We weren’t too close with our Grandma, more because of physical distance between us than anything else.
We’d see her at holidays and on vacation, however not much else.
It is only as adults, finally working as professional writers, that we have had the time and the freedom to spend more time with her. Our grandmother has expressed interest in us helping write her memoirs, which at first we were hesitant about. But, as we learned more about her, we had to accept the proposal. We were aware that our grandmother was one of the founders of the largest heating and cooling method production company in this area of the country, even though we weren’t aware of everything she had accomplished. Back then in America, women were rarely company owners, and never as hands-on as our grandmother was with her furnace factory. There was not enough demand to make cooling systems in mass quantities, so grandmother’s focus was exclusively on oil furnaces. At the time, she faced a lot of push back, not only from other company owners, but the employees in her furnace factory. Some men didn’t love the concept of working for a woman, even if the furnace factory paid excellent salaries. But, our grandmother never backed down, never showed weakness, and over the years earned the respect of her peers in the HVAC industry. Before talking with her, we were entirely unsure about writing her memoirs, because the furnace factory didn’t sound like something interesting. On the other hand, her struggles to make it in the HVAC industry are quite intriguing.