My Fashionable Life

My grandmother foiled a robber once. In the newspaper clipping my father saved, a copy of which is somewhere in my desk -- I wish I knew where exactly -- the incident is reported somewhat humorously: a middle-aged woman "bopped" an intruder who came into her butter-and-egg store and demanded money, and he fled. I think probably in real life there was nothing funny in the moment at all; the family was poor, the loss would have been serious, my grandmother hit the man who wanted to take the money she and her children needed. This story is one clue I have about what she might have done, if she'd had more scope, what kind of person she was.

I wish that I knew more about my grandmother, who is a truly amazing woman. As a result of her dementia, her more recent past is disappearing, but stories of her youth have been coming out that we never knew about. She was a nurse during the Second World War, and we only recently discovered that she was one of the people present at the liberation of Belsen. I only wish that I could have known her better while she still recognised me.

My father apparently hitchhiked across the northern US from Seattle while on leave from the Navy in WWII. He was aiming for Cleveland (home) but never made it in time due to excessive, um, partying.
My mother was a sad woman, so I won't share her stories, but HER mother once reached behind something in the storage shed and was bitten by a large copperhead, which was flung out when she jerked her hand back. She got a hoe and killed the snake (her kids were around), went inside and curled her hair, and only then would she go to the doctor. I don't know if that means she was tough or just nuts.

Thanks for sharing those stories. It's lovely to connect to the past; I think it gives us a sense of belonging and proportion. I'll be thinking about a story to share, but in the meantime, I posted on my blog about your "ancestry/comment" contest.

One thing I will tell you is last summer I attended a family reunion for the first time in twenty-five years. My cousin had collected our family tree information and printed it out. She hung it on the outside of my aunt's house, and it stretched around two sides. Seeing the enormity of what I'm a part of was a watershed moment in my life.

Oops, I forgot to suggest that maybe your ancestors could inspire your designs with their clothing styles of yesteryear.

Here's one for you, Anna: My grandmother Imogene, who apparently in her day was quite the independent-minded flapper, got engaged sometime in the thirties. Her parents weren't overly fond of her fiance, so they told her that as a pre-wedding gift they wanted to send her on a tour of Europe, hoping that she'd have time to repent at leisure, as they say. Well, before she got on the ocean liner, she visited a fortune teller (as she was wont to do), and the fortune teller told her that she was about to go on a long trip, and that on the trip she would meet the man she was supposed to marry, but that if she had met his father first, she would have married him instead.

Well, off went Imogene, and on the ship, she met a man (20 years older than she was, no less!), fell in love, and had the ship's captain marry them. They were married for 30 years and had eight children (including, of course, my mother, the second-to-last), but she always swore that if she had met her father-in-law first (40 years older than she was!) she would have married him without a single regret.

We called her "Foxy Imo," but never to her face...

I wish I knew more about my grandmother, who emigrated from Russia to the U.S., probably about 1915. Her English was poor, and we didn't communicate well. But she is the one who taught me to knit. She could crochet doll's clothes without a measurement. She would just look at the doll, sit sliently crocheting, and have something perfect after a few hours. I heard that she was employed as a sample maker in the NY City garment trade because her needlework skills were so good. And I like to think that I inherited my skills from her. When I asked her what it was like living in Russia and coming to the U.S., she would only say "you shouldn't know from it". Since she and my mother were estranged for many years, I never got to know her as I grew older.

Funny. I wrote a post about my grandfather just yesterday. Follow my blog link and look for "Egg Money".

Such a great post!

My grandfather helped develop the catalytic converter. He later went to work for the state of New Jersey to help with pollution control. His partner went to work for the state of California and those 2 states were the leading states to control pollution in the early 70's. My great uncle also helped develop fiber optics for Bell Labs.

Pretty good for Italian immigrants.

Hello from Osaka! Just thought I'd get my Fashionable Life fix! Look forward to catching up properly on my　return.

