Lady on the left? My great-grandmother. She would have been ninety-four today.
The photo was taken in the early 1950s outside her cottage and she is with two of her sons, K and T.
I have several photos of her; my other favourite is from the 1930s when she was approached by a travelling salesman who wanted her to become a hair model. I presume she shot him one of her withering glances. The photo shows her with long, gorgeous hair. I was told it was chestnut-coloured. The photo is black/white.
I was lucky enough to grow up around her. She minded me when I was pre-kindergarten and I spent most of my school holidays in her cottage. Her cottage did not have running water until I was maybe seven or eight and never got central heating. I can still envision her sitting in her chair in front of the kerosene-fuelled stove. She’d knit long garter stitch strips from yarn scraps and sew them into blankets. I think she was the one who taught me to knit. She was certainly the one who taught me how to skip rope.
Happy birthday, momse. We may not always have seen eye to eye, but we loved and understood each other. And I still miss you.
Title comes from this beautiful farewell song (youtube link). Post reposted from 2009 with Momse’s age amended. I continue to miss her.
beautiful song choice to accompany this. I never knew my grandmothers. You are fortunate to have such wonderful memories of a special woman.
My life wouldn’t have been the same without my granny, and my daughter says the same about her. She died 15 years ago, but we miss her and talk about her often. Such a great personality, not very motherly, not at all interested in domestic affairs, but opinionated, interested in history, literature, knitting, embroidery. I could go on. She could also be a pain, but never indifferent. My favourite photo is from her last summer, when she was 92. She and my son are swinging on their separate swings, and Oldemor is almost laughing her head off.
What a lovely tribute. :)
I’m currently restoring a picture of my late Gran, taken in Swanage, Dorset during WWII. She worked in a munitions factory down there.
She looked after me a lot after school and during the holidays so that both my parents could go to work. She was my third parent I suppose. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye either, and it’s always struck me as odd that I still feel guilt for some of our arguments (not to mention my transgressions), given that I was just a child at the time.