I have no memory of my maternal great grandmother, other than a few photos such as these. Her life experience was and still is so foreign to me, or it seems so foreign to me, that it’s hard to wrap my mind around it. The circumstances of her childhood and youth must have had elements of severity and brutishness, but only in retrospect. When you’re living it, it just is what it is, I suppose.
In any case, I’ve always thought it odd that neither my sister or, more likely me, are not sitting in her lap.
From left to right: my paternal grandmother Mamaw, with sister Lori in her lap; Mamaw’s Mom Lizzie center, and my Dad holding rather rotund me on the right. The photo was taken in Mamaw and Papaw’s living room, where we spent many Christmases together with them and my paternal aunts, uncles, and cousins.