Today I was talking to my Polish grandpa about his life. I found out he was in a concentration camp for 2 years, can speak five different languages (Polish, Russian, German, French, and Ukrainian). He applied to be a translator at the UN but someone beat him to the job. I guess when the S.S broke into his house in Poland to take them to the camp, one of the guards whipped his pregnant mom and beat her, and she ended up having a miscarriage.
Also, on my grandma's side of the family, My great grandpa used to be a royal guard for the Russian Tsar. He had a brother who was caught speaking bad of the Tsar. He was stolen away in the night and never heard from again.
I've come to the conclusion that my family is badass, and I must fulfill the prophecy and do something badass. Like the guy who made apple sauce in a bag.
Are there any other Facepunchers on here with awesome grandparents?
Reason for this thread: To remind you guys not to take your grandparents for granted. They all have a story, ask them about it. You don't know how long you have them for.
My grandad served as a ranger in WWII, fought in almost ever pacific battle except for Iwo-jima and a few others.
At the age of 92, a few months before he died of Alzheimers, he was doing handstands and playing grid-iron with me and my cousins.
Tough old SOB.
sounds like an awesome guy, sorry he's gone /:
My Great Granddad couldn't join the army because he had flat feet, so he stayed at home and had sex with most of his friends wives whilst they were busy dying in World War 1.
I have a rather large family.
My grandfather on my dad's side served as part of an occupational force in Japan after their surrender in WWII. He brought back a shotgun that I have now. It was a Belgian made Browning Auto 5 he bought in Japan. The gun had an incredibly tight shot pattern. He could bring down ducks at 60 yards away which is amazing, that takes a shitload of skill with a simple bead sight. My other grandfather's life story is a little more interesting. He was, by technical standards, a genius. His IQ was like 140 or something like that. Almost everything he ever learned he taught himself. His basement and whole house was full of books he'd read on almost everything. He was a real funny guy, had a nasty anger to him though in his younger days. He had a lot of problems. Mostly due to a life long struggle with alcoholism, living just above the poverty line. On and off relationship with my grandmother. He was nearly full German and my grandmother was almost completely Cherokee. It's weird because that makes me some of both or something like that.
My great grandfather was a runner in WWI.
Never did meet him.
That's a very appropriate swastika avatar.
My grandpa almost blew up his hands trying to make liquid nitrogen....
I have a bunch of uncles that have worked at NASA and other parts of the government.
One of my uncles worked on designing parts of the Saturn IV and the Space shuttle, And worked in mission control during the Apollo missions.
Another helped with the Hubble space telescope and some other top-secret stuff no one in our family knows about, He had also been an forward observer for artillery during WWII.
My grandpa on my moms side was a mail person during the 50's and transferred a large amount of the classified (Now declassified) information for the military and worked on jets. From my dads side he fought during WW2 In the battle of bulge and was a professional marksman, and was almost shipped out to Japan, then the two nuclear warheads war dropped. . I sadly never met my dad's father he sounded like an amazing guy :[ Though my mom's father is a really cool guy as he is a master carpenter of sorts and love hunting with me and my dad.
My grandfather served in the S.A.S for 15 years, and in that timeframe he got 2 fingers cut off (Reattached though) And was shot 5 times. He's still the funniest and kindest guy i've ever met.
My ever so great grandfather was a Brigadier General and surveyed NYC, made the original Viele map which my grandfather has in a safe as he's a surveyor and such. He also had a tomb in West point with the pyramid and the sphinxes. I had an engineer of an uncle or something and he worked for NASA and helped work on our rockets and I believe he helped engineer a solar panel that ran off the waves of the dunes in the desert or something and helped engineer the little thrusters on sattelites that help them turn or whatever.
My grandfather was something along the lines of a tank commander (I believe he was in charge of a dozen tanks under his command) in WWII.
I believe he served a great deal in the western front, in the battle of the bulge, maybe D-Day landings, etc.
