heritage

 

The women in the picture to the right are relatives of mine. The one standing second from the left is my great-Grandmother. The others are her sisters. These women were the daughters of a Baptist preacher. They are said to be the source of the red hair  some of our children and grandchild possess.
I have heard stories about some of them. I knew a couple of the. Certainly I knew my great grandmother well enough.
I remember her quilting, her biscuits, how she loved to work in the yard. I remember that she dipped snuff.  We visited her at her home fairly often. Every winter, she came to stay with my grandmother, her only daughter. It was during those times I came to know her best.
The original of the photo of she and her sisters hung in an oval frame at my grandparents. I loved seeing what the women I knew looked like in their younger days but I never really cared for the photo itself.
It was inside a heavy oval frame. Time has weathered the print to something like black and sepia. Frankly, I did not miss it when my grandmother gave it to a younger cousin. Years later, after my Grandmother died, I wondered about its location and my middle sister told me had been given to the daughter of one of the young of my grandma's aunts (my great grandmother's sisters.)
My middle sister, who did more to care for my grandparents after my Dad died than anyone else, was disappointed. "I really wanted that picture," she said, simply.
Now if my grandma knew my middle sister had wanted that picture, I am certain she would have had it. But typical of my sweet, considerate sister, she never said a word. Not to Grandma, not to anyone.
Recently, she celebrated her 50th birthday. The baby sister and I worked hard to locate the self same photo to give to her. The best we could do was to find a copy that we could copy.
We intend to have it framed in an old mirror of our Grandmother's. It's as close as we can come to the original.