to London where their daughters (my Mum & Aunt were in service) she rented space and opened a cafe which provided for the family for a long time. She was a girl from a mining village in Wales and hadn't even been to London before this time.. I think that was quite an achievement.

My Nana, became pregnant during her time working as a maid for a wealthy family and was forced to leave her family home. Without State benefits or a husband, she raised my mother in the most difficult of circumstances. She was still working well into her eighties. A remarkable lady in so many ways. Proud

tanith - quite an achievement indeed.

My Grandma was the first English women's bowling champion. With a friend she helped found the English Women's Bowling Asociation. She worked all her life as well, as a colourist of photographs. (Not a job for which there is much call now.)

My maternal grandmother was brought up in a well to do family - her father owned a building company - and became a milliner. My grandfather was an antiques dealer after being in the navy but sadly they lost all their money. My grandmother took the bull by the horns and opened a B & B with my grandfather as the waiter and general factotum and was very popular apparently with visitors returning year after year. She told me a lovely tale of when she was in a diligence with her family and it overturned! Fortunately noone was badly hurt. She and I had a number of set to's over the years but I respected her although she wasn't the cuddly grandma sort of person.

My paternal grandma died at the age of 21 by which time she'd had 2 children by 2 different fathers. My father's father was an Australian private who went back to OZ and then grandma married a man who took their son back to relatives in Gloucestershire when she died. My father from the age of 3 was brought up by his mother's parents which must have been very difficult for them. Having grandchildren tires me out and although I see them most days I don't have them for long. It must have been very hard for Great Grandma whose husband died when dad was 14. I admire her enormously.

My paternal granny was one of the first women to be trained as a pastry chef in a top London Hotel. She married a man who had lots of money which he lost in an ill-fated business scheme. Granny then bought a 'Commercial Hotel', doing all the cooking herself but specialising in afternoon teas, and did very well.

My maternal Nan was a mill girl (don't tell my Mum I told you) who brought the other girls out on strike after her thumb got caught in one of the machines. She got the sack but they changed the machines to make them safer.

My husband's maternal Grandma was a gent's tailor!

Brilliant women.

My grandmother was a missionary in Calcutta and managed to change the law there. Local white"bar" owners used local girls as hostesses, whilst actually running brothels on their premises, procuring local girls for the British. This practice was outlawed and many bars closed as a result. She died when I was 18 months,so I've only seen photographs.

Great stories!
My Nana was an unpaid servant in the family home - there were 6 brothers and as it was the depression they did not marry young. She did all the heavy work, including carrying the whole coal delivery through the house to store in the bunker in the back yard. During the war she had her husband conscripted into the pay corps. She had daughters 2 and 3 during the war, both at home and one of them breech. She coped alone in the Swansea blitz, which must have been terrifying. She was in her 40s. Husband died in his 50s (cigarettes) closely followed by my father (her SIL). My mother worked as a teacher and again Nana did all the housework for a family of 6 women. She had a much more leisurely old age and enjoyed her children and great grandchildren.
My Gran's husband was disabled by being gassed in the trenches and he died in his 40s. Her son (my dad) was disabled by rheumatic heart disease. She was a fantastic money manager. Among other things she ran a "Christmas club" - she collected money from people every week, banked it and returned it to them in time for xmas - she kept the interest. She was very bright and would have made a good accountant or manager. Her other son emigrated to Canada just a few short years after the death of my father. She had to be very brave - I'm glad she saw a lot of me and my sister and my mother always made sure of this. I remember her breaking up a fight - teenage boys in the caravan park - waded in and told them they should be ashamed of themselves! Unfortunatly she smoked and did not live to enjoy her great grandchildren.

My grandmother married in 1912 against her mother's (bit of an autocrat) wishes. She rented the house (in which my mother and I were born) and every week would go to the pawnshop and buy sheets etc which had not been redeemed, thus building her home.

During the last war, my mother told me, she was so upset that she couldn't make mince pies that she bought a pig's head, boiled it up, rendered the fat and made her pastry.

She'd left school at 11 to work in the lace factories in Nottingham, could play anything on the piano by ear, and quote great chunks of Shakespeare. When I brought DH home at the age of 14, she fell for him and from then on wouldn't talk to any other boy I brought home.

A resourceful woman!

My Nana survived the Harrow & Wealdstone railway crash in 1952. I was 5 years old and every detail of that morning is permanently imprinted on my brain.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrow_and_Wealdstone_rail_crash

What lovely stories. Our grandmother's were made of stern stuff. My paternal grandmother was abandoned by her husband when my father was only three. She brought him up as a single mother which was not easy in those days. He did very well at school followed by a successful career in the RAF so she must have done a good job! My so-called grandfather, however, scarpered, married bigamously and had no further contact with his son. Nan never spoke about him so we never knew if she found out about his second wife and son. I'd love to have given him a black eye but he died before I had the chance.

My paternal grandmother was in service, and told me many tales from that time, including the fact that when they had their period, they had to use up their entire laundry allowance for that week to send them to be washed - that really stuck in my memory - thank heavens for tampax!

