Sepia Saturday 218 is about fences and washing and other domestic things. Click here to read more Sepia Saturday stories. I found this great photo of my great grandma, who this blog is named after. We are not sure how old she is here, maybe 8 or 9 years old. She was born in 1900 which puts this photo at about 1908. We are not even sure where the photo has been taken? Her family were living in Ohoka at the time on a farm there. But why would her photo be taken right next to a corragated iron fence when there were lovely gardens at the house. So this photo is from a more urban setting. A table with flowers and books and an ornament grace the table that she leans on, yet there is an ugly fence behind her!
She looks kind of grumpy too. Was she forced to stand still for too long and was getting more and more grumpy. Or maybe the sun was just too bright. It reminds me of some of the faces she pulled when I knew her in her 80s and 90s. She lived in a rest home for the last ten years of her life and hated it there. I loved my great grandma. She had such soft skin on her wrinkly face. She told great stories of her childhood, riding horses to school and having hair so long she could sit on it. She used to wear it in a long plait down her back. She had a wonderful childhood on the farm at Ohoka. She remembers climbing trees to get the juicy apples! Such memories of freedom and the colours, flavours and pure joy of childhood which lasted her whole life!
My great grandma died when she was 96 after living a good long life.
It's a beautiful mystery, wondering why all those accessories for the photo were taken into such ordinary surroundings. The photographer must have had some meaning in his mind.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the photographer was trying to be artistic and copy the style of studio portraits, with that little table, flowers and pile of books set up, but he or she certainly didn't succeed in getting his subject to look happy or relaxed.
ReplyDeleteExcellent! She did have lovely hair and probably wasn't far from being able to sit on it even in this picture. Don't you love being able to see the older woman even in the photo from childhood?
ReplyDeleteAnd it wasn't even a 'good neighbor' fence either - though there might not be a particularly good side to a corrugated iron fence anyway. A strange setting with a lovely table set with flowers & books sitting out in the grass. Your great grandmamma looks as if she might be trying to shield her eyes from the sun - though that hand on her hip might indicate a slight loss of patience. :)) But how wonderful you had a chance to know her.
ReplyDeleteA lovely photograph to have of your great grandma - though she doesn';t look too happy!
ReplyDeleteIf I were in a setting like that, I would be thinking how silly it was to put the table in the yard and make me lean on it!
ReplyDeleteMy grandma was 96 when she died and you have reminded me that she had a wicker washing basket too.
ReplyDeleteGreat photo too
ReplyDeleteYou can see her lovely long hair quite clearly in this photo. Her presence, grumpy or not, draws you so that you almost don't look at the fence.
ReplyDeleteNow that is a fence! Your grandmother looks very serious in this picture too!
ReplyDeletegreat picture of your gt grandma, but it is strange that with the table, flowers, books,and her lovely dress, that the backdrop is a corragated metal fence.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see a photo of your great grandma before she got the softly wrinkled face. She looks quite determined.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to imagine sometimes these youthful faces are the same ones we remember as wrinkly old people.
ReplyDeleteThis a treasure for sure, even with the face. I think it's the sun. It's interesting that a table has been brought outside to display the flowers, almost an imitation of the old style studio photographs.
ReplyDeleteYes, she does look like - "hurry up, get this photo over with so I can go back to play"
ReplyDelete