Family legend has it that my great-grandfather was some sort of revolutionary back in Prussia, and discovered one night that he had to flee the country immediately as the police were coming to arrest him for agitating against the king. He went to the home of his well-to-do upper-class girlfriend, and asked her to run away to America with him. She did, they were married, and they lived a long life together and raised five daughters.

You inspired me to tell the romantical story of my great-grandparents on my blog today. Post is titled "For Amelia"

Both my parents were the only members of their respective families to emigrate to Canada from Holland. Growing up, I never knew what it was like to have grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins. My parents didn't really share much about their families, so I never got to know about my extended family.

Recently, someone from another branch of the family tree did some research. Through that work, we discovered that our family name (my maiden name) actually came down through two sisters. The men they married took their wives' father's name. From what I understand, that was quite unusual, unless the men were miscreants on the run from the law or younger sons marrying into a wealthier family. I tend to lean to the first explanation, personally. At any rate, knowing that my surname came through those women gave me a sense of pride, for some reason.

Great idea for a post, by the way.

my grandfather on my father's side took his mother's maiden name during WWII to avoid being drafted to the Romanian army. the family didn't avoid being sent to a concentration camp, but they survived. the families of all of my grandparents were sent to cencentration camps, not all survived. my late grandfather's (mother's side) sister survived Auschwitz and until recently used to tell her story in the museum of tolerance in LA. she was also in Spilberg's documentary about the holocaust. we don't know what my dad's mother and her family do during WWII and how did they survive the war. honestly, we are afraid to ask.

My grandma Rita wanted a horse for her birthday, but her father bought her a red convertable instead. Her and her friends would go racing across the desert to and from Arizona State University in that car. Sometimes they'd stop in the middle of the desert and sunbathe naked underneath the flighht path of the Air Force planes that were doing training exercises. One time, while doing the desert drive, they were pulled over for speeding and the officer let them go without a citation if they promised to meet him and his friends at a bar that evening. They agreed - and then never showed up. A couple weeks later grandma and girls were pulled over again by the same officer. This time they were cited. The same car carried my grandma and her best friend to Chicago for an entire semester off from college. Their parents never knew.

I learned a lot about my maternal grandfather's family when my mom's mom died five years ago. He remembers his dad bootlegging whiskey from Canada into Vermont and taking them all out to dinner. One time, some police came to the house and my great-grandmother stood over the stash in the floor and didn't flinch when telling the cops she had no idea what they were talking about.

My grandfather was a pig farmer. He was also reputed to be a bit of a character who spent a lot of time in the pub. During the war he was killing a pig illegally (probably to sell to his friends in the pub) and he shot it during the night. The sleepy rural neighbourhood thought the German invasion had begun. So the next time he killed one, my poor father was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to hold the pig by the ears whilst Grandad hit it over the head with a blunt instrument!!
Grandma and my Dad were largely responsible for the approx 100 pigs and fed and mucked them out every day. She still had time (later on) to teach me to knit. I was approx 9 years old. She gave me a ball of hand wound purple yarn about the size of a football. Lord knows where she got it from. Anyway I just knitted and knitted and knitted till it was the longest and holiest scarf in the world.
On one occasion walking home from school (2 miles) with 3 of my 6 siblings we encountered a pea soup fog and being the eldest I was responsible for them. Well, I was petrified one would be lost in the fog. So I stood them all in a row and was able to wind the afore mentioned scarf once round everyone's neck including my own. And thus we processed safely home!
I love my Grandma (b.1905 d.1991) for teaching me to knit, now my bestest hobby......and how I wish I still had that "life saving" scarf!

Two of my grandparents were present at infamous disasters. My grandfather, mom's dad, saw the Hindenburg explode in the '30's. My Nana, my father's mom who taught me to knit as a child, saw the space shuttle Challenger blow up after lift off at NASA. Two eyewitnesses to two rather horrific world events.

my gma doesn't knit any more but she used to make the most detailed things. from my great-gram i have a handkerchief knit on probably 00s with a lace edging that is so lovely. i should take a photo. i got it for my wedding and it will always be my lucky charm.