After she was married she survived a serious miscarriage - the doctor had been sent for in the night, and because they could not pay for hospital treatment, he left her, telling my grandfather that she would not survive the night - she did! - thank heavens for the NHS - it makes me realise what a wonderful innovation that must have been for people at the time.

Her mother (my G Gmother) was a midwife in Devon and we heard tales of delivering babies in barns - she herself had 10 children, so how she found time to deliver others I do not know - or time to get pregnant!! - thank heavens for contraception!

My paternal grandma made a new life in England after the family was forced to flee her homeland. Although my grandpa was English he had not lived in England since he was 16 years old. Grandma's brothers and sister all ended up in different countries miles apart. Her experience did make her bitter but she was a tiger for her kids and her grandchildren: we were loved to pieces!

My maternal Nana was a seamstress. She was widowed in her late 40's and when my (unmarried) aunt had a child Nana brought him up and faced the the gossip with head held high. She worked from home with her treadle Singer sewing machine . A brilliant cake maker and cook she was tough but so very kind too!

Over my morning cup of coffee, I have been reading these stories. Wonderful all!

My maternal gran was a housekeeper. She was 40 when she married my grandfather. He was in the Indian army and when he returned to England he suffered he from the effects of his time in the army. His doctor,seeing that he was depressed, told him to 'go and get a wife'! He was 56 at the time. My gran ,in 1904, had a daughter-my mother-and when my mother won a scholarship to the grammar school, granny went charring to pay the school fee which was a few pence a week. She always told me not to use a big floor cloth as it made your hands big and to look after my knees!

Some amazing stories

I read them with a ting of sadness though, I couldn't tell you anything about either of my grandmothers. My paternal nan died when I was 13 and my maternal nan when I was 23. Unfortunately dad died 25yrs ago and mum has altzhimers so I can't ask.

nina my friend lost her parents and grandparents before she could learn much about their family history, so she set about researching through ancestry.com and has found out lots of stories, as well as getting in touch with distant relatives who had stories and photos of her grandparents and greatgrandparents. A few weeks ago she set off to Sheffield to visit a library to look at their microfiche newspaper records, and a local church to find out about some parish records. She has put together the most amazing stories and history of her family and now has a big file of family stories and a family tree to give to her own grandchildren. She keeps reminding me we should write down some stories about ourselves for the next generations, too.

My English maternal granny was brought up in a well-to-do household by a governess-cum-nanny because her mother died giving birth to her sister - my great aunt. Eventually, my great grandfather managed to somehow squander the family money (allegedly on the horses), granny married my grandfather and moved to his home in Scotland (taking her profligate father with her to live with them) where his family business went to the wall in the depression. She turned to every possible task to keep the family going. She kept chickens in the back garden and grew all kinds of vegetables. She also did beautiful embroidery and tried her best to teach me to sew. A difficult task! She was very artistic and had gone to art school in her youth. I still have some of her pencil drawings. When she was getting on a bit, she would paint everything in sight, including the bath which she did with gloss paint and it couldn't be used for quite some time. In the summer time she would bare her arms and legs and sit in the sun, a mass of freckles and white curly hair.

My paternal grandma and grandpa had 12 children 8 boys and 4 girls my dad was the 4th boy all the boys where in the services either Army RAF or Navy when they where all younger grandma and grandpa used to argue a lot according to my dad and grandpa would arrive at my parents house on a regular basis after grandma had thrown him out for some reason,grandpa died when I was 3 and grandma went on to run the house as a boarding house for Irish workers who where working on the roads over here,she had 14 beds which she made every day all the breakfasts and evening meals and their takeout lunches which was included in their board and lodging,she ran a tight ship when it came to lodgers and my dad tells me the tale of her going into one of the bedrooms and finding one of her lodgers in bed with his socks on,hense bobbles on the sheets so he got short shrift and was shown the door.She lived until she was 97 and was widowed 3 times her second marriage being when she was 72yrs old.I can close my eyes and see her at the top of the table on a Sunday holding court to us all she was the most lovely lady but she was a tough cookie indeed.

glamma you could be talking about my great aunt, who ran a boarding house for sailors on shore leave. One brought home a parrot and left it there. My great aunt was also a tough cookie and ran a tight ship, so when she heard the parrot's language she was incensed. However, it started talking in her voice so she was hooked. Whenever we visited, she would throw a tablecoth over its cage but we could still hear it effing and blinding in the dark!

She ran her boarding house until she was in her 80s. What a tough life she must have had - changing bedding every few days, cooking 3 meals a day, and keeping all those sailors ship-shape.

when Dad told me a tale once that one of grandma's guys brought home a monkey from one of his trips abroad it happened alot in those days he said grandma knew nothing about the monkey until it escaped from where the bloke was hiding it and ran up her best parlour curtains all that could be seen around the house was grandma running after the monkey with a broom stick needless to say the bloke was asked to vacate his room and replace the curtains.They sound very similar such strong women but lovely to their family.

Strong women indeed glamma. If a monkey was going wild in my house, I can't imagine me chasing it with a broomstick - I'd be stood in a wardrobe screaming

glamma she sound a real strong woman