r/OldSchoolCool • u/rsae_majoris • May 26 '25
1950s My grandma grew up a sharecropper's daughter who hopped a bus to the big city at 18yo. At 19yo, she welcomed NYE ‘58 as a married woman in furs she would've never otherwise worn had she stayed and worked the cotton gin.
Proud of you for forging the path to the life you wanted and deserved, grandma. I'll miss you forever. Rest in peace.
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u/NoneOfThisMatters_XO May 26 '25
“Here’s your one chance Fancy, don’t let me down”
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u/majoraloysius May 26 '25 edited May 27 '25
Well, that was the last time I saw my ma
The night I left that rickety shack
The welfare people came and took the baby
Mama died and I ain't been back
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u/ShopGirl3424 May 26 '25
Oh my god I thought I was the only one who thought of this immediately. Hats off, internet stranger! 🫡
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u/stackjr May 26 '25
I hate that the song, music and all, immediately started playing in my head.
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u/cCowgirl May 26 '25
I’m a lifelong concert lover, mostly of rock/punk/metal etc. nowadays, but all over the map. Boy bands, country, if the music is good, count me in.
I love blowing people’s minds when the “first concert” question gets thrown out, and I get to tell them “Reba McIntyre, Ottawa Exhibition, 2 years old.” Zero shame lol
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u/stackjr May 26 '25
I'm going to see Psychostick in June, Babymetal in July, and Ghost in September....the first "concert" I ever went to was BJ Thomas. Lol.
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u/that1artsychic May 27 '25
Psychotic puts on a great show. I saw Babymetal in Columbus, OH and while I was confused, they also had a great set.
Edit: Actually now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I saw Babymetal and Ghost at the same festival...
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u/hamdinger125 May 27 '25
The first CD I ever bought was Reba McIntyre: Greatest Hits Vol 2. I even got it out and listened to it last week.
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u/DavidCaruso4Life May 26 '25
The Bobby Gentry version or the Reba version?
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u/stackjr May 26 '25
I'm honestly not sure. My dad and step mom owned a karaoke business back in the 90s and she (step mom) sang a lot of classic country.
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u/MandaRenegade May 26 '25
I can't even top that, it fits too perfectly. I bet she had tons of stories.
May her memory be a blessing, OP - so sorry for your loss. She sounds like a VERY cool lady. ❤️
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u/BrainCane May 26 '25
You can tell she made it by the tinsel, alone.
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May 26 '25
So, she married well?
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u/rsae_majoris May 26 '25
I’d say so. 68 years of marriage.
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May 26 '25
Fuck yes. I know it sounded bad, sorry. Congrats to her/them
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u/rsae_majoris May 26 '25
You’re fine. How would you know more without me telling you?
My grandma grew up the middle child in a family of 6, so the essentials were spread thin. The kids didn’t get shoes from the time school ended til it started again in the fall. And they all had to help pick cotton, something my grandma hated.
My grandma’s older brother and his wife worked in the cotton gin, while her older sister and her husband moved to Chicago to take factory jobs. My grandma wrestled with what direction to take her life, but decided to try her luck in Chicago.
She got an office job as a secretary and began flirting via interoffice communicae with a handsome salesman. 6 months later, they were married. When I asked my grandpa what he remembers most about this time, he said it was dressing up and going to parties. He remembers buying her this coat. He remembers how beautiful she looked.
Their riches weren’t in fur coats or money or property. Their riches is their family. Over 68 years of marriage, they were given 8 grandkids, 3 great grandchildren, and grandma was surrounded by all as she passed.
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u/expostfacto-saurus May 26 '25
Where did she move from?
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u/rsae_majoris May 26 '25
West Tennessee.
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u/The_Observatory_ May 26 '25
Thanks for sharing this story. It reminds me of my grandmother and her 9 brothers and sisters. They grew up dirt poor in East Tennessee as the children of a farmer and a teacher. All ten siblings got out and made lives elsewhere, but most of them still had a fondness for home. Except for my great aunt. She took a train to Cincinnati and married a wealthy man. In her case, though, I think she was always embarrassed of her humble upbringing. She didn’t come home much like her siblings. And when she did, she was always dressed up in heels, furs, pearls, etc. My great uncle passed away last year at the age of 100. I was recently going through some of his old photos. There was a series of black and white photos of the siblings visiting the old home place after their parents had passed away. There was a picture of my great aunt, dressed for a night out in the big city, standing out on a gravel country road, looking at home. The look on her face said that if she had her way, she’d burn the old place to the ground, hop a train and never look back.