Your family stories are delightful and I can see where you got a strong creative streak from these ancestors... my own mother detested knitting after making socks for the soldiers during WWII, but played a mean jazz piano, even in an ensemble at age 17. The most romantic stories I can recall are of my great-gran, coming around the Horn in a boat from the Azore Islands, an orphan accompanying her aunt and uncle (she about age 12 and they in their mid-twenties) to California in the 1880s... she married at 16, was widowed with five children and a rich farm by age 29, and then re-married and farmed with my great-grandfather till they were in their 60s.

My memory of her, when I was just a tyke, was how wonderful and wispy and child-like she was (she was about 4'10"), letting us cluster and play around her; my mother later told me that she was a bit senile by the time my sibs and cousins surrounded her and we all got on wonderfully as a result.

my family emmigrated to canada- america wasnt taking jews at the time. my grandfather lived on a farm in ontario. he often played with a bow and arrow. but there was a nasty rooster in the yard. it clawed at his sister.just amean bird. apparently, he was trying to just ward off the prize winning terror, but accidently shot it thru the neck, killing it. he hide up on the roof of the barn. my mom later would "runaway" by hiding on the roof of her house, watching her family look all over for her. my father once fell off a snowy roof in italy, ( he was up there so that the kids would think santa was on it.) As a teen i would climb out my bedroom window and lay on the roof to gaze at stars or find a quiet place to read. given this family history, which one of my kids will i find drawn to the highest piont of our house? the bows and arrows...well that was passed down too... and they say these kinds of things are not hereditary

My paternal family were a group of half wild woodsmen living in Northern Ontario since the end of the nineteenth century. One of my favourite stories about them comes from World War II, and involves a great-uncle who was drafted into the Canadian army to go overseas. Having little sense of duty and even less desire to be blown to bits, Fred headed into the bush, carrying a rifle and a box of tea. Ten years later he emerged to find the war over, and the country experiencing a new prosperity. He decided to buy a car, but needed a driver's license. Upon applying, he was told that, according to the government of Canada, he was long dead. The authorities had not noted his absence, and he was therefore listed on the muster of a troop transport bound for Britain. This troop transport tragically went down with all hands in the North Atlantic.

It took him years to get it all straightened out, but I think he finally did get his car.

My grandfather (on my father's side) has the dubious honor of being the only Guernsey Policeman to have died on active service. He was killed when the Germans invaded our island during WW2. Depsite the fact that we were an unarmed island (there were no troops stationed on the island) they bombed the harbour - they later said that bad intelligence mistook the tomato lorries for troop carriers. He was killed going to the aid of tomato workers caught in the raid. As a final irony his body was found by his sister in law who was a nurse with the ambulance sevice. On a happier note my mother can trace her family tree on the island back over 1000 years. she is related to Bishop Mauger who was exiled here by William the Conqueror in 1068. He is reputed to have landed at Saints Bay on the South coast of the island with his mistress and seven children :-)

My maternal grandmother, Caroline Hines Lowe, lost her husband at age 31 (he was killed in a work-related railroad accident) and left with five children under eleven years of age. This was 1912--no mega-million dollar lawsuits for wrongful death, and no social security or workers' comp to help out. She was left with nothing. She moved back into her parents' home and went to work--doing laundry, working in a silk mill, an asbestos mill, and finally as a seamstress in a casket factory--all to keep her family together.

She's always been one of my biggest heroes.

A footnote to this tale is that I became curious about the exact date of her husband's (my grandfather's) death. I obtained microfilm of old newspapers from Buffalo, NY, where they had lived, and was amazed to find the news of his death written up with the headline "Tell my wife and children good-bye". I don't know much about this grandfather but that tells me quite a bit.

what a lovely post about your ancestors.

I've managed to trace my family tree back to 1600 (with a lot of help from other people.) Having an unusual surname helps. I think it's fascinating that although everyone assumes my ancestors must be French, we've actually been here for over 400 years, and the spelling of our name has changed several times.
Some of the more interesting ancestors were Highwaymen, Notorious Drunkards, and a more upright one was on the Bounty with Captain Bligh. He sided with Bligh and was cast adrift, but he managed to keep his pocket watch and that was what they used to navigate to land.

