She also generated merchandise for her store
I could lay & listen to my grandmother talk all day long, & so I often do! She spends a good amount of her afternoons out in her workshop, as she had for numerous decades! I can relax with her, sip a sweet tea, & just let her talk for numerous & it never gets old. It turns out that Grandmother doesn’t actually know where her family comes from, because she never met them. She was on something called an Orphan Train in the 1930s, a caravan that moved through farm country seeking homes, and my grandmother was taken in by a master craftsman of handmade furniture, & that is where she was able to learn her trade. She has actually never had any other task, aside from farming & building custom built furniture. The farming was because of where she lived, how she was raised, & that you had to farm it you had the desire to eat! After some years she opened her own handmade furniture shop, specializing mainly in wooden chairs & tables. At this point in time she had numerous apprentices, & as she taught them how to build wooden chairs, tables, & coffee tables. She also generated merchandise for her store. She has never asked me if I ever wished to learn the trade, but she says now that is all behind her, & she just makes the occasional coffee table as a gift for a neighbor or loved one. I asked her if for Christmas she would mind making me a coffee table, something special, that could become a new family heirloom. She said she would definitely consider it.