My mother never worked.

Young growing up years, my father had the neighborhood grocery story. Followed in his father's footsteps, as well as his brothers.

Had it's own meat market with pickled eggs in a big jar on the counter, ox trails, pickled pigs feet, as well.

Wouldn't call my visiting, but I'd go with mother, or times I'd sit in the car while she went in.

Was told when I was a toddler, along with my sister, they would put us in a large barrel, to keep us out of mischief when mother was helping out at the store.

He had to give up the grocery business due to a bad heart, and went into real estate when I was a freshman in high school until he retired.

Yes I did. My father worked for the telephone company as a supervisor in repair back in the 60's and 70's. I remember one time when I was 7 I went with my Dad to his work on a Saturday. He brought along coloring books and crayons and a couple of my dolls. I was in an office up on the second floor and I could look out the window at the A&W Rootbeer restaurant across the street. 13 years later I started working for the same telephone company (Southern Bell) and the office I was assigned to was the exact same office as my Dad's and my desk was at the same window. What a coincidence!! My Dad went to a different office by this time and the A&W restaurant was changed to another restaurant.

My mother didn't work until after we were all out of school, and I was married.
My father was an accountant for various companies as he moved up, so never visited his offices...but when I was in grade school, he was the manager for the local movie theater. I used to go to the Saturday matinees and just wave and walk in while everyone else had to pay. Didn't have to bring money for candy, either - he just opened the candy machine and gave it to me. That was in the early 50's...before they sold candy from counters.

My dad was a professional boxer. I spent a bit of time down at the training gym and saw a few boxing matches. He was also a restaurant owner and had a restaurant named after himself (he was a bit of a celeb in the Seattle area). The restaurant sat at the base of the Space Needle during the 1962 World's Fair. I visited there as well. Plus, he had a boxing school for boys that I visited and a TV show called Madison Square Kindergarten that I watched which taught kids self-esteem, fairness and coordination.

My mom never worked outside the home until I was out of the house and married.

Jodi-

My mother worked at the county courthouse for my grandfather, who was the county auditor. I never visited during the week when mother was working, but Grandpa would call on Saturday morning and invite one of us kids to come "help" and then he'd take us to the Durbin Hotel for lunch. The hotel was somewhat famous in it's day for being the HQ for Wendell Wilkes campaign headquarters during his run for the presidency. The hotel was so famous for it's good food that people would come from 3 states just to have lunch. It was truly a treat. When GF was elected to the state congress, I was a page for one day at the state house. Neat to see the goings on. This was in Indiana.

Daddy worked for Western Electric (part of the Bell system before deregulation) in Indianapolis, so we never visited there but when I grew up, I also got a job in the office there and that's where I met Mike, my first husband. It was back in the days when company's cherished their employees and gave them decent salaries and plenty of benefits. Ah, those were the days, eh?

We were farm folks and was living on our work region. I worked along side my Dad felling tree, mending fences, and tilling the soil. I also was mother's helper. We picked black berries, canned fruit, made saur kraut, hoed the graden, cut weeds, and mowed the grass. Mother papered rooms on an odd job basis. I was the helper. I supplied labor in preparing the walls, cutting the psper, and pasting the paper while she hung the sheets. We lived in a developing oilfield during WW2. During the war, dad worked for the Pure Oil Company. I got to watch most of the activity from drilling a well, to fianl development of a well, pumping the well, and observing rod-line pumped wells.

After age 14, I drove tractor for another farmer who had large land holdings.

On our farm, it was very hard work and no monetary pay; you got to eat at the dinner table.

My dad was a mechanical engineer. We visited his office once a year, when they had the company picnic, which was a blast!

When I was young, my mom worked as a bookkeeper for a small contracting firm. Mostly, she worked at home, but sometimes in the owner's office. Sometimes I'd go with her - the owner had a daughter my age.

My mother was a typical 50's housewife.

My father was a concrete contractor. I went with him to measure jobs (whole family did, it was often an 'after dinner drive, and sometimes we'd stop for ice cream). Went to his 'yard' often where he kept his equipment and supplies. Went to jobs with him. By the time I was in 4th grade, I was figuring estimates. By high school, I was an officer in the company. Yes, you could say I spent some time at my father's place of employment.

My mom never worked outside the home. But she never visited with others (neighbors), but I ran all over and knew everyone. Bad thing for me, is she would not let me do anything, housework, so when I got married, knew nothing. This was in the 50's not sure what her reasoning was. My kids are well trained. Thank goodness.

