Grandmother’s picture

Tackled dismantling an old futon and getting it out of my office area of the house.  Need to get a big file cabinet and start organizing some of the paperwork I have to keep track of related to family business.  I feel more effective if I’m organized. Right now, am not organized, but clearing space is a first step.  And throwing out something occasionally can be very refreshing.  As the family historian and the one who has most of the old family photos and genealogies, lots of bits of things can be treasures to organize and save, information that puts history in perspective through the eyes of relatives before us.  Reading a diary from 1868 by a great-great-great-grandmother reminds me that once women did not have the choices we have today, and she noted meeting her future husband, my ancestor. She also was very religious and thought she was such a sinner that her faith didn’t appear to give her any joy and happiness (I find that sad). Reading my grandmother’s 1918 diary told how she, her brother and sister all had and survived the Spanish Influenza that killed millions of people worldwide — if she hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t be here now.  One genealogy even has a photo of ancestors who were born in the 1700’s but were still living in the early years of photography.  There are still mysteries about my Irish ancestors who lived in Canada, and I may never be able to find out where in Ireland they came from.  But my heartstrings are tugged every time I think about my visits to Ireland and knowing it was their land once upon a time.  So I organize, research, digitize, share my findings, hoping to tie one relative to another across the centuries.  And hopefully, some descendant of mine will carry the torch, so to speak.

Photo is of a trompe l’oeil I drew using a photo taken about 1900 of my Grandmother Alice Wheeler Clark and her sister Gertie, and other antique items.