My financial lineage in A history

Pre- 20th century:

On my dad’s side I heard there was a rabbi

On my mom’s side I heard they were farmers, wheat farmers I think, who came from Germany or Denmark to Southern Brazil with a giant rock for grinding the wheat. I remember learning that my great-great grandmother went mad and burned down the wheat farm, but neither my mom, or my aunt, were able to confirm or even corroborate ever hearing that.

On my dad’s side I remember learning that his grandparents owned a clothing store in Brooklyn or Queens where they bought surplus clothing which helped them survive the Depression. Not sure where they got the money for the clothing store, they were immigrants from Ukraine. Don’t know about his other side. His father was a podiatrist who loaned my dad the money to pay for the house I grew up in at 0% interest. His mother was a teacher. My father was a field surveyor for an insurance data office, he mostly surveyed towns for their fire safety preparedness but also for flood preparedness for a while. Prior to this he was a dispatcher, worked at the Philadelphia visitor center welcome booth, sold shoes at a department store, and worked at Jim’s Steaks as a delivery driver.

He was 40 years a bachelor who started saving for his future kids to go to college in his 30s. He says that in the 80s there were CD accounts at banks that had a 14% interest rate. What I remember his ending Salary before retiring at 70: $65,000

On my mother’s side her mother was a teacher and her father made dentures. He apparently had a lot of land, and he apparently also was a gambler who gambled away a lot of the land and money. My mother started teaching when she was 16. Between then and when she retired as a teacher again, she was also a receptionist at a cigarette company, she was a live-in maid, she worked at an ice cream shop, Macy’s for a while, and substitute taught before getting her certificate to be a teacher again at age 50. What I remember her ending Salary before retiring early at age 63: $70,000