Great thread! Interesting to read about our varied backgrounds.

My dad was the head of the accounting department at an oil company in downtown Manhattan. After my mom died (when I was 9) I visited him fairly often. I knew many of the people who worked there, especially Miss Margaret Cobb, the company's kind, soft-spoken Southern librarian. Miss Cobb was a geologist--an educated woman ahead of her time. I wrote about her, and the spoon she gave me, here.

My mom also stayed home with us. My dad was a surgeon. I did go to the hospital to visit him. One time he came into the room where I was waiting dressed in his scrubs, including a mas. I didn't recognize him. I always remember that feeling.

That was when I was young. I didn't go to visit as I got older. However, when I was an adult I did go see him in his office a few times.

The hospital would have a big staff picnic once a year and I remember those well. It was fun.

Mom never held a job outside the home but often took in sewing and ironing.

Dad had a Mobil gas station. All I had to do was stand on the porch and look across the street (actually the highway) and there he was. And I spent LOTS of time there. It was on Cherokee Lane (aka Highway 99). It wasn't quite the busy street that it is today and we thought nothing of crossing the highway unattended, other than Mom or Dad saying, "Okay, GO!", LOL. I loved hanging around at the gas station and drinking pop and talking to the customers.

It was actually a pretty fun neighborhood, almost an equal mix of residential and business. Right next door was a bar and I spent a lot of time there, too. I'd go out our back door, through our yard, through the parking lot and into the back door of the bar. I'd be given some pizza or other snack and I'd sit around and shoot the breeze with the owners (I was 5 or 6 at the time). We had one neighbor next door on the other side and next to them was a Mom and Pop store - The Star Market, run by an older Asian couple. Carl, the owner, had a special gumball machine. If you got one of the striped wooden balls instead of a regular gumball you could redeem it for a rabbit's foot.

Boy, those WERE the days.

Mom never worked except at Christmas time: a couple of years she would go with my older sisters downtown to help wrap candies for Mrs. Schnieders chocolates I think it was.
My Dad owned different grocery stores at different times. I would go once in a while and hang around at one time he had a blonde young man (around 16) working in one of the stores He taught me how to say I love you in Greek. Dad had came here from Greece and fired the poor kid when he found out..

I did go down to Ruth's office downtown (this was in Chicago) Ruth lived next door and I lived I lived over there as much as home. I remember how thrilling it was to go to the office and the storeroom and get a new pencil and tablet of pure white paper. In school at that time we had kind of a pulp paper tablet so it was great having that smooth white paper.

Mom left my dad when I was 21 months old and my brother was 3 months. They lived in one of the western provinces (Canada).

She came home to Ontario, and moved back home with her parents. She said that was brutal, having to move back home, once she was married with small kids.

My grandparents looked after us, and she got a job in a food factory making 82cents an hour, on the afternoon shift. I distinctly remember running to the door and standing in front of it crying, when she was leaving for work.

One time, she was halfway to work and heard something in the car. There were my brother and I in the back, on the floor. She had to turn around (obviously) and take us back.

The company had Christmas parties that I sure remember well. Mom worked there for 42 years, before she retired.

We lived on a small farm and my Mom really took care of that but my Dad worked with his brother in construction until he passed at the age of 54...After that my Mom went back to school and earned her nursing degree and worked until she broke her hip at the age of 74 and had to retire.....She loved her work and was well liked and known for being so caring.....I remember, after my sister and I were grown and married, my Mom would ask that her name be put on the schedule for holidays so the younger nurses with families could have the time off.....

My Dad was an Quality Control Auditor for Chrysler and traveled every month to the Chrysler plants all over the US until I was a teenager and that is when he stopped traveling and worked out of the mail Chrysler Windsor plant until he retired so I never was able to visit him on his job.

I had much older siblings and was able to visit them on their jobs often.

My Mom worked during the war before I was born and did the odd part time job now and then but usually just to help someone out at the time. She did volunteer work though and would take me with her to help out.

I grew up in a very small town with one store. "The Company Store" was in view of our house and had just about everything from groceries, notions, tools, make up,45 records, you name it all in about 4000 square feet. Mom went to work at that store when I was about 13. I was well acquainted at the store and often would help Mom clean up there after hours just so she could come home quicker.

