My Grandmother

This is my mom's mother on her First Communion day; I don't know how old she was in this photo, unfortunately. (If you click on the picture, you can see the finer details on her beautiful dress and you can see the cross she's wearing, and look at her shoes!) What I do know about her is that she grew up in Georgia, (she had a great accent!) and her mother's mother came over to America on a ship from Ireland. I was not very close to this grandmother of mine, but she was a good person who raised four children, was married for over 40 years to the most wonderful man (my grandfather), who was 20 years older than she was, and she made each of her 12 grandchildren something special every Christmas. (She started knitting, or crafting gifts for us in January, and always used to say, "I start early so I have one month for each grandchild.") I remember one year she gave us girls darling doll cradles she'd fashioned out of oatmeal boxes she'd covered and decorated with fabric. I put a tiny baby doll in mine and played with it for a long, long time. One year she knitted beautiful ponchos for us when they were in style. I kept that poncho for many years, but I don't think I have it anymore. My mother said that Grandma was a good mom, that she always was involved with her Girl Scout troup, sewed Halloween costumes for her kids, and that they had chickens and goats in their backyard (in Burbank, California!) to help with food during the Great Depression. Now I wish I could go back in time to talk to my grandma as an adult and get to know her a little better. Wouldn't we all like to have an opportunity like that?