Tradesman-Carl Albert Strand

 With Labor Day approaching, the prompt for this week is "Tradesman."  When looking over the family tree I settled on Carl Strand. He seems to have had the most varied careers.

Carl's first job was as a young boy when he was hired to dig up potatoes for a neighbor. Carl was allowed to keep the potatoes that were too small to sell at market. This helped feed his family who often struggled for food. After completing the 8th grade Carl quit school and started working. One of his first jobs was working the family farm, which he enjoyed and seemed to be rather good at. Conflicts with his father over the running of the farm gave way to Carl leaving home and finding work elsewhere. Carl worked for the Michigan and Chicago Railway. He made his way to Battle Creek, Michigan where he then went to work for the Nichols and Shepard Farm Equipment Manufacturing Company. They built threshing machines.

In 1920 Carl married Mildred Bellingar. By now he was working for the  E.W. Eady shoe factory. In fact, on Carl and Mildred's marriage license, Carl is listed as a shoemaker.

During the 1920's the family moved to Kalamazoo. There, Carl worked as a truck driver, owning his own truck. He also had a construction business too. Life was pretty good. Then the Great Depression hit.

With it being hard to make ends meet, both for Carl and for his parents, Carl moved his family back to the family farm and began life as a farmer again. Being a farmer was hard and the family often had trouble making ends meet, but they made it through. Life began to get easier again in the 1940's. In April 1949 Carl began to try out a new career, as a politician.

Carl was named Watson Township supervisor after the current supervisor resigned the post. He eventually ran for the post, and won, by one vote! Carl stayed active in local politics up until his later years. 

Carl Albert Strand worked as a potato digger, railway man, shoe factory worker, factory assembler, truck driver, construction, farmer, and politician. Definitely a jack of all trades.