My Dad was a coal miner. He was the foreman at the mine that owned the Company Store and most of the houses in our town including the one we lived in. Dad took me to the mine often on Sundays when he went to check on things or to do little jobs to make sure that the mine was safe and ready for the Monday work crew. He took me deep into the mine several times...after, of course, he had gone in alone first to be sure I would be safe. I loved going into the mine. The mine also owned several mules that had been retired some years earlier when electric motors replaced them in the mine. The mules had a nice barn and pasture to live out their lives in the care of a near farmer. On occasion when the farmer couldn't take care of them, Dad would take me with him to help clean stalls and do whatever else the mules needed. Miners black lung took dad at age 49.

absolutely, I even worked there. We owned a fishing wharf on
Puget Sound. My grandfather built it, and my Uncle and Dad ran it.
Below is one of the boats and motors we used to rent.
That is my Dad and Uncle

oops! wrong photo!
this is the right one, sorry! LOL

My mom worked as a bookkeeper before she was married and then continued working the first year of their marriage. After that she was a housewife of the 40s and 50s.
My dad drove a truck, hauling gasoline. When I was 7 or 8, he sometimes let me ride in the truck with him.

Yep. My Mom worked at a state MR facility about 5min. from our house. After graduation I took a secretarial job at an insurance agency in town, worked there one and a half years then got a job at the same MR facility as Mom - same department, only she was a cook and I was clerical. She retired after 23yrs. there and I retired 14yrs. later after 30yrs.

My father had polio. When he was a teenager during the depression the Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town. The doctor with the circus saw my father and told him he could help him but he would have to come with the circus. Dad got permission from his father to go. As the years went on my Dad worked putting up the big tops and other hard labor. He ended up being able to walk with only a slight limp.

After marrying my mother, Dad worked in the paper mills until he retired at age 65. My parents also owned a cleaning company when I was a teenager. They had the contract with a bank to do the main bank and it two satellite branches. My brother and I would go with them after dinner and clean all the banks.

My mother worked in a woolen mill from the time I was about 9 and my brother was 6. My grandmother would take care of us until my folks got home. I remember my mother quit working at the mill once they started cleaning the banks.

We lived on a farm and had 11 horses. To help pay for their feed we did pony rides at the fairs in the area. I walked many a mile leading a horse carrying a happy child.

Since my Dad had been in the circus business he always had the carney blood in his veins. He had a novelty stand that he would set up at different local fairs and sell balloons, dolls on sticks and pretty felt hats with beautiful feathered plumbs. We also sold candy apples, popcorn and snow cones during my teenage years. I remember having to wash all the change from the snow cone concession so that we could count it. LOL

It was a hard life but a fun one looking back on it.

Here is a picture of me working the snow kone stand. I chopped hundreds of pounds of block ice over the years.

My Mom never worked. My Dad was a policeman. I think being a cop was in my Father's family genes. My uncle, my Dad's twin brother & both my brothers all were cops. I would go to the station to bring Dad dinner when he worked at the desk but never went to work with him.

Growing up my Dad and Mother had a small farm. It now belongs to my sister and me. In those early years, I helped on the farm, milking cows, helping with the garden and whatever was needed. In later years before I graduated from high school he started his own television repair business and did that for years. My Mother worked all during my 12 years of school in the school cafeteria. She would ride to and from work on our school bus. When I was old enough, 7th grade, I worked in the kitchen of the school, first drying or washing off the dishes and in later years it was my job to count and wrap all the money from the cafeteria for that day.

Sue

My mom didn't work when I was a kid and my dad worked for the railroad as did most of my uncles and even my grandfather.
I didn't visit my dad but my grandpa took me up into the steam engine before one of his runs up the San Joaquin Valley.
I loved being in the engine....one of my favorite memories.

I grew up on a farm so I was always at my dad's work. My mother never worked off the farm, but she worked hard with 19 of us kids. It was like jemdandy said no pay but you got to eat at the dinner table

wow, Nita, that is a wonderful picture!

I used to iron the boat boys' uniforms for my Dad and Uncle.
I got something like 15 cents for the blue shirt and
10 cents per pair of pants! lol

My mother & Dad were in the Iron & Steel business.....Mother would stay home and iron while dad went out to steal something.

My mother was really a 'career woman'. Don't get me wrong, she was a loving and caring mother, but...she was always interested in the business world. She had been private secretary to the head of personnel at a large department store in Providence, RI before she married my father. She helped my father start his manufacturing business in Chicago; had me; separated from my father when I was 18 mos.; divorced when I was six. She took whatever work she could get -- even sold dresses at our town's 'haute couture shoppe'! When I was in junior high she became a Real Estate Broker, worked like a dog, and excelled at it. My father always said she should have married the mayor of a town -- or been the mayor. She was a true 'people person'.

