Friday, August 24, 2012

Full Circle 57

This was a very interesting Full Circle.  Virginia found a photo of her Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather through a search on the Internet. She left a comment on the blog and then emailed me.

16 men and one woman Solway snapshot

Photo Number 768

I featured the photo January 15, 2012.

16 men and one woman back Solway

July 7, 2012 Virginia wrote:

Nellie and Warren were my great-grandparents.

She emailed me.

Hi! Photo 768, Nellie and Warren Giddings, are my great-grandparents. Is it possible to get a copy of the photo? Nellie's face is blurred on the posted photo. Also, who is the person who posted the info re: names, dates, etc.?
I'm trying to find info on Nellie's first husband, Chester Green, who was the boys' birth father, with no luck. I'm on ancestry.com, too, Copper family tree. Thank you, V.

I replied:

Hi Virginia, I am happy to mail you the photo. Please email me your address. Sue ( Abra) did the research on the names on the photo. She has an Ancestry account and some of her info comes from there. We try to post as much info as we can find..so that family may show up! Just like you!! I bought this photo up at a very small antique shop in Solway Minnesota.
I do ask that you share something that I can write in the Full Circle post after you have received the photo. A story about your Great Grandparents or a memory of them.
I am not sure that the original photo is much better than the scanned version..I will have to find that photo again and have a look. Connie

Virginia wrote back:

Thank you so much!  I’ll just ramble a bit, and you copy anything you’d like. I spent a lot of time with Nellie when I was young. I used to go stay at her little house in San Diego on weekends. She took me to the Methodist church down the street and spoiled me rotten. We rode the bus downtown and went shopping; she bought me my first watch when I was about 8. She had a lady cookie jar with Cookie written on it that she kept filled when we all went to visit. We always found Cookie first thing. I have Cookie now on the sideboard in my dining room. She didn’t like my sister and me playing any card games, even Go, Fish, on Sundays. She taught me how to iron my dad’s handkerchiefs; I can still feel the water bottle in my hand and smell the damp cloth as the hot iron hit it and the sizzle. She babysat us when my parents went out until it got too much for her when she was about 80. She always wore a dress with a slip and stockings and black laced leather shoes with heels when she went anywhere, even the store. She never wore pants. She always wore a bib apron when she cooked or cleaned and let me wear one when I helped her. I wish I still had one of them. My mother spent a lot of time with her on the farm in Minnesota and even lived with her for a time when she was a teenager; we both lived with her in California when I was a baby and my dad was in the navy. She lived with us briefly when she got too old to manage alone. After my grandpa died, she declined very quickly and couldn’t live alone any more. Then she had to live in a nursing home; that broke my mom’s heart, but Nellie started to wander up the street when my mom was at work. Nellie didn’t talk about her family much, but she did tell me her favorite brother drowned and she rode in a covered wagon when she was young. She lived on a farm with her parents and then with her 2nd husband, Warren Giddings, so we know she worked hard. My mother liked her grandpa, Warren, and loved staying with them on the farm. He gave a farm to each of his adopted sons, my grandpa and his brother. We don’t know about Nellie’s life with her 1st husband, Chester Green, other than she said he was a gambler and drank. She even cut him out of a picture of the two of them. I think she was ashamed or embarrassed about being a divorced woman back then. I hope people who see your web site will collect family stories while they can, especially those secrets no one talks about.

I wrote back:

Hi Virginia what wonderful recollections of your Grandmother! Thanks for sharing them! I will include them in the Full Circle Post I write after you receive the photo. I am sorry to report that the original is not much better than the scan. It is a small snapshot..I hope you will treasure it anyway..perhaps it is your Grandmothers handwriting on the back! :) Connie

Virginia got the photo and wrote:

Thank you very much! Nellie was my great-grandma, and we have very few photos of her or my grandpa when he was younger so we all appreciate your saving it!

Thanks for stopping by.  Do come again:)

4 comments:

  1. I love how a photograph can trigger memories of scents and tastes (cookie!) from long ago. :)

    So happy to see a full circle!

    There appears to be a black dog in this photo - and I think the photographers shadow makes it appear that they are bending over to peer into a camera held at waist level - an old brownie camera perhaps. :)

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  2. How interesting! Love these full circles!

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  3. How wonderful to get all these details and recollections, all evoked from that one "small snapshot" that you rescued. I'm with Maple Lane: I love these full circles! And I totally agree with Virginia--we all should collect those family stories...as many as we can preserve and pass down to another generation.

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  4. I haven't been able to drop by as much lately, so it is lovely to see the results when I do. I love when there are so many memories shared. It is part of what makes this such an intriguing blog. A slice of ordinary history, perhaps never shared in print before, can be as interesting and sometimes more revealing than a textbook history. Priceless! ~Abra

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Hi, Thanks for the comments, your input on these old photos is appreciated! English only please! All comments will be moderated! Connie