A grandmother’s — and a family’s — life
They are the enduring treasures of any family.
The photos of those who have gone before.
And — even better — the words of those who have gone before, in their own hand.
The Legal Genealogist‘s family is fortunate indeed to have some of both — a photo here, a letter or thought or memory recorded there.
And I’m even more fortunate to have a cousin who thought to put the two together.
Every year, at the holidays, I make the rounds of my Virginia-based siblings. The holidays don’t really begin until my sisters will join me for a candlelight Christmas Eve buffet on a mountaintop in Nelson County. And they don’t end until at least one brother — and usually two — will join me for an extended family dinner with my mother’s youngest sister, my Aunt Trisha, and her daughters, my cousins.
There are gift exchanges in those get-togethers, and I admit to being mighty greedy about some of them that have, over the years, become traditions. The day I don’t get a box of DeMet’s Original Turtles from my nephews will be a black day in my personal history.
But one of those gift traditions, this year, has me sitting here smiling through my tears, here at the start of this new year.
My cousin Paula, also a genealogist, began the tradition some years ago of creating a calendar with a family photograph for each month: our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, an assortment of great aunts and uncles and great grandparents. And listing the birthdays of said grandparents and aunts and uncles.
It’s gotten more poignant through the years as one after another of the aunts and uncles has left us — from the 10 children my grandparents raised to adulthood, only three are left.
But this year takes the cake.
Because it was Paula who thought to put words and pictures together.
The pictures, of course, are of our family members. And the words are those of our grandmother.
Opal E. (Robertson) Cottrell, was born in Eagle Lake, Texas, on the 21st of August 1898, and died in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the 15th of March 1995.1 Her words are not exactly diary entries for all that they were often entered in a diary. As Paula notes, you’ll often find that there would be a 1992 entry in a 1970 book, or 1951 entry in a 1950 book, and a lot of quotes and poems she read.
And the combination of images and words is dynamite.
Let me share with you just three of the 12 months of this calendar. Click on the image to open it in a larger window.
April
1970 Lovely Spring morning. Sent my Brother Ray birthday card — The swallows came back this morning. Lovely April! It is the years most exciting month. Each time it comes, with its promise of resurrection — it becomes more precious — I am like Thoreau who said “Green grass excites me as much as if I were a cow” — It excites ME to read that a man more than 100 years ago had these same feelings and expressed them with such simplicity — I could go further Than Thoreau though. An green onion excites me as much as if I were a rabbit.
April 20 — My dear Clays Birthday. 72 years – young.
August
As I pass my 76 birthday2 I find myself wanting our grandchildren to know something of the era in which their Grandfather, Clay, and I grew up. In retrospect we often remember the pleasant — but it was not always lovely & pleasant!
Thank goodness they won’t be dosed with calomel and castor oil. They won’t have to wear long underwear from Oct. to May — or wear long black stockings and high button shoes read by oil lamps. (Maybe!?) walk two miles to school — pick up corn-cobs for kindling — or wear a flannel cloth soaked with coal oil and lard on their chest until it blisters.
I am sorry however, That they will never know the excitement of hog-killing time — and the magic words “The thresher is coming” — Taste delectable cold clabber, with sugar sprinkled on top. Feel the cleanliness of home-made lye soap, and they probably will never have the pleasure of opening a school lunch-bucket and finding a slice of country ham fried in an iron skillet buried between two soft buttermilk biscuits — or two pickled eggs, pickled in beet juice. — Or eat a big piece of hot home-made bread, spread with freshly churned butter. Too, they’ll never know the sweetness of home-made black berry jam spooned from a crock jar — or the excitement of finding a new hens nest in the hay in the barn loft. They will miss the snugness of sleeping in a cold upstairs room with a nightcap on their head — and a hot wrapped brick at their feet.
But I can hear them say — “Poor Grandma and Grandpa, if only they could have traveled — at least to the Moon!”
December
We celebrated Christmas 40 and 50 years ago much differently than we do today — Before the days of Television, Electric Lights & automobiles. — We listened to Battery Radios — Lighted our house with Kerosene lamps. Rode in horse and buggy or wagons to town or to go visiting. Hogs were killed when the weather got cold — and home made Sausage for a cold Xmas morning breakfast!! The family went out and cut a cedar tree and brought it home and decorated it with paper ornaments, popcorn and cranberries. There were no string of lights but small red & green candles were lighted at the last moment Christmas morning we found a few toys under the tree — a doll — some marbles a top — Large naval oranges, nuts & candy — a slate and a slate pencil a box of wax crayons — to last the rest of the school Term — Some heavy stockings — a sweater, rubber over-shoes.
