My paternal grandfather (the first Art Brooks) ran away from home at age 17 or so to join the Navy. The family had mostly been farmers in Greene County, New York since the 1740s. He was aboard ship for the end of WW1, but the US Navy didn't see much of the war. After he retired, he was an apartment house fireman in Providence, Rhode Island - that means he shoveled coal for building furnaces. He was recalled as a Chief Bosun during WW2 but never left the US. My maternal grandfather was a press operator for the Bureau of Printing and Engraving; I have a memory of him taking me down to their building in Washington and showing we all of the stamp and currency bloopers that were caught in inspections. He was the first of his line born in the US; his father was originally French (and mostly absent) and his mother came over from Ireland at the age of sixteen.