2 Love Stories

So this post has nothing to do with my wild and crazy Alaskan adventures though I do hope to publish some of those soon because they have been happening, despite the LACK OF SNOW! All you lower 48ers have taken our snow this year! Instead this post tells of 2 people in my family and a little bit of the life they walked.

Story #1:

Last year on January 17, 2009 someone very near and dear to our family pasted away, she died on her 110th birthday and lived a wild and courageous life growing up on the plains, moving to Oregon and then Wyoming to live and teach 50 years on Indian reservations. Her name was Aunt Monnie, and she had 4 sisters. She was my great aunt. She never married. She loved horses, had beautiful penmanship, loved fashion, and a fabulous story teller, up until even the day that she died. She stood at 4'9'' tall and weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 pounds and her shoe size was that of a child.

This winter I made earrings for each of her nieces and gave them as Christmas presents in remembrance of her life. Here is a photo of the earrings. The earrings were made out of a necklace that was willed to my mother when she died. I wish I had taken a photo of the necklace before I disassembled, ah retrospect. It was a multi-chained necklace made mainly out of coral and had these birds, frogs, and turtles as the accents. It was much more elaborate than anything I have ever worn and it was just one of many of her pieces of jewelry. She was always dressed to the nines, up until the day that she died.


Story #2:

Aunt Monnie only had one sister who was married, Dorthy. Yesterday this love letter for Dorthy, written by my great-grandfather, the man that she would eventually marry, arrived in my inbox from my Aunt Bird. It was written in 1925 to my great grandmother who apparently was living in Oklahoma at the time. The letter was written from Flat Rock, Tennessee. Obviously Dorthy returned my great grandfathers sentiments, at least eventually. Someday I hope to hear the rest of the story. You can click on the photos for a larger image. Enjoy.