Frustratingly it's been harder to find out about my closer relatives than the distant ones. We only found out after my Grandad died that he had earned many many medals during WWII. One of which was earned for leading 500 men to safety during the liberation of Palestine. He was also shipwrecked twice, and was one of the first Paratroopers.

My Great Grandfather was in the Army during WWI. He won the Military Medal for saving an Officers life. We have all the write ups, it's all very formal and impressive. They were on the front line cutting wires for an advancement when the officer got hit. It was just about dawn and they couldn't get back to the trenches so he dragged the Officer to a shell hole tended his wounds and stayed there until dark fell when they could be rescued.
What the paperwork doesn't say is that obviously the Officer was in a lot of pain. his screaming would have revealed their whereabouts, so my Great Grandfather kept punching him unconcious to stop his screaming. Hitting an officer usually got you court martialed, not a medal.

Not very much about my dad's side of the family is known, because he is an only child and his mother is institutionalized. I have, however, found out that his uncle ran a brothel. That's the only fairly cool thing that's gone on in the mass disfunction that is my family.

lovely to hear from you anna, i have missed your regular writing, your flowing descriptions of both fiber and life. i have one or two bits, my father has his origins in indonesia where he was born premature and temporarily lived in a little shoe box, as that is how small he was. he was subsequently tossed around to sri lanka and other places until eventually immigrating to holland, then the u.s. he is slowing providing more detail of his early life to his grown children, sharing how he recalls the life he lived in such a different world. my mother's family is a bit more shrouded in mystery, scattered information says there is much eastern european influence with no real lineage traced, but, ah, the stories fom my aunt, fabricated or not, they are interesting. i love delving into my family history. it is not of the esteemed type where ancestors are all in line in a neat tidy tree, but then, there are many types of 'history',are there not?

I didn't know any of my grandparents, but apparently my Gran wore trousers from time to time as a young (English) woman -- the scandal! And there's a story that has something to do with her being in the RCAF and supposed to be taking a group of young women to church one Sunday, when she was given a last-minute offer to ride in a plane (and here I insert a dashing pilot into my own version of the story), so she opted to fly, and they went over the church and saw all of "her girls" filing in without her... Must ask my mom about that one again!

Hmm, there's a fair amount of mystery re: my great-granparents and whether they were Jewish or not. They were watchmakers in Germany and escaped to Russia in the early 1900s, then escaped to the US. As the tale is told, there was an organized underground in place to help them, which is suggestive. But apparently they wouldn't talk about it at all.

( comments ) !!!

We've traced my father's side of the family back to the 1500's. Despite being in America since the 1600's (two on the Mayflower) there aren't many interesting stories about them.

My maternal great-grandparents came from what was then Hungary in the late 1800s. My great-grandfather lost his right arm in a quarry accident so my grandmother and her sister were sent back to Hungary to live with their grandparents for a few years. The grandparents were feuding (they came from oppostitte sides of the tracks and neither side approved of my great-grandparents marriage) and never spoke to each other. My grandmother and great aunt were only able to spend time with each other during school.

Years later when they came back to the US there was something wrong with their paperwork, so my great-grandfather bribed immigration to get them out of Ellis Island.

My grandmother later helped him brew and sell bathtub gin during prohibition. Her husband, helped build the Tappan Zee Bridge and one, with the help of a friend in a row boat, swam across the Hudson River before they built the bridge. Why? Because he thought it would be a neat thing to do.

There are stories that another Hungarian relative was 'Charles Atlas' but we've been unable to confirm those.

We've traced my father's side of the family back to the 1500's. Despite being in America since the 1600's (two on the Mayflower) there aren't many interesting stories about them.

