Gregory's Server@pattykimura @RickiTarr My grandmother was a washerwoman as well. She took her bike to work every day (30 miles one way), ate some cucumber and a tomato for lunch, and raised two children on her own (my dad and aunt), because my dads father died in jail after trying to murder the whole family. I am not kidding.
She could retire early though with a good pension efter her husbands death, and started trading stocks. She became a millionaire before she died at 98, but never really bought anything.
@MariaLiv @RickiTarr I think of her collecting firewood to boil clothes, scrub and wring by hand, and lift and hang pounds and pounds of other peoples' wet clothes on a line. She was a tiny woman. She ate slowly and ate every crumb. She had seen others die by starvation and never took any food for granted. She never romanticized the past.