Saturday, June 20, 2020

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your Father's Work History

It's Saturday Night - 
time for more Genealogy Fun! 



Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:


1)  Sunday, 19 June, is Father's Day.  Let's celebrate by writing a blog post about our father, or another significant male ancestor (e.g., a grandfather).

2)  What was your father's occupation?  What jobs did he have throughout his life?  Do you know his work history?

3)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post.

Here's mine:


My father, Frederick Walton Seaver, Jr. graduated from high school in about 1930, and spent parts of two years at Dartmouth College.  He hoped to be a professional baseball player, but injured his knees.  After leaving college, he did odd jobs in Leominster, Massachusetts where his parents lived.

In the 1940 U.S. census, he was enumerated twice.  In Newton, Massachusetts, he lived in the Newton YMCA,  and was a sales manager for a finance company.  He made $1,440 in 1939.  In Leominster, Massachusetts, he resided with his sister and her family, and was an investigator for a bank loan corporation, and made $1,500 the previous year.  

Fred drove to San Diego in December 1940 to escape Massachusetts, and worked for a time with his cousin's husband, Marshall Chamberlain.  By 1942, he was working at Rohr Corporation in Chula Vista as an aircraft worker.  He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in October 1944 and was discharged in February 1946.  He was a mailman 3rd class on the U.S.S. Halford, a destroyer, that was based in the Aleution Islands.

From 1947 to 1971, my father was a life insurance salesman for Prudential Insurance Company (we had a piece of the Rock!).  His office was in Point Loma, and his "debit" (his service area) was in Pacific Beach - a good 14 miles away from home.  He usually went to his office once a week and to his service area two or three times a week.  He went door-to-door selling life insurance policies, and then collected the monthly premium from his customers (it was usually cash payments).  The other days, and into the night, sometimes until 11 p.m. or midnight, he worked at his desk in the den overlooking the front door steps in our apartment at 2119 30th Street.  He had an adding machine with a narrow tape roll (it was great fun to play with when I was a kid!), file cabinets, and many ledger books in which he entered the payments received.  He was always there when I came home from school or work or evening activities.  This work schedule permitted coaching baseball and bowling.

He retired in 1971 (at age 60) after cutting one finger off and badly damaging another with his rotary saw down in the garage workshop.  There were many doctor visits as they managed to save the damaged finger.  But he had to stop bowling.

After retiring, he did work around the house and managed my grandparents apartments (there were six living spaces, including ours).  The small Smith children downstairs adored him and he loved talking to and seeing them.  He continued to make things and fix things in his workshop.  He watched TV more, especially wrestling, boxing, jai alai, baseball, football and basketball.  My parents had Chargers season tickets in the 1970s.  


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The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2020/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html

Copyright (c) 2017, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

9 comments:

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

I was surprised we hadn't done this one before. I loved reminiscing about my dad's work.

https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2020/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html

Carrie Smith said...

Wow you know so much about your fathers work history, I'm both impressed and jealous! Great post

Lois Willis said...

Here's mine:

https://loiswillis.blog/2020/06/21/sunday-afternoon-genealogy-fun-your-fathers-work-history/

Janice M. Sellers said...

Here's mine:

http://www.ancestraldiscoveries.com/2020/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html

Liz said...

My knowledge of my father's work history is spotty at best. Perhaps tomorrow, I can call my mother and have her fill in some blanks for me.

Meanwhile, here's my post:

http://gatapleytree.blogspot.com/2020/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html

Lacie Madison said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lacie Madison said...

I am sure my dad little jobs as a kid and teen that I am unaware of. I will have to ask him about it. Here's my post: My post.

Linda Stufflebean said...

Here's my post: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2020/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-97/

Linda Stufflebean said...

What fun to find your dad enumerated twice in 1940. It's interesting that he worked for an aircraft company, but they accepted his enlistment in the Navy. I would think that was a vital job to support the war effort. You must have enjoyed having him at home when you got back from school.