My Great-Great-Grandmother (Great-Grandfather’s Mother), Elizabeth. A very quick clean and adjustment. This is probably the photo of I have of her at her youngest and written on the back of this photo is her maiden name, where she’s called Lizzie.  My cousin currently goes by Lizzy and seeing this commonality charms me a bit. 

One of the things that has been interesting about having this stash of pictures is not only recognizing people now, but recognizing them fondly.  I don’t know what they were like, and a lot of them were from a time and a mindset so far from my own that I doubt they would have approved of me in so many ways, but I still am beginning to think of them very fondly as family.  I smile when I see many of them and despite their births being 100 years before my own, I’ve been really struck by seeing some of their obituaries, like I’ve lost people I knew.   I have a photo of this woman’s funeral, even.