I heard from my dad all the great stories he told him about the war, apparently he was a great story teller.
Sadly, he died when I was young.
Recently, I've gotten into drawing and sketching. That brought my parents to remember that he kept a portfolio of some drawings of his. This contained hundreds upon hundreds of brilliant pencil drawings of thousands of different sports figures, people, horses, buildings, etc.
All I can think of now is how much I didn't know him, he cool a guy he must've been. I wish I could have half the motivation he did.
My other grandfather was a great, very liberal episcopalian priest. He was the nicest person, and had such an open view to religion and politics, was Buddhist too I believe (those work together, apparently).
People here like to be critical of religion (I'm an atheist myself), but his views didn't take any of the harsh opinions of most religions. He simply made sense.
He died of a brain tumor, as the grandfather I knew a little bit better of.
My grandfather was in Nam. Two tours as a Marine, Recon. B.A.M.Fs the lot of them. He was part of the guys who didn't sit and wait for the VC, he opened VC season.
He Went on to be a independent truck driver, Police officer, Fire Chief, Director of operations at the local Airport, and finally a farrier.
He died from Lung Cancer in December, I miss my friend.
Worked everyday of his life.
My Grampa invested our college funds into a non-existent housing project
Cool swastika avatar OP. Your grandpa would be proud.
[IMG]http://www.facepunch.com/image.php?u=255481&dateline=1288218865[/IMG]
My grandpa talks to twenty year olds at bars, listens to Nickleback and Coldplay and has a tattoo of two vampire lesbians on his bicep.
He's 70 years old and has much more of a social life than I do.
[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;25715114]Cool swastika avatar OP. Your grandpa would be proud.
[img_thumb]http://www.facepunch.com/image.php?u=255481&dateline=1288218865[/img_thumb][/QUOTE]
I have no argument.
My mothers dad lost his Virginity whilst Queen Elizabeth II was going through her Coronation.
He was 14 when it happened.
He always brings this up at family gatherings because I'm 15 and I've not yet had sex.
[QUOTE=Coffee;25715163]My mothers dad lost his Virginity whilst Queen Elizabeth II was going through her Coronation.
He was 14 when it happened.[/QUOTE]
Oh god, I laughed soooo hard!
My Great grandfather was French in WWII. I never got to meet him unfortunately but his was a great guy. Camile was his name and during WWII he served on a sub. He was captured but a German went up to him and told him to go home. Marched his merry ass home to the coast.
My grandfather has an award in the food science field named after him. His work was also very influential in that field as well, writing technical university level books in the 90s.
My great grandfather was a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). There's too much shit to type out so I'll quote the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame:
[quote]
[img]http://www.sahf.ca/images/george-spence.jpg[/img]
George Spence was born in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland in 1879. He received his public school education in England, and attended the Leith Academy Technical College in Scotland, where he studied electrical engineering.
In 1900, he came to Canada and spent three years in the gold fields of the Klondyke. He then farmed in Manitoba, and spent some time with the Canadian Pacific Railway, working on survey parties. In 1912, he settled on a homestead at Monchy, south of Swift Current, right on the United States border. His experiences as a homesteader in one of the dryest parts of the Canadian Prairies left a lasting impression on the man who in later years was to become one of Canadaís staunchest advocates of soil and water conservation by every possible means.
George Spence entered politics in 1917, and was elected to the Saskatchewan Legislature, then re-elected in 1921 and 1925. In that year he resigned his seat, and was elected as a Member of Parliament. Two years later he returned to provincial politics, and in succession was appointed Minister of Labor and Industries, Minister of Highways, and Minister of Public Works. During the period 1927 to 1938 he was influential in the building of ten branch railway lines in southwestern Saskatchewan, and in the early beginnings of the present-day numbered highway system.
