How Our Family Went from Being Poor Immigrants to Rich Americans

Our family story is no different from that of millions of other American families - but it's time someone remembered our history for us. 

My maternal grandmother came to America, from a poor part of England (and those certainly did exist, at the time) with her mother. Her father came also, but he was not considered important - our family was descended from a Matriarchy, that went a long way back - all the way to Queen Victoria.

They settled in Boston, the proper place, at the time, for the English to migrate to (along with the Irish, but that is another story),  

Her family sent her to Business School, of which many existed - to learn a trade for herself. She learned to operate a Typewriter - a new invention, at the time. The hadn't been standardized yet, so she, and her classmates learned how to use all of them!

The Boston paper showed a photograph of her and a classmate, dressed formally, in long black dresses - going to work in the Financial District! She, and her typewriter, could compete easily with the men clerks, with their beautiful handwriting. 

This was progress, even if many people did not like it. She, and her family, were going up in the world, no matter the costs were to anyone else. The typewriter was the latest thing - and grandmother, as a young woman, was the latest thing also! 

Grandmother married another immigrant, from Nova Scotia, who (with the help of his sister, who had married into a rich Boston family) got a job for him at the family's business college. 

They bought a fine house, in a Boston suburbs - and my mother was born there. 

They had arrived!