My maternal great-grandparents came from what was then Hungary in the late 1800s. My great-grandfather lost his right arm in a quarry accident so my grandmother and her sister were sent back to Hungary to live with their grandparents for a few years. The grandparents were feuding (they came from oppostitte sides of the tracks and neither side approved of my great-grandparents marriage) and never spoke to each other. My grandmother and great aunt were only able to spend time with each other during school.

Years later when they came back to the US there was something wrong with their paperwork, so my great-grandfather bribed immigration to get them out of Ellis Island.

My grandmother later helped him brew and sell bathtub gin during prohibition. Her husband, helped build the Tappan Zee Bridge and once, with the help of a friend in a row boat, swam across the Hudson River before they built the bridge. Why? Because he thought it would be a neat thing to do.

There are stories that another Hungarian relative was 'Charles Atlas' but we've been unable to confirm those.

My parents, grandparents, uncles, great-grandparents, and great-uncles were all farmers in rural Minnesota -- talk about boring! But my grandfather won a liars' contest sponsored by a radio station when he was 80. His whopper: the drought of '96 (that's 1896) was so bad that most of the topsoil blew away, and the gopher holes stuck a couple feet out of the ground. He and his brothers had to carry along a shovel to knock over the holes so they could set traps. (For years I didn't see what was so untrue about this -- I pictured the gopher holes sticking up pipelike from the ground. Finally in my 30s I figured it out. Duh.)

The legend of the origin of our family is that, back in 1496, a village in Switzerland that has the name of our family was buried under an avalanche. The avalanche was so massive that there was no hope of digging down to save anyone, so the surviving locals rebuilt the road over the top of the new mountainside. Every day the postman (I seriously doubt whether there was daily mail service in 1496 but I could be wrong) would walk that road accompanied by his dog, and every day the dog would stop and bark and dig at the same spot. Finally, a year after the avalanche, the postman was curious enough to enlist some others to help him dig. They dug down to the roof of a building and through the wreckage and were able to gain access to the cellar, where they found an old man, a baby, and a rooster. They had survived on the wine and cheese stored in the cellar. (Anyone else finding this increasingly hard to swallow?) The old man died when they brought him out, before he could tell them who the baby was, so the baby was named after the village.

In 1996 there was a family reunion in the village of our name to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the *birth* of the family.

I recall having read in some mythology text pretty much the same story, so I seriously doubt the literal truth of it, but there is probably some nugget of authenticity there and it DOES make a darned good family legend.

My parents, grandparents, uncles, great-grandparents, and great-uncles were all farmers in rural Minnesota -- talk about boring! But my grandfather won a liars' contest sponsored by a radio station when he was 80. His whopper: the drought of '96 (that's 1896) was so bad that most of the topsoil blew away, and the gopher holes stuck a couple feet out of the ground. He and his brothers had to carry along a shovel to knock over the holes so they could set traps. (For years I didn't see what was so untrue about this -- I pictured the gopher holes sticking up pipelike from the ground. Finally in my 30s I figured it out. Duh.)

The legend of the origin of our family is that, back in 1496, a village in Switzerland that has the name of our family was buried under an avalanche. The avalanche was so massive that there was no hope of digging down to save anyone, so the surviving locals rebuilt the road over the top of the new mountainside. Every day the postman (I seriously doubt whether there was daily mail service in 1496 but I could be wrong) would walk that road accompanied by his dog, and every day the dog would stop and bark and dig at the same spot. Finally, a year after the avalanche, the postman was curious enough to enlist some others to help him dig. They dug down to the roof of a building and through the wreckage and were able to gain access to the cellar, where they found an old man, a baby, and a rooster. They had survived on the wine and cheese stored in the cellar. (Anyone else finding this increasingly hard to swallow?) The old man died when they brought him out, before he could tell them who the baby was, so the baby was named after the village.

In 1996 there was a family reunion in the village of our name to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the *birth* of the family.

I recall having read in some mythology text pretty much the same story, so I seriously doubt the literal truth of it, but there is probably some nugget of authenticity there and it DOES make a darned good family legend.

