28. What did your father and mother do for a living?

From: Jenny McMurray

My dad has worked at Grover Cleveland Press for over 30 years and my mom has worked for Tops as a General Merchandise manger and now as a Front End Assistant Manager.

From: Connie Olson

My mother stayed home to take care of the house and her family until I was married. My sister was still in school when she went to work in the cafeteria. She worked there for 10 years after my sister graduated. She worked because she was a person who liked to stay busy at all times. As we all got older there wasn't much for her to do, so she decided to be useful and make money at it.
My father worked for the M&St. L RR as a switchmen. He retired from there after 40 some years. He had been hurt at work, and it was getting difficult for him to climb on the boxcars and run along on top of them. He loved his job.
His father and grandsfather also were railroad men.

From: Lois Rotella

As far what my Father did for a living it was several things. Before World War II he was a draftsman and that is kinda what he did in the war. After the war is hads shook took much and couldn't do that kind of work. He than worked for the post office from around 1950 till he retired about 20 years ago. My Mom before my parents married worked in a factory packing toilet tissue. After my parents married she was a housewife. She than got a job working in the schools doing office work. After that she went to work for a bank and stayed there until her death in 1980. By that time she had worked there for 15 years.

From: Brenda Olszewski

My Dad 1st worked as a Meat Cutter. I think that's what he did when he and Mom got married. They met at the same store back then. Then he worked as a Produce Mgr and then a Store mgr, District mgr and went back to being a store mgr. A few yrs before he retired he worked as an Auditor in the same co. Grand Union.

Mom started out as a cashier, when Dad was a meat cutter. He met her at the register and kept buying cigarettes from her til he asked her out. Mom went on to be Head Bookkeeper at Grand Union. She also was a Bus Driver for Queensbury school district. She received lots of safety awards.

From: Philip Harris

My father and mother were very hard workers. When I was real young during the depression ,my father took what ever job he could get. He also supplemented his pay by fur trapping. He went to work for the Imperial Paper Company . They made paint. My father and others got lead poisoning. When he recovered he went to work for the Town of Queensbury Highway Dept. Most of his working career was with the Town.

My mother took in laundry when we were young. When all the kids were in school, my mother worked for several families cleaning house. My mother and father were very hard workers.and instilled that trait to all of us kids. We know we have to work for what we have. There is no free lunch.

From: Lucy Welden

My dad was Postmaster in local postoffice and my mom worked in local mill where they made boxes bakeries, tissues,etc.

From: James Harris

Mom worked for the FBI. Dad worked for the CIA. They weren't allowed to tell us what they did for a living, or they'd have to kill us. There were always strange people around the house. It was different to hear Mom & Dad speaking Russian. It was especially hard when they both worked under cover.

From: Connie Farrington

I think Dad left the one room school house to go to work about age 12. He worked on the farm, helping with the large potato harvest and delivering potatoes to Glens Falls to sell. He drove a wagon to deliver farm vegetables and ice around the lake in the summers. Later he sold insurance and peddled Aladdin lamps. At about age 21 he got elected to public office
for the first time, I think as a constable. At that time he was operating a garage on Ridge Road, repairing cars and selling gas. That garage burned to the ground. Later he owned and operated a garage on Bay Street in Glens Falls. When he closed down that business, he sold the building to Kubrickys. In the 1940s he was Superintendent of Highways for the Town of Queensbury,
and then Supervisor of the Town. He worked tirelessly for the town, starting the community college, the Queensbury School System, the Warren County Airport, the five fire companies, getting Quaker Road put through, acquiring Pine View Cemetery for the town, and numerous other improvements.

His last political office was that of Warren County Welfare Commissioner from which he retired. For many years he also ran a paving company, doing driveways and parking lots in many surrounding towns. In 1989 he published a History of Harrisena, recalling memories of his youth there.

Mom was a schoolteacher in one room schoolhouses on Glenwood Avenue in the city, at Oneida, and on Ridge Road, at Pickle Hill Road. Occasionally she helped out with book work for Dad's jobs. When he was Welfare Commissioner, she served as Matron of Westmount Infirmary, hiring and firing staff. When he retired, so did she. They celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary before Dad died at age 99, in 2002.

From: Joyce Eggleston

My father worked several jobs, but the last two were working for the State of New York. He did road work and plowing. The last one was driving truck for the Town of Queensbury. Also doing odd jobs and painting. My mother was a homemaker, doing washing and ironing for people while taking care of her own 7 kids. When my sister Gail was only 5 years old, Mom went to work for people doing their house keeping.

From: Heidi MacDuff

Mom has always been a housewife while raising my brother and I. When we were older she used to clean house for an elderly lady. Dad worked for Scott Paper company until he had his stroke and had to take a medical retirement.