I remember visiting with the seamstress at the dress shop. Later I helped putting up For Sale signs and culling expired real estate listing sheets from her big, heavy books -- no web listings in those days. I 'sat' open houses after I was 16 and driving -- something you wouldn't have a young girl do today.

My father had an office on North Michigan Avenue. On a Sunday he'd take me 'to work'. I remember playing with the adding machine -- big old thing with keys like a typewriter and a handle on the side. I, too, loved the reams of clean paper to draw on. Later, he'd take me to The Drake Hotel for a soda. We'd stop to give the organ grinder's money a coin. I also remember being taken to the luxury apartment of a potential investor; asking to use the bathroom; being unable to locate the toilet until the man's wife showed me that it was encased in a French chair. (I was about six, and was probably 'window dressing' for my father's 'sell'.)

I also visited my father's factory, where rows of (mostly women) worked assembly. When I was about 12 he took me to see his factory at San Juan. I remember watching the manta rays under the pier at the Caribe Hilton there.

Sorry to rattle on. This is SUCH an interesting thread!

My Dad was a Draftsman for a Sign company. I never visited him at work but he would point out all the signs he had drawn that were around where we lived. He did the big PSFS sign on top of the Bank in Philadelphia and the Totem pole that used to be outside of Neshaminy Mall in Bucks county. The Totem pole is no longer there but the PSFS sign is still there even though the bank is long gone!
My Mom was a Nurse and in her later years she worked full time with Handicapped children and I do remember occasionally visiting her in her classroom in the school where she worked. When we were little she only worked part time until after we were in school. I was so proud of both my parents and I became a nurse just like my Mother.
Joann

My Mom had her own radio show for years, she was a singer. She left the show when she got pregnant and my Dad was a machinist. The only time we saw the people he worked with was at the annual Xmas party. My Dad also sang so we were constantly surrounded by music and musicians. She and he had seven children and we had what I consider a good life, not so much by luxury, as we felt protected and loved so much. Humor played a big part in our lives, my Dad was fun and Mom could be silly. Perfect for kids.

I love this thread and thanks for sharing these wonderful memories. My Dad worked for the railroad in SF just before WWII. I remember going to the World Fair out on Treasure Island...on Southern Pacific Day (or I have seen pictures of our visit there) a very exciting event to my 4 yea old farm child eyes. I did visit him where he worked, near the famous Cow Palace. Before WWII cattle would be off loaded at a couple of places in SF then 'driven' down the streets to where "well, you know" but I didn't know that then. Often some of them would be driven up to our neighborhood where they were penned up for a while, and the cow boys loved showing off their skills to the enchanted little kids. Visitation Valley, in those days were mostly nurseries and small farms and dairy's...thus, the Cow Palace was built. Before it ever saw a cow, however, the war started and instead of cows being driven up our streets by cowboys, there were Soldiers marching to the CP to be readied for their shipment out to the Pacific. We saw them coming from the trains....going back to the trains; no buses like they have today...they marched and marched and marched.

During WWII the men like my Dad worked building ships and armaments all over the West Coast, and my Mom started working in a grocery store near our house as soon as we were in school. There were so many programs in those years to provide for the children of the workers that it seems somewhat unreal today. It was quite an amazing time and place in San Francisco for me in those years.

My mother didn't work outside the house. She was a telephone operator when she met my dad. He started with the telephone company as a linesman and worked his way up to wire chief and then manager. I'd go to his office occasionally. Until I was 12, we lived two blocks from his office and at noon I'd see him walk up the hill to have dinner which we always had at noon. (I thought everyone did, I never have )When I was in 7th grade they built a new brick house on the outskirts of town, so he drove the company car home at noon. When it rained he'd pick me up at school. I remember watching the row of operators sitting on their high chairs in front of a switch board plugging in those long wires and saying "Number please?". I am so old.

My Dad was an independent insurance agent, with his office in our home. So I saw him at work everyday, haha. I started working for him after school and on Sat. mornings when I was 15.

My Mom was the senior high health and phys. ed. teacher in our school. She taught 11th grade health, and 10th, 11th and 12th grade girls phys. ed. She was also the girls softball, basketball and volleyball coach.

