The holidays are such a nostalgic time. I've always wished I could have met my great grandmother. My mother had been very close to her, and she talked about her quite a bit when I was growing up.
Great-Grandma was born in England but was sent to an orphanage in Canada when she was very young, along with the rest of the girls in her family. She was adopted by an older couple looking for a boy to help with the farmwork...but they fell in love with her dark curls and bright blue eyes and took her home with them instead. (If this story sounds familiar, I suspect it's because Lucy Maud Montgomery brought to life a similar one with "Anne of Green Gables"!)
Many years later, a young man asked her parents for her hand in marriage and was told that she would not make a good housewife because she had learned to do farmwork and not the usual work of a woman. But, my great grandfather did not care. They married, and after he served in WWI, and their family had grown to include three children, they loaded their belongings onto a wagon and crossed the border into the United States, settling in the North Country...which is where I grew up.
I am proud to own several items that belonged to my Great-grandmother, including one of the trunks that she brought here with her. I also am the current care-taker of her collection of 78rpm records, which I like to think may have traveled underneath the rounded top of that trunk. It is an honor to me to own such a thing...and it is even more incredible to listen to the same sounds, scratches and all, that previous generations of my family listened to...and with the same technology, as I crank up the phonograph!
The video clip above is of "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear", performed by the Victor Oratorio Chorus. It is most likely from about 1915. (Sorry for how dark it is...it looked much better before I uploaded it...)
Merry Christmas!
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