This is a photo of my great aunt and grandmother showing off their skills as seamstresses. They even made their hats! They were advertising their talents. I look at this old photo and memories rise with the love i have for them and their role in my young life. These same two women bought me my first school supplies...pencils and notebooks and a few things in between.
My great aunt Liz read a lot of the classics to my brothers and me. Oh what joy! She was wonderful at accents and each character was brought to life in my mind with them. From windswept moors and Jane Arye, Heathcliff, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield to name a few; my young mind was fed with these characters. I reflect back and I have had a rich patterning in love and sharing and these two women played a tremendous role. I feel i have given myself a huge gift by going back through these old photos and allowing these memories to surface and remind me that i have been richly loved.
These two women were unlimited reservoirs of love for me and i continue to be grateful for their presence in my life. Along with the love and support that was constant, they shared their pleasure of learning and reading. What a gift! I have associated the feeling of love with the feeling of learning...and the older i get i recognize that they are indeed inseparable. To learn, to change and grow is the pattern of our soul and spirit consciousness.
2 comments:
Love the pic..and how talented your great-aunt and grandmother! There's a warmth comes with looking at old photographs (even if they are of strangers!), spurring the memories of time, place and our own older generations. The gloves, hats...gosh, I remember even as children we didn't go anywhere 'dressed' (not that we ever went anywhere without clothes on...hahahaha...dressed being the fineries...) without a hat and little white kid gloves. Did you ever wonder why Mums would put elastic on the mittens and winter gloves but never, ever on the summer whites?? LOL! My hat was known as a Paddy Hat...sort of a ladies bowler with brim and elastic for under the chin. OUCH! I hated that thing with a passion...hats always made my head itch or at least incurred a horrid need to scratch for which mother would give me the rounds of a good scolding. But even until my early 20's, I knew I was 'home' when I stopped in to a tearoom and saw the older ladies sitting with their cups and saucers, teapots, jackets or coats OFF but hats atop their heads, still. Thanks for the memory boost.
Ummm...at a guess, I would say that the grand lady to my right (looking at the pic) would be your grandmother...there seems to be more of a resemblance to her.
As for me...it's my father to whom I give credit for my love of books and quiet pastimes. But one of my aunts has a great deal to answer for, for giving me my first "dog"...a pink and white terrier upon whom I doted and carted everywhere (long after I should have, at that!) because no-one would let me have real one!
indeed...the one on the right is my maternal grandmother! I had not thought i resembled her until i saw this snap!
Thankfully i did not have to wear hats except as part of school uniform (and i spent a lot of time in detention because i never hat it on!) and my riding hat which i managed to toss off before i had cleared the first jump. That was in the days before crash helmets that are strapped to one's head!
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