I come from a line of railroad men. My great-grandfather was a surveyor for the Burlington Railroad.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
For 50 years my father worked for the railroad.
My father was a railroad man his entire life; 43 years for Southern Railroad.
I used to work on a survey crew, because my dad was an engineer, but he was also a surveyor.
My dad was a telegraph operator for the Cotton Belt Railroad. He worked seven nights a week from 4 until midnight, no vacation.
My father was a construction engineer, and my mother was a production engineer.
On my mother's side, I come from Midlands engineers and, on my father's, from tenant farmers near Oxford.
I had a great job with the railroad, a good salary.
My grandfather on my mother's side was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; my other grandfather was a lawyer, and one time Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.
I come from a coal-mining, working-class background. My father was a coal miner.
My grandfather was from Aberdare. He was a coal miner who emigrated and then continued mining in Pennsylvania.