George Spenceís greatest contribution to the welfare of western Canadian agriculture was made during his nine years as director of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, set up to deal with the problems created by the drought of the 1930s. He was appointed to the post in 1938, and during his regime the engineering and financing of joint federal, local and provincial conservation schemes such as the St. Mary River and Bow River projects were concluded. He was also responsible for much of the planning of the South Saskatchewan River project, which, combined with the others in Alberta would, in his words, "put a green belt from the Rocky Mountains to the Lake District in Manitoba".
His early experience as acting chairman of the Better Farming Commission in 1920 provided him with a vast understanding of the problems of dryland farmers, especially those in the arid southwest corner of the province. The Commissionís findings led to the establishment of the Swift Current Research Station, where such problems have been intensively studied since 1921. The findings of the Commission tied in closely with the ultimate objectives of PFRA.
Following his retirement from PFRA in 1947, George Spence served for ten years on the International Joint Commission, the authority which deals with the allocation of water from sources shared by Canada and the United States. Among many awards and recognitions, he was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1946; in 1948 he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Saskatchewan. He was author of a book "Survival of a Vision", published in 1967, also of a treatise on the growing of tender roses. Following a brief illness, George Spence died in Regina in March, 1975.[/quote]
so yeah he was pretty influential in his area of expertise waaaaay back in the day
Both grandfathers served in Korea, one was a Chief Mechanic for the USAF and the other was a Radio op on a destroyer. Later the 2nd one became an engineer and is still alive.
Too bad I never really got to meet my first grandpa, my dad loved to tell stories about him. :smith:
None of my grandparents served.
My grandfather (dad's side) was a self-owning insurance/attorney. He did quite, quite well.
My other grandfather stayed and worked in the factories, then later in the nuclear plants (power and processing)
My grandparents on my mother's side hid in the Phillipine jungle for 6 years to hide from the Japanese and my great uncles fought in europe
My grandfather on my mother's side was a police officer, and then a soldier in WWII. He has stories of shooting down planes (And hiding in buildings when the planes flew over them), along with a story of him and a few other soldiers with a new guy in a truck driving through a minefield. Minefields were going off and the new guy just freaked out, they had to pin him down so he wouldn't jump out of the truck.
My grandfather on my father's side, well, I don't know a lot about him, although he used to be an avid hunter, he used to do logging, and had the same truck for many years until he died.
My grandfathers apparently have been pretty cool people. My great grandfather Carlo was (supposedly) part of a Sicilian mafia family. When he turned 18 he became a contract killer for the family and had done a few hits on family members from other Mobs. I never learned very much after that about him but I know that he moved to the U.S in the early 1900's, went to New Orleans, got married, and that was where he had my grandfather Thomas. My grandfather was an amazing person. I know for sure because I've seen the pictures and stuff that he used to be a vocalist and lead guitarist of a small time blues/jazz band that used to play small gigs in the French Quarter and stuff and was also a volunteer fire fighter. When he died in 2005 he gave me his old Martin guitar and his authentic 1962 Gibson SG. Prior to that, he taught me everything that I know about music and how to play the blues and jazz on those guitars. I still don't know if what he told me about his dad was bullshit but I'm inclined to believe it was true since I recently did backtrace my family history and found out that it did start out in Italy but not in Sicily (I know Sicily is part of Italy, but the records show that my great great great great...grandfather was born on the mainland) He could've moved and somehow got associated with the mob there but I don't know and probably will never know. Also, apparently the reason why I was given two first names, Andrew-Thompson, was because my mom wanted me to be named after her dad but my dad wanted me to be named after his dad. They had an argument about it and just decided on Andrew-Thompson :v:
My grandfather never served, and I'm not really sure what his profession was because he moved around a bit, but hes got alot of really cool stuff. He still has his Lionel train set from 1948, suckers loud as hell but runs great.
Grandpa recycles for a living, ton of cash a month. Hes incredibly fit, jogs 8 minute miles and has huge tvs in his house (LCDS/Projection) and he plays PS2. Grandma is Nintendo gamer.
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