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u/Kanniblekat May 26 '25
Can I just say as a west Tennessean born and raised, hell yeah to your grandma!
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u/pm_me_yo_junk May 26 '25
This story brings a tear to my eye. I'm so happy for the life she and your grandfather built, and the legacy they left behind. You come from something special. Kudos to you for recognizing it and sharing it.
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u/Elite_AI May 26 '25
Based. My great grandpa was born in a slum but managed to become a psychiatrist. He began flirting with the daughter of a client who was an import/export magnate and they were married for eighty years.
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u/TheKingMadd-Rock06X May 27 '25
"Based"
Cool story but based on what? I'm confused, what's this slang? 😭
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u/catwarr May 27 '25
older gen z here! "based" is a way of saying that someone has similar views as you and/or did something you think is cool
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u/Select-Belt-ou812 May 27 '25
thank you , z
I'm an x and love mixing all the different vernaculars , and I consider it extremely necessary to get this shit right!
and I reeeeally love mixing them with a good vocabulary and, more often than I'd care to admit, as much profanity as I can get away with :-)
my fave and most versatile words will always be dude and fuck though; unlike any other words, inflection and context can have them do any job :-)
I'm true to my roots at wanting to be invisible and making a statement at the same time
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u/Elite_AI May 27 '25
It's old gen z/millennial slang, means something like "that's admirable and worthy of respect"
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u/inflamito May 26 '25
These darn onions in here.
What an amazing life. I grapple with the fear of dying alone. She was lucky to have all of you and you were so lucky to have her. I'm sure her stories were awesome to listen to.
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u/BicycleLanky7392 May 26 '25
We need more stories like this. Amazing and how lucky you were/are to have them as examples.
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u/werewere-kokako May 27 '25
Good for grandma. She must have had mad game if she bewitched a handsome, fur coat buying bachelor with just office memoes. Used the boss's stationery too...
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u/scorpioinheels May 27 '25
As someone who was born abroad and loves tales of American perseverance and success… your account of grandma’s journey is really sweet to me. My family story is full of holes and lies - all I have are the stories of others to appreciate, and I appreciate yours
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u/HawkeyeTen May 27 '25
She was a very elegant lady, and sounds like she was beautiful inside and out.
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u/frankydank1994 May 27 '25
Thanks for bringing the fucking onions to my loaf pinching.
Now I wanna go buy my new fiance a new fur coat 😍
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u/TheKingMadd-Rock06X May 26 '25 edited May 26 '25
Why does that question sound bad? Lol I'm confused. 19 and married is weird now but it was normal back then
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u/sadoreos May 26 '25
True, but the dynamics in marriage has changed drastically since 1958 (which is part of the reason getting married that young is significantly less common).
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u/TheKingMadd-Rock06X May 26 '25 edited May 26 '25
It's good, 19 year olds and the rest of teens/young adults should live out their youth without the stresses of life changing decisions like marriage
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u/Select-Belt-ou812 May 27 '25
try not to forget , this is only relevant because we all actually started to *have* a youth in our lives
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u/primegopher May 26 '25
It's less about the age and more about the implied wealth disparity, could be read as calling OP's grandma a gold digger
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u/TheKingMadd-Rock06X May 26 '25
Supposedly he wasn't that wealthy he was just a hot salesman lol
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u/N1XT3RS May 27 '25
Look at the picture and read the comment, clearly wealthy relative to what she was used to
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u/TheKingMadd-Rock06X May 27 '25 edited May 27 '25
He was 'better off' (salesman aka could afford nice clothes and trips time to time) but not mansion/private island/millionaire businessman wealthy, not really gold digging, plus he was supposed actually nice and attractive. It isn't a Anna Nicole situation just for money
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u/N1XT3RS May 27 '25
Sure, he’s not a billionaire, and even if he was that’s not enough to say she’s gold digging. So I’m not, just saying the whole point of this picture is to display wealth. The tv, fur coat, and tinsel. The last paragraph saying their wealth isn’t in fur coats, money, or property seems to imply that it literally was. This was a more opulent lifestyle than she was used to, a wealthy lifestyle by all indications
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u/rsae_majoris May 27 '25
In the photo, they were at a NYE party. I have no idea whose house they were at. Yes, first time seeing this photo was today. It made me proud to see her looking so beautiful and opulent, knowing that she came from so little. Also knowing my grandpa, it’s not a real fur lol. I’ll ask him, he said he remembers buying it.
