My paternal grandmother was born in rural Hungary near the turn of the last century. Her family emmigrated from there, one or two at a time as finances allowed, and she came to America, making the voyage all alone, at the age of twelve just prior to the first world war. She spoke no English and so was placed in the local kindergarden class, which she detested. Her formal stateside education lasted only one year before she went to working in the factories.

At seventeen she married my Grandpa, also a Hungarian immigrant, and spent the next 35 years as a farmer's wife and then a farmer's widow running a 13 cow dairy farm. When my dad escaped the farm she moved to town. She never learned to drive but walked to work at a local laundry for the next 40 odd years.

I remember her at age 85 scolding me for not properly weeding my garden and then doing it "right" herself.
Definately of a generation made from tougher fiber than my own.