Our school was grades 7-12 jr/sr high school. No middle school. So I saw mom everyday at work from 7th grade and on. Also had her for a teacher my last 3 years of high school.

These are all great stories. Brings back so many memories, I miss my parents so very much.

My mother never worked outside the home until my Dad died and she was in her late 40's. She then babysat, did housekeeping, and sometimes sold tickets at the movie theater. Oh, I take that back! She worked for a week at the local bakery! LOL! She had no hip joint due to having bone tuberculosis as a child and she had trouble standing all day long.
My Dad was a movie theater projectionist at one of three theaters in town and later at the drive-in. I went often, for free of course!, and also got free popcorn in my own bag and drinks in my own cup. I was in high school and dating when he was at the drive-in so many evenings were spent there. I was a cheap date! Fun times!

My father was a radiologist and I practically grew up in the hospital.

By the time I was six I was fascinated with black and white pictures of "headbones", and we used to make cut outs from the orange paper that came between the X-ray films.

My Dad was a farmer and ginner, but worked from an office in our small town. The office was in the back of an old general store/commissary which was still operating when I was a child, but really was already a thing of the past. Dad kept it open at least in part to keep the employees and as a conveniece. The office in the back had once been a bank and still had a cool vault with a beautiful old vault door and safety deposit boxes. My brother and I loved playing in the vault as small children. There was an old fashioned drug store with a soda fountain next door. When I was older, could ride my bike to the office and Dad would buy me a cherry limeade or an ice cream cone. Sometimes we would take a ride out to the farm to look at the crops and, in the fall, we would go to the cotton gin. Although the gin is long gone, I can still remember the wonderful smell of freshly ginned cotton.

Dad died when I was 20 and my mother took over the farming operation. Although she was well educated and had been Dad's sounding board, she had never worked outside the home before, but she was amazing. A woman in a man's world, she was the first woman on a number of boards, including one of the largest cotton marketing cooperatives in the country where she served for a number of years. She is still mentioned prominently on it's website in it's history as it's first female board member. Mom is retired now but she is still active and almost every weekend she and my brother and I take a drive out to the farm and check out the crops.

Farming is a different world now. We now rent out the land on net shares. Cotton is no longer king in the Delta and I think that makes Mom a bit sad. But corn, which has just started to be grown in our area in the last 8 or so, years is increasing and Mom is enjoying learning about it. This year we have almost 600 acres of corn and are down to about 30% cotton, 32% soybeans, 20% corn and 18% rice. Despite the drought, crops look really good so far because almost all our land is well irrigated, but you never know until harvest. My mother's grandfather was once asked what do you do for a living and he replied, "I'm a professional gambler -- I'm a cotton farmer."

sorry my post was supposed to be 10 kids

My mom worked at a cafeteria at my brother's school when I was in Kindergarten or before...not sure which. I have a vague memory of going on the city bus in Norfolk with her to her job and being put on a stool or counter. Later, in CA, she sold Vanda Beauty products and I went with her to people's homes sometimes to deliver products or watch her give a facial. When we moved to NV she worked in a nursing home as a cook and I'd been there to see her a couple times. She worked in an onion dehydration plant after that and I actually went to work there with her on the graveyard shift shortly after I graduated from high school. After I got married and had Alex, we moved back to NV for a short time and we went to see her at the mess hall on base where she worked her last job.

My dad was in the Navy most of his working life. The only time I recall going where he worked was when he was on a submarine when we first moved to San Pedro CA. My brother actually had a birthday party on that sub! Brat had three parties that year, one in VA before we moved, one in San Diego, visiting friends of my dad before we went to San Pedro. (They gave him a dog too...Snoopy, the first one in our family.) The 3rd one on the sub.

When my dad retired from the Navy he tended bar at various places, he used to manage the NCO club on the base in Fallon NV before he retired. So, I guess that's why he chose to do it. I recall visiting him once or twice at the NCO club but not for long. And once when I was about 15 or 16 at a little bar in town, when he called me to come pick up a stray dog he found hanging around there.

Those are the only times I can remember.

My dad worked for the rail road. Before they went computerized he would let me switch the tracks for one of the slow trains.

I would go to his work pushing my mom's bike, and he would hold it at the seat, while I rode it home in standing position... the bike was WAY to big for me. That is how I learned to ride a bike.

Later, I would bring him lunch, for his Sunday day shift.

Work for dad was a walk about 10 minutes away.

My mother was a housewife.

Moni