Right now what I want to say is that I scrolled down to comment, then stopped and scanned back up because I saw a familiar name: Imogene. Read the story and then, only then, realized the comment was from one of my two or three separated-at-birth blog twins! Anyway. Imogene was also my grandma's name and a different kind of an independent flapper. During the depression, she waited tables and would climb up on a chair to pour the coffee from a height and earn a dime tip from businessmen lunchers, enough to buy a pound of bologna later. Later, she ran off and joined the WACs... still later, after many adventures, she traveled out to Spokane to help a friend about to give birth and there met my grandfather (and became a Mormon).

Good stories and great thoughts...

I don't know a lot about my ancestors, but I do remember my grandmother, who I spent a lot of time with when I was young. She didn't knit or crochet, but wanted to crochet and was always trying to teach us. She had a little white plastic crochet hook which was probably not the right size, and some pale yellow yarn.

I remember making long chains and then going to her, but she couldn't remember what to do next. Eventually she gave up trying to teach us to crochet and we helped with her latch hook rug instead. I don't think it was ever finished.

My grandfather was what could be called frugal with his finances. My grandmother always wanted to include a little money in our birthday cards, so in order to make the money she would iron peoples clothing for some pocket change. I always knew she ironed, but it wasn't until after her death I found out why. It was so touching to me.

My grandmother died when I was only 3 months old, in a tragic car crash. I would have loved to have known her. It's interesting, because my mother does not knit, sew, craft, quilt or bake at all, but my grandmother did all of it. As do I. Nobody taught me any of those things (except my step-mother who taught me to knit one afternoon) and yet I do them all. I guess it skips a generation.

I have one of her quilts. She hand-quilted 13 stitches to the inch!! All of them perfect.

I think we would have been very close.

My mother was a young runaway from Ecuador (said she was visiting her sister, never flew back) and my father was a bitter British divorcé. They met at a party in San Francisco in 1969 and married 5 months later in Vegas.

They didn't share a language, but they shared a lot of love. They're still like newly-weds.

Here is a memory your granny came up with last weekend.
On her first saturday evening at her 'finishing ' school for young ladies in Switzerland they had a dance which the proproetor's son attended, dressed in plus fours and co-respondent shoes. He danced with her and she remembers him asking 'Est-ce-que c'est shocking de dancer en golf?'
How 1930's!!

My name is Twiss. My father's father's father's name. We have it in our blood to knit, to stitch, to know fibres and textiles and that stuff just make sense to us. Easily or at least with patience.

You don't always think about your parents or grandparents as ever being young, so I love remembering the stories my mom would tell about her teenage years, and I especially love my grandma's stories about how she would sneak out of the house as a teen, to see my grandpa. Now that my mom and grandma are both gone, I miss them terribly, but I am lucky enough to have their hands, so I think of them both often, especially when I knit. It's like they are still with me. Thanks for the great post, and for letting us remember our stories!

I come from a very long line of adventurers, which is probably why I like to stay home and knit. My maternal great-grandfather ran away to Africa in the early 1900's - his mother wanted him to be a priest and he disagreed! His son grew up to be a big game hunter (before it became politically incorrect). My father ran away from military academy at the age of 16 to enlist in the army - and went on to lead an exciting life in Africa - what a surprise!! Anyway, I think the adventure gene passed me by - although I did live in Africa for 17 years :)

Brad is forever trying to rid our deck of wasps - I must pass on your great-grandfather's technique!

I had a great uncle who was in the war and could pass a broomstick through his leg. The man didn't even walk with a cane! Strange, that.

My paternal grandmother was a firecracker! Standing only 4'11", she was no shrinking violet. She once told me that she marched to Selma with Martin Luther King Jr., while our country was going through that infamously terrible time. She was fearless! I like to think that a little bit of her was passed down to me, but I'm no where NEAR as intense as she was.
Great topic, by the way. Just LOVE your blog.