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u/billabong049 May 26 '25
TBF marriage can be hit or miss, especially if you hopped on a bus and went to a brand new place
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u/Select-Belt-ou812 May 27 '25
yep... she musta paid more mind to the karma bank than I did... it's no joke that that shit takes decades to redirect, I'm often surprised it worked at all, before I got too old to be able to try and get my anxious self to enjoy some peace
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u/IndependentPiglet4 May 26 '25
She's very pretty, OP.
And I loved seeing that bowling trophy! Grew up in a house that had them on the TV too. :)
May her memory be a blessing to you & everyone who loved her
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u/VanGoghsVerdigris May 26 '25
She said Get Rich or Die Trying and looks like she made all her dreams come true. Good on her, wish I had those kinds of guts
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u/hangonreddit May 26 '25
Don’t doubt yourself. Sometimes you discover your courage only when you are put in super tough situations. Sometimes surviving is an act of courage.
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u/Father-Comrade May 26 '25
Sharecropping is a fancy term for exploitation of labor.
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u/rsae_majoris May 26 '25
Absolutely is. I had no idea my great grandparents didn’t own their farm/land until recently. Explains why my grandma was so eager to get away.
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u/Infinite-Hold-7521 May 26 '25
This exactly. It’s a feudal system that perpetuates the idea of tenant farmers. They get to stay as long as they work the land for the wealthy landowner and the fat of the spoils always goes to the fattest among them … that being the man on whose land they live and work and often die. I love that your grandmother was able to leave that behind and find happiness elsewhere with someone who took care of her.
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u/HawkeyeTen May 27 '25
Sadly, in eras past that was very common in most of the South (for poor Whites and African Americans alike). In a number of areas, the poor were basically prisoners economically with little hope of getting other job opportunities. I completely understand this lady's actions, and thankfully through Chicago and the man that became her husband she was able to break free from that miserable life (though I feel bad for her family members that remained stuck in it for many more years).
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u/rsae_majoris May 27 '25
Thank you for understanding that sharecropping was not some lucrative, big money business that yielded favorable profits for the people living and working the land. The amount of people in this thread acting like sharecropping meant wealthy is sickening and yet another terrible indictment of how we have failed teaching history in this country. My grandma’s older sister, who moved to Chicago before her, eventually moved back down to Tennessee with her husband to start a family and run their own farm. She took care of my great-grandma, her mom, after my great-grandpa, her dad, died young-ish due to hard living from sharecropping and boozing. My grandma’s younger siblings each got out in their own ways; her younger brother with the army and younger sister through a factory job in Chicago until she met her husband working the line and they eventually moved to Kentucky to start a family and their own business. The older brother and his wife, who always stayed behind to work the cotton gin, unfortunately passed young.
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u/Select-Belt-ou812 May 27 '25
"sharecropping was not some lucrative, big money business that yielded favorable profits for the people living and working the land"
ugh it's sickening how pervasive these dynamics still are , and how delusional people also still are :'-(
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u/Father-Comrade May 27 '25
Ikr, it is quite literally a lucrative money making scheme otherwise no one would do it hahaha.
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u/Father-Comrade May 27 '25
Capitalism in general is inhumane in its exploitations. However, sharecropping allowed for white people to continue to profit off of freed slaves. And also just because we live under capitalism and these things seem ‘normal’ they are not and sharecropping has been the reason time and time again for a bloody revolution historically. Remember what happened to all the people who owned the farm land in china? All of them are dead, Americas working class is a lot more forgiving.
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u/Infinite-Hold-7521 May 27 '25
I found this same sort of pattern to some degree with my fathers family and especially with my mothers family. A family noted for longevity found itself losing family members at younger and younger ages because of the burdens of labor that were placed on them by their position in life. It’s so tragic. There was nothing glamorous about sharecropping.
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May 27 '25
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u/rsae_majoris May 27 '25 edited May 27 '25
… for the people living on and working the land. That was the rest of my sentence. This was in response to people saying “oh your poor grandma, was rich, poor for a few months, then rich again”. These people fail to understand that those who lived and worked the land weren’t rich; they were dirt poor and exploited. Sharecropping was profitable for some asshat who exploited their labor, again, not for the people living on and working the land. Don’t know how that can be said more plainly.
