[trollbridge]

My grandparents (in the United States) all got sick days. One grandfather drove coal trucks in and out of an open pit coal mine. The other one was a letter carrier, and for a short while owned a dry-cleaning finishing business. (One reason they got out of owning their own business was the stress of things like how you don't get sick days when you are your own boss.)

My grandma who worked at an insurance office was likewise the same. They all got sick days, although it was a point of pride to hardly ever use them.

None of them were remotely upper class. My one side might have been middle class before the depression, though. The other side was so poor that it didn't make a big difference when the depression happened.

They worked in those jobs from WWII until they retired, longer than 30 years.

They were able to ensure their children went to college, except for one who enlisted in the Navy instead. And then they helped all of their children buy their own houses, eventually. They saved a lot and built big savings for retirement when rates were high in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Their children all have a Master's degree; their grandchildren all have a Bachelor's, one has a Master's, one has an M.D., so upward mobility really did exist back then. (The grandparents of my cousins were all solidly working class as well.)

[kasey_junk]

Sounds nice. One grandmother told stories about her rich uncle who had a great job in the coal mines.

The one that went to college did so on the money the coal company paid her father to strip mine his land. Swimming in the pit they left after they moved on was a family tradition.