[OldWarBaby]

How long? The steamers were pretty much all out of service by 1960. I remember the water towers gradually coming down. And, yup, the fireman was the boiler tender, keeping the fire hot with an occasional shovel full of coal. Early on the coal was chunky so he could just pitch big pieces. But in the last few decades they used crushed coal so he needed a shovel. If the Grandad got started about WW I he could have had a good career up thru WW II.

[defconw]

That seems like a likely time line. He would have be 42 when WWII started for the US. So likely, that is when he went to work at a Chevrolet plant until 1959 when he had a stroke and had to retire. It sucks being the 16th out of 18 grandchildren he and my grandmother were both gone when I turned 15.