So… do you have photos and words of members of your family through the years?
Think about a calendar for 2018. Trust me when I say it’s the one thing you can do for your family, the one gift you can give them, that will have them smiling through their tears.
SOURCES
I have been thinking for many years that I should write my story as I remember it and leave it as part of my legacy, and have nothing about it. Reading this inspires me to get started!
Go for it!! Whatever it takes to get those stories recorded… remember, it was your grandmother keeping that one letter from her father and passing it down that gave us so much to go on with Isabella and Gustavus.
What a great gift that calendar. Brought back memories from my grandma. There was always cold clabber in the icebox. I liked it without anything, but granny sprinkled sugar on it. Hog killing time. The bladders were balloons and a lot tougher than these flimsy rubber ones. Cedar trees also at Christmas with the aunt’s and granny using needle and thread to string popcorn to hang around the tree with tide soap paste for snow on the limbs. Baby giant firecrackers even at Christmas, almost blew a finger off or it felt like it (grin). One of my sons asked me to type up everything I could remember and I think they will enjoy it one of these days.
Glad they got you to start writing, Stan! I’d love to get a copy one of these days to learn more about your branch of the family!
Judy,
What a precious calendar. One of my nephews and his wife are beginning such a tradition, but not in the form you recommend. Every year they hire the same photographer, who by now their two sons know well, to come every month to take a series of pictures relevant to the month. Some are at their home, some at their summer place, and one year they managed to bring a fire truck! Each year the parents chose the best picture from each month and put the calendar together to send to family members. Now they’ve done this for 3 years. As the years pass, this will become more precious.
I suspect the idea came from the typical Santa pictures from department stores–remember those, if you grew up in a large enough town? My nephew (and my siblings when we were kids in the 1950s) and his brother were taken from the time the second one was a baby. For some reason, they loved having it done. And when they got older, they decided to keep doing it themselves. When the Santa moved from store to store, they tracked him down, which tickled him too. There are now 40+ pictures of the two of them with Santa, with the lighter one sitting on Santa’s knee. When the older married, his wife was wise enough to realize this was a brother thing, and kept out of that tradition. Each brother, and their parents, has a set, and they fill up a hallway wall at my brother’s house at Christmas. It’s wonderful to see how they each change from year to year. That’s not what you’re suggesting, and I’ve got the pictures and words to do that to. But these pictures and calendars are precious in their own right.
This is getting too long, but your quotation from Walt Whitman reminded me of something my mother said four days before she died last year at 100. After a ride with my sister, she told her caregivers that April was her favorite month, because there were so many shades of green. She said that every year, but it didn’t make me cry until after she died.
Doris
Your family has a wonderful tradition!! That’s terrific.
Simply spectacular!
Isn’t it, though? I wouldn’t have thought of it, and BOY am I glad that Paula did!
Oh Judy… the treasures you have – and have had through the years. I’ll echo Alona – Simply spectacular!
Agreed, 100%!
What a totally, mind-blowing treasure. Finally, I have a use for all the family diaries I have been storing!
Isn’t this a lovely idea — and so well-done! Go for it, Jennie.
How lucky are you to have all these memories in print! I read and enjoyed the notes as if they came from my own grandmothers (whom I never got to meet)! Thanks for sharing, her writings are delightful.
These absolutely are treasures, Ellen.
Hi Judy,
This calendar caused me to have some very warm memories of my paternal and maternal grandparents. What an awesome family gift and a great way to share family heirlooms. I hope you and Paula won’t mind if I copy this idea for my family (with my own photos and documents of course). This is the only Blog I’ve ever subscribed to, and I really enjoy it. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the kind words, Gayle, and go for it!! Your family will love it.
How special, not only for those receiving the calendar but the memories that are rekindled as one researches and compiles the calendar. I will borrow this as an alternative to what I prepare for all of my grandchildren each year.. I make a digital calendar of all those special times we have shared together during the past year. It is also a great way of writing your story. Thanks for sharing.
That’s a great idea too, Rae!