My father was an orphan, born in 1929. He laid in an orphanage for the first 2 years of his life, until a family took him in as a foster child. He represented a check, paid during the depression, and the family never adopted him. I have nothing that tells me the two older sisters in the family didnt love him, but, there were subtle signs that he was ridden pretty hard by his foster father.
He was a middle teen aged male during the war, and had many after school jobs. There was a labor shortage in St. Paul, MN during the war, and Dad made the most of it. He also was expected to use his .22 and his fishing poles to provide protein several times a week. There was a limit to how much money he could be paid, and employers often paid him in .22 ammunition on top of his wage to retain him. It was an easy hitch hike to what are now second ring suburbs when my Dad was a kid, to hunt ducks, squirrels, bunnies and pheasants, and there were plenty of decent fishing lakes and a few rivers within a 20 minute bike ride of his home in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul. Dad had a beat up old double when he was a kid, but, hated it, and made a trade for a .410 single as soon as he could. He ended up a rifleman more so than a shotguner.
His foster father died in a boiler explosion at the nursing home he worked at, Presbyterian Homes, which, still exists, near lake Johanna, in Roseville, MN. It was almost exactly a year after I was born, and I never met him.
My Moms Dad drove a team of horses in New York City, and, later, trucks, and later still, cabs. He was loathe to leave the city, didnt understand why anyone would leave NYC, and never owned a gun, or so much as a cane pole. Entertainment to him was taking in a Yankees game when he had two extra nickels to rub together, and I gather that wasnt often. He worked 60-70 hours a week for most of his life, and moonlighted other jobs to make ends meet. I barely knew the man.

Everything I got came from Dad and a few hunting partners of his. My Dad moved us off the East coast when I was a kid, back to MN, and never looked back. He hated Jersey, in particular, and told me of a dispute he had with local law enforcement when he wanted to buy a rifle to hunt deer, and the cop who issued the permit for that told him to forget it.
He was an active duty USMC Gunnery Sargent with nearly 18 years under his belt at that point, teaching future snipers with 7th Rifle Corps, at NARTS, the Naval Air Rocket Test Station, and it chapped his ass.
We left Jersey as soon as Dad could figure out how to do it. I think I got more and better outdoor opportunities as a result, and am glad I ended up here,instead of there.

Best,
Ted