I grew up in Alsace - in Strasbourg, by the canal; the family business was coal handling. It was still in the days when three generations would live under the same roof. There were 15 people for lunch, 20 for dinner.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My father and brothers were coal miners.
When I was 11 years old, my family had to leave East Germany and begin a new life in West Germany overnight. Until my father could get back into his original profession as a government employee, my parents operated a small laundry business in our little town. I became the laundry delivery boy.
A distant cousin sent me some genealogy report on my father's side, and it's sort of what I suspected. Coal miners for generations... four or maybe five generations.
My family was in two businesses - they were in the textile business, and they were in the candy business. The conversations around the dinner table were all about the factory floor and how many machines were running and what was happening in the business. I grew up very engaged in manufacturing and as part of a family business.
Oh, I was brought up in the north of France, and I had a very enjoyable childhood with my family working as entrepreneur.
I was born in a suburb of Paris, and I grew up there until I was 16, so there were always a lot of barbecues, a garden, friends.
I came from a very, very small valley in the middle of South Wales. I grew up there with my father, who's a coal miner, and my mother worked in a normal factory.
I grew up in Swaledale, in Iowa. Its population was 220 when I was growing up, and it's probably 150 now. I lived in town and sometimes worked on the farms outside of town in the summers.
My dad's an architect and my mom owned a French bakery for twelve years.
I grew up in Southern Oregon. My father was a sawmill worker and a logger, and his job put food on the table.