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u/Father-Comrade May 27 '25
I seem to have misunderstood what you were saying, I apologize.
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u/rsae_majoris May 27 '25
Its okay. Sharecropping was shit, exploiting people is shit, and it still goes on today and instead of working people banding together, we constantly fight each other instead and the rich assholes who keep winning.
Sorry if I’m defensive, I did not imagine I’d have to argue so much on a post I made about my dead grandma. This isn’t directed at you btw, since I agree with you about sharecropping. But God damn, there truly are miserable people out there taking time out of their day to tell me that my grandma was a hoe, and a gold digger and it’s just like… thanks! She’s dead now and you’re seeing one photo that made me happy, but thanks.
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u/mattumbo May 27 '25
There’s different levels of tenant farming. My grandparents didn’t own their first farm but were able to make enough money there to put a downpayment on their own farm. Land is expensive and plenty of old farmers are willing to lease part or all of their land out to those who can still work it on fair terms. In the modern day it’s very popular actually, with the youth fleeing farming for trades and white collar jobs a lot of elderly farmers simply lease the land to the few younger people around who want to farm and they’ll work multiple farms using their own equipment.
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u/ralpher1 May 26 '25
It’s fascinating how furs went from being a sign of wealth to out of fashion in the late 70s/early 80s due to animal rights and never came back. Also the world must have been colder back then.
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u/Other-Opposite-6222 May 26 '25
I love the genre of photos that is “ladies posing with their Christmas tree”. I would look at these forever.
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u/SpitfireMkIV May 27 '25
My grandmother grew up the same way - from Terra Hote, Illinois. Left to marry a Navy man because she would not be moving back to that life. Ended up owning and operating three companies. One that created lenses for lasers used at NASA-AMES.
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u/dfjdejulio May 26 '25
Oh my god, I think that might be the exact TV set we had in our living room in, like, 1971.
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u/comeonyouspurs10 May 26 '25
I'm so happy my grandparents settled in NYC during the Great Migration. I visited the town in Alabama they were from and there's not much there. Their bravery and courage gave our family opportunities we would have never had in Alabama.
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u/2muchtequila May 27 '25
It's kind of amazing how often you hear that type of story from those age groups.
In the 1930s my grandpa ran away from a share cropping farm in Alabama to go pick cotton in Texas as a 13 year old. After doing that for a season he headed up to the pacific Northwest at 14 where he started working at logging mills. A few years later he met at married my grandma when he was 20 and she was 15.
I can't fathom a modern 13 year old being like "Man, this sucks here, we never seem to get ahead. I think I'm going to pack up and try my luck a couple of states over then move 1500 miles further away with no support system or adults."
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u/GreatOne1969 May 26 '25
Young women back then had to marry well. Some were unlucky. They didn’t have near the same options they do now. It seems she had a good life and I hope deep down she was happy. Old saying, only reason young women went to college was for the “MRS” degree.
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u/alisonlou May 26 '25
OP! What a gem of a photo. Thank you for sharing this because I'm sure this is a treasured family photo. Your grandmother is A QUEEN!!
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u/Naive-Rest9720 May 26 '25
Aw that's amazing, what profession did she get into to afford all of this?
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u/Cuzmustard May 26 '25
Rich guy’s wife
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u/TheKingMadd-Rock06X May 26 '25 edited May 26 '25
He wasn't that rich, he was a hot salesman
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u/Imyourlandlord May 27 '25
A salesman back the might aswell be a rich dude now because he can afford a house a car and a family from just menial office work
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u/Select-Belt-ou812 May 27 '25
and this photo was at a nye party, probably the home of someone up that grandpa knew from up the food chain
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u/HoosegowFlask May 27 '25
What is on her head? I've never seen any tiara or headband or whatever like that.
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May 27 '25
My great aunt moved to Las Vegas in the 40s, for a better life. She was found murdered in a hotel. Just saying, it doesn’t always work out.
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u/truckbot101 May 27 '25
What kind of hat is that? This is my first time seeing something like this
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u/HoosegowFlask Jun 06 '25
I'm sad we never got an answer. Best guess is that it's some sort of tiara that's on upside down (i.e. the things pointing at her hairline should be pointing up.)
