A Life Compared to Mine: My Working Grandmothers

For the 52 Ancestors theme for week 42, we are to compare our life to an ancestor’s. I have worked all my life, first as a babysitter to neighborhood children, then in the library at Cal State University, Hayward (now East Bay), a year at Alameda Sporting Goods as a clerk/computer operator, and then at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District first as a train operator and then as a train operator instructor (official title was Employee Development Specialist). I retired in 2010 after 32 years.

My mother did not work outside the home. She raised six children while my dad worked in various grocery stores as a produce clerk.

However, both my grandmothers worked outside the home. My paternal grandmother, Nana, worked because she had to. She left her husband and raised her four children alone. She worked in restaurants, and then in education, first in Napa at a one-room schoolhouse, and later in Concord, California, at Williams School. Because her credential was earned in Montana from a normal school, she had to return to school in California and finish a four-year degree in education. She retired in 1957.

Now a private home, this Yountville School is where Nana taught.

I never asked my maternal grandmother, Mam-ma, why she worked. It may have started out that the family needed the money. She worked at clothing stores, both as a clerk, and as a seamstress doing alterations. She took in sewing while my mother was young. One of the stores I remember her working was called The Clothes Horse. I think this was the last place she worked. They had stores in several county locations. She worked in the Walnut Creek and Sunvalley Mall stores. Later, the Sunvalley store moved to the new shopping center called The Willows. I worked one Christmas season at the Sunvalley store as a gift wrapper.

The Clothes Horse in Walnut Creek, Les Sipes photo, Contra Costa County Historical Society

Although they both worked outside the home and probably needed the money, I believe they both enjoyed working. Nana was good with children and taught mostly first and second grades. After retiring, she taught catechism at the local Catholic church. She would read to us from old readers and teach us the songs she taught her students.

Mam-ma love clothes, probably from working in clothing stores and sewing. She always looked sharp in her outfits. Working probably gave her something to do outside the home once my mother was in school and later in her own home.

I worked outside the home because I loved working. The library job was great and if I could have been paid to go to school, that would have been my dream job. However, my love of trains brought me to the BART job and it was very fulfilling, too, especially as a trainer. I also got a pretty good retirement out it, that I’m enjoying now. 

#52Ancestors: Week 42 – “A Life Compared to Mine”
This is my ninth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

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