CatholicVote Employees Tell Stories of Their Grandparents

Does your grandma have a special cookie recipe that you still crave? Did your grandpa teach you how to cast a line?

To celebrate the feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, the patron saints of grandparents, CatholicVote employees have shared their funniest, sweetest, and best memories of their grandparents!

My maternal grandparents were amazing. Both were from the greatest generation. Papa George was a WWII sailor and Nana was home with her newly adopted baby (my mother) while he was at war. They both graduated high school as their highest level of education, but were two of the most intellectual people I knew. They taught us the value of family, respect, education, class, and manners. Their world revolved around their grandkids, and they spent so much time interacting with us no matter how insignificant the activity seemed to be. Sorting coins, helping with yard work, or just sitting and having hot chocolate and toast. Loved them so much and miss them both terribly. – Barb

Once, when they were younger, my grandfather lost track of my grandmother, my namesake, at the amusement park.  He finally heard her calling to him from the roller coaster… she was “very” pregnant at the time.  – Dorothy

After the Second World War, my Poppy (grandfather, paternal) was stationed at Rivers Barracks in Gießen, Germany. During my study abroad I was able to go to the Barracks and Facetime my Pap. He told me what room was his, where they stored the ammo, etc. Recently, he came to visit and was telling me what Gießen used to look like. He was referring to streets and buildings like the theater and I could understand the place he was talking about. It’s something special that only my Pap and I have out of all the grandchildren and I am really thankful for that. – Ethan P.

My grandpa accidentally left my grandma at a gas station in the middle of nowhere during a cross-country road trip… He didn’t realize it until 6 hours later! – Monica

My maternal, Italian grandfather asked my grandmother on a first date despite thinking she was as stuck-up as she was beautiful. He proceeded to declare that he wanted to marry her on that date, which must have passed on a “type” to the kind of men the women in my family were attracted to. Without knowing the story, my dad told my mom he wanted to marry her after their first date, and later my husband made the same bold statement on our first date. PopPop was a matrimonial trendsetter! – Jessica N. 

My maternal Grandfather was a convert to Catholicism from Protestantism. His family were immigrants from Germany and had an amazing bakery. In high school, he met with a Catholic priest weekly, slowly converted, and joined the Church. Later in his life, he was a daily communicant. As a blue-collar worker, he often had to go to work before the sun. He was known to knock on the priest’s bedroom window to wake him up to receive communion through the window before heading to work. The practice was so common that priests were known to be late to their morning Mass a time or two if my grandfather was on vacation with his family or sick in bed. Their reliable alarm clock wasn’t knocking on the window asking for Jesus! These are also the grandparents that taught me the Sign of the Cross, offered to pay for every grandchild to go to Catholic grade school and high school, and would never shy away from prayer in public (even when it was 30 of us blessing our food, which in unison is so loud whole restaurants were brought to a halt). – Sarah C.

My grandpa is deathly allergic to peanuts and my sweet Hispanic grandma has sent him to the ER several times – if you don’t know them you might start getting suspicious. I promise they are madly in love!  – Catherine P.

My paternal grandpa taught the actor Jimmy Stewart to fly a plane during World War II! – Mary K.

My grandparents were born in the Netherlands and Belgium. During WWII, my grandpa, Poppy, was in a concentration camp for hiding a Jewish person in his home in Belgium. My grandma saved him. She used to go get potatoes in front of a cemetery where the General (of that same concentration camp – whom she saw several times and recognized her) placed flowers on the tomb of his son. She approached him and asked him to free my Grandpa, and he did! When the war was over, they traveled to Argentina and the family blossomed there. My beautiful grandma smoked cigars and was 10 years older than my grandpa. They have been amazing pillars in my life in terms of my education and strong love for family. – Daniela

My great-grandmother got her pilot’s license by working at an airport – she exchanged part of her salary for pilot’s lessons, an unheard-of deal at the time. At the time, it was illegal for a woman to fly for the military, yet she was so talented they put her to work flying planes across the Atlantic – it was classified information at the time that she did this. She lived until she was 92, drank Jack Daniels on the rocks, and taught me how to knit while she was half-blind. We all love her and miss her still today! – Rosie H.

Do you have any heartwarming stories from your grandparents? Please share them below or write us an email – we always love to hear from you!