I just phoned my Mom to make sure I remember the details correctly, so here goes:

My great-grandfather was a truly remarkable man. Not in terms of fame and fortune - he was a farm labourer (plus umpteen other jobs, like working at the teeny local cinema on Saturday nights - anything to support his huge family) Things that make him so special are the unconditional love for his wife (he worked on an estate 10+ kilometres from his home yet walked home every night and walked to work every morning because he longed for his wife and couldn't stand being parted from her) and his kindness towards animals. My great-grandfather was famous for being able to touch and "tame" even the firecest, snarling dogs - they'd behave like loving puppies in his company.
He always kept a dog of uncertain heritage who was the apple of his eye, was given the privilege to sit by his side on the treasured sofa and was fed sweets (which were expensive in those days, but he always had sweets for the doggie). Needless to say, the doggies were always quite chubby ;-)
He also kept a magpie (possibly one that had been injured and was tended to by him) as a pet. Said bird was allowed to do anything (s)he wanted to and was spoilt rotten (much to the dismay of my great-grandmother BTW).
When my great-grandmother was ill, so was he. They were very close, and I deeply regret that I never got to meet them - they passed on (within a short time from each other, unsurprisingly to anyone who knew them) long before I was born...

I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed reading these histories! I would put my own here, but it's much too depressing. Not a good family history.
I hope you get over your slump, Anna.

My grandfather was the type who never wanted to impose and if he wasn't specifically invited somewhere he wouldn't go. One Christmas they were invited to my great aunt and uncle's house for Christmas, but not specifically for dinner. So the family drove from New Hampshire down to Rhode Island and then drove around trying to find a place to eat. They finally found a Chinese restaurant that was open, and at there. While they were driving around the entire family thought they were dead on the road and was holding dinner until they arrived. When they finally arrived and had already eaten, no one was very happy.

What a wonderfull bunch of stories you have inspired-I have enjoyed them.My Great Aunts were my best friends when I was a little girl ,they taught me how to do so much, including how to knit.Lilly ,Ivy and Rose Plant,I will allways know how much they loved me.

Thank you for such a wonderful and inspiring post! You've inspired me to write a bit about my grandma, Nai Nai, who was the first to teach me how to knit. She has a very interesting history, of which I only know a little. You're welcome to read my two bits on my blog: www.daisyfaye.blogspot.com

Well... I do remember my parents, as they are still living and I can talk with them about their childhood. My mother was an outgoing and happy girl, all the boys were in love with her, but she chose my father, the cutest boy around, very charming, social and intelligent boy, but shy and lonely. I'm very happy that she did :-)
My father's father chose a country girl, from another social class than he was, and she never forgave his parents for being of upper class. She hated me because I look like my grandfather's mother.
My mother's mother hated my sister for some weird reason...
My mother's father died before I was born, but he was very funny, a good story teller. His parents had died when he was a baby, and his mother's parents raised him. I don't know much about him or his parents, or their ancestors...
I know a lot more about my father's family, as they were of a "better" family.

I won't write of this in my blog, because I'm youngest of six and my siblings read my blog, and I don't want them to know what I think of my parents and grand parents. They have pretty certain opinions on things, and I don't want to be yapped about having different opinions ;-)

Anyway, how do you know which number comment this is?

I love the photos on the left side of your blog. Very beautiful :-)

the story i like most about my grandfather is that during the war there were not many jobs and he had a family with 4 kids. he actually changed his last name a bit (added letters) in order to get a job. the man he was interviewing with had almost the name last name, so he changed his to give some "conversation" to the interview process--it worked!
now we have an interesting deviation in our family tree!

My maternal grandfather was a stonemason - he helped build Biltmore House in Ashville, NC. One story is that he carved his name/date into a stone, and then laid it somewhere on the NW corner of the house. I hope it's true.

My paternal grandfather found a cave and used it to hide his moonshine still during Prohbition. He never did get caught.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are leading the way at this years MTV Europe music awards with four nominations...

Jonathan Ross is dubbed "risque" by Ofcom but not in breach of rules over an interview with David Cameron...

I believe I've finally posted some tidbits, Anna! Check it out. ; )

Doctor Who takes three prizes at the National Television Awards in a repeat of its success last year...