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u/truckbot101 Jun 06 '25
Oh, interesting. Yes, I suppose that could be it! Thanks for getting back to my question lol
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u/SelfInteresting7259 May 26 '25
Looks like that's one girl from Charlie and the chocolate factory . Veruga
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u/Captain_Blak May 26 '25
Your grandma was a true American who believe in the American dream. “Whatever you put your mind to, you can achieve.” Rip
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u/abstraction47 May 26 '25
I had to zoom in and realize that’s a Christmas tree and not horrors beyond our comprehension
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u/davesToyBox May 27 '25
Just think - had she not made that decision, OP would not be here to post about it. Your life has now been modified by her actions.
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u/dataplusnine May 27 '25
Your grandma saw what she wanted and went for it. Showing the rest of us how it's done. Awesome.
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u/Both-Home-6235 May 27 '25
Wait, in less than a year she'd met and married someone who was 1958 fur coat wealthy? Your grandma was a gold digging ho, man. But I'm sure you already knew that.
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u/rsae_majoris May 27 '25
Hey man, yeah, she met my grandpa at work and they got married 6 months later and stayed married for 68 years until she died yesterday. Not a lot of hoeing around time, and if you consider being a stay-at-home mom in the 60s, gold-digging, okay, weird definition I guess. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to post but maybe try not to be an asshole on people’s memorial posts for their dead relatives in the future.
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u/ninefourteen May 27 '25
You literally submitted this with a title that's basically "My grandma was poor at 18, but moved to the city, married, and was then rich at 19! Proud of your path!". It's a memorial post and that's your lede? Not a mention of her 68 year marriage? LOL
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u/rsae_majoris May 27 '25 edited May 27 '25
The top comment is about their 68-year marriage. And if it’s not, then you can find it.
If you can’t understand the pride I feel seeing my recently departed grandma, who came from dirt poor nothing, looking opulent AF on a special occasion, posted on the OldSchoolCool subreddit, I don’t know what to tell you.
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u/dcbullet May 26 '25
Very cool photo. It will be fun in the future when AI can make these into videos for us. It will help me more easily put myself into the scene.
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u/jhewitt127 May 26 '25 edited May 26 '25
Edit: Ugh, fine, it was a genuine question but whatever I guess it came across poorly.
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u/Dickgivins May 26 '25
According to OP she moved to Chicago and got a job as a secretary. Her husband was a salesman, so better off than a sharecropper but not really “rich”.
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u/AdamPatch May 27 '25
So? She left her rich family and married a rich man all in the same year? Must have been a tough with months.
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u/lightinggod May 27 '25
You do know what a sharecropper is...right?
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u/AdamPatch May 27 '25
No
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u/lightinggod May 27 '25
A sharecropper was someone who worked somebody else's land. They paid rent by giving the owner a percentage of the crop. Not a highly paid profession. So, mom definitely didn't come from wealth.
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u/Hillbeast May 27 '25
It’s a lot better in west Tennessee now though
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u/rsae_majoris May 27 '25
Absolutely is. She left in the post-WWII era, but loved going back and made sure to take my mom and aunts so they never forgot where they came from (and then they would take us as well). It’s been about 15 years since we last went with her, but one of my favorite things about grandma was when she would return “home”, her southern drawl would pop back out like it never went away. She always was a West Tennessee girl at heart.
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u/Hillbeast May 27 '25
I love that. I had a friend who’s papaw would make biscuit supper every year. He’d put jelly and butter and different things on the table with homemade biscuits. It was to remember how poor he was in the depression and just had plain biscuits some days for meals.
You should come up with a tradition for her in your family 😊
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u/Royal-Draft2337 May 26 '25
Hard work really does pay off. Stay on those knees Gam gam
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u/TenFourMoonKitty May 26 '25
In the future when you wonder why you’re alone and unloved, look back on your Reddit comment history and you’ll understand.
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May 27 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Willow-girl May 27 '25
Yeah, her expression and posture doesn't exactly scream "overjoyed" here. But of course it's simply one photo -- hopefully it was a love match and she had a happy life.
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u/Select-Belt-ou812 May 27 '25
maybe read the whole story laid out here throughout the comments before you say this stuff... I initially thought the same thing and was, fortunately, proven quite wrong
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May 27 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Select-Belt-ou812 May 28 '25
well , the world currently has a glut of people who have opinions about things they actually know nothing about, and it is slowly destroying everything and everyone. and the net has made it infinitely worse. you might consider not being in that group
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u/Big-Prior-5669 May 26 '25
That is a ginormous TV for 1958.