History Lesson

We went to visit my family this weekend, and I ran across some very old pictures. Some of my baby pictures, some pictures of when my mom was a kid, and pictures of my grandmother and grandfather in their twenties.

It was so amazing to see those pictures. I plan to put them all in an album the next time I visit, and we're making plans to slowly scan them all in and send them out to other family members (lots of my great aunts/uncles are also in the pics and I'm sure their kids and grandkids would like them as well). My grandfather was unbelievably handsome! He was still good-looking at 70, but I had no idea what he looked like closer to our age. My grandmother was apparently very fashionable, I couldn't get over some of her outfits (and the HATS!). And my mother was absolutely gorgeous as a teenager. I really had no idea. This long lean thing with the biggest smile...I don't think my grandmother had ever shown me those pictures.

Looking back at those pictures was a bit of a history lesson...things I'd known but forgotten. My grandmother was one of 5 living children, having lost 2 brothers at a young age. There were some pictures of them as children, and it looked like they lived in one of those camps where all of the houses looked the same and faced each other...I can't describe it so I'll have to post the pictures once they're scanned. They started out with so very little...but they looked so happy. My grandmother never finished high school, although by her own account (and by all of the pictures...LOL!) she had no shortage of social life. I swear she was posing with a different boy in every picture. The pictures of her and her 2 sisters were awesome...just 3 girls in pretty dresses headed to a dance. Then slowly you start to see each of their three husbands come into the picture. On a fertility note, I've always found it interesting that all 3 sisters only had one child a piece...something unheard of in those days...all 3 tried for more to my understanding...makes you wonder.

Anyway, my grandma had my mom in her early 20s. My mom had me right before she turned 17. In my direct line, I was the first to graduate high school, the first to graduate college, obviously going to be the first to get a PhD. I'm certainly not ashamed of where my family started, but it's just interesting to look back and see all of the opportunities that I have that they never did. What's more amazing to me is that I was raised knowing that I would go to college and go on to some sort of post-graduate education. My grandparents and parents never expected anything less of me.

So as I sat there with that box of pictures, I suddenly felt very proud...proud of my grandparents for toughing it out, proud of my mom for keeping me and doing what was best for me, proud to have had all of them in my life, and proud of myself for taking my family a step further in my generation.

I can only hope that I will have the chance to produce another generation...and that they'll do even greater things.