After immigrating from China as a kid when Japan bombed his village and killed his mother, my grandf
After immigrating from China as a kid when Japan bombed his village and killed his mother, my grandfather (who is now in his early nineties) was naturalized as a US citizen, became a chef, enlisted in the Army, owned a dry goods store in Redding, California, met my grandmother, got married, then had one son, my dad. Their life sounds simple and ordinary enough, but they are the hardest working, longest married couple that I know. Never taking any days off or vacations, always saving and putting away money in the bank so they would never need to take out loans or borrow from anyone. Literally everything they own including their home and cars were paid for in cold, hard, cash. They financed by dad’s entire college education at Berkeley and UCLA. Of course, it’s easy to say that they simply grew up in a different time period. I imagine that living through the Great Depression would dramatically affect a person’s perspective of true needs versus wants. Still, I have so much respect for my grandparents for working as a team and making smart financial choices to ensure they would be self sufficient their entire lives. -- source link