"Grandpa was a tinsmith, the foreman of the shop
Grandma worked for diamonds, she started at the top
And even though the dreams they had, never quite came true
They passed them on to Daddy, and to me when he was through."

My Grandma Rasmussen came to this country from Denmark as a young woman. She met my Grandfather, who also came over from Denmark as a young man, in a Danish Settlement in Northern Wisconsin. I've been told that they met singing in the church choir, although I never heard either of them ever sing. If America is a melting pot, Grandma refused to melt. She was always a lump in the soup. She spoke English with a very strong Danish accent, adn was a hesitant reader.

As the song also says, "Grandma stretched the money just as far as it would go." With eight kids, it took a lot of stretching.

Jerry