After collecting hours of tapes from interviewing my grandfather (in 1994), the interviewer began to get into her final questions. She wanted to know how Grandpa spent his time. 
Grandpa really liked to “read” about one of his favorite subjects: finance. Note: this was my absolutely worst subject in college. I dropped out of it twice before I could stick it out.
At one time, Grandpa did read fiction. When I was a little kid, I remember he liked to read paperback cowboy novels.
The interviewer began to probe a bit more about certain subjects at this point. Grandpa admitted that being a teen was the best time of his life:
Grandpa did used to give us all advice about saving our money. It wasn’t my best subject ;), but I think my husband learned from him.
The interviewer wrote this about Grandpa at the end of her research paper:
While Grandpa was born in 1908 and a product of his times, he was a remarkably tolerant person. That doesn’t mean that he was free of all prejudices because every human has them. But he is the man who told me that our family had some African ancestry and that his father’s mother was Jewish. He seemed to love the idea that his own background was more diverse than it appeared. Now I know from my 23andme DNA test, that we do not have African ancestry. However, I do have some Asian background, and maybe he did, too.
Most pertinently, Grandpa believed in live and let live. This was a trait he probably believed was a Dutch trait, and he prided himself on being Dutch. As I mentioned in Part I, one of his favorite jokes was “if you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.”
When my husband and I were first dating, he drove down Burdick Street with his dad. My grandfather was standing out in the yard, and my husband’s father (a dear man himself) said to my husband, “Now there’s an old Dutchman.”
Eventually we told this story to Grandpa and he loved it.
Grandpa helping 2-year-old me blow out the candles on my birthday cake
Thank you for staying along for the ride. I hope you enjoyed Grandpa’s story!
One last image of Grandpa with his Great Grandson Marc.
Great Grandpa with Marc (my son)
Here are the first parts of the story:
Click this link for Part I
Click this link for Part II
Click this link for Part III
Click this link for Part IV
Click this link for Part V
Click this link for Part VI
Click this link for Part VII
Click this link for Part VIII
Click this link for Part IX
Click this link for Part X
Click this link for Part XI
The Family Kalamazoo 
Sorry to see this end! I loved it all the way through.
And thanks for reading it all the way through!
This was a great read. Thanks for sharing the story.
Thank you so much. I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was fun to share about my grandfather!
It’s interesting about his youth during the Depression. I think young people handled adversity differently then. My Dad was born in 1910, graduated high school in 1930 at the height of the Depression. What he do? Traveled out west from KY and got a job at Yellowstone for a couple of summers!
That sounds like such a fun thing to do! Would that have been through one of the work programs, do you think?
He was a great grandpa , but I can attest to the fact that : HE WAS A GREAT FATHER to me!! Rudy , Luanne’s. Father
Haha, hi Dad! Thanks for commenting :). Love you! L
I’ve also enjoyed this series. I absolutely love the pictures of him with you and your son. He looks so interested and caring. And, I love the wonderful comment from your father. You had an awesome grandfather!
Sheryl, thanks for reading the posts and your kind comments! He was very engaged with us. He liked to joke a lot, too. I wanted to put more in about his joking, but I couldn’t figure out how to translate his silly jokes onto paper ;).
I really enjoyed your series of post. Looking forward to more great posts in the future.
Steven, thank you so much! Some more stuff has happened in the meantime re the family history, and I hope to get some time to write about it!
A fantastic story and a wonderful tribute. You should be very proud of your work.
Ah, thank you so much for those kind words! I like to think Grandpa would have gotten quite a kick out of seeing his story on the internet!
Yes, I very much enjoyed your grandpa’s story and most of all, I loved that you wanted to write it!! Live and let live is a wonderful outlook for any generation…thank you for sharing.
Sheila, I think it did well for him and those around him. Thanks so much for reading the series!!
Such a delight to get to know your Grandfather… thanks so much for sharing.
Catherine, thank you so much for reading history story. He would have been thrilled to know you enjoyed “meeting’ him.
Wow! I enjoyed reading this so much. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours in rainy Yorkshire, UK. You are very lucky to have had such a wonderful, wonderful family.
Ah, so glad you enjoyed it! It was fun “sharing” Grandpa with others! Now I am imagining rainy Yorkshire :).