What Would She Think Today?

Meet Evelena Dixie Giles Taylor.  She was my mother's Grandmother, Mimi.  She was born in Waverly, Tn. in 1869.   I barely remember her.  She was very elderly and blind from cateracts when I was a small child, about 6 or 7.   I remember Mimi sitting in a rocking chair.  I also remember she loved fried chicken and could strip a neck bone in minutes. Her choice folks.  I think that "eat the whole bird" thing came from being through the depression and from living in a time of growing and raising your own food.  Those were hard times.  She lived with my Mother's family, in Kennett, Missouri,  as long as my mother could remember.  They shared a bedroom from the time my mother was a young girl until she left home as a married lady of 18.   Can you imagine sharing a room with your grandmother?  I can't.

 Evelena was 92 when she passed away.  Only recently my sister found these pictures of her.  My mother passed away about 4 years ago.  She was an avid genealogist but for all of her hunting she failed to share the pictures closest to us.  I think her quest led her to her own past and she didn't give much thought to the people she knew, that maybe we didn't.

This is Mimi with her children.  My Grandfather is the little guy in front.  He was born in 1900 so she was 31 when he arrived.  This would make her about 37-38 here. 

This is more how I remember her. Always in a long sleeved cotton dresses, even in the heat of those hot Missouri summers.

I wonder what she would be thinking about life today and if she would think the days gone by were "the good ole days"?  I think they were pretty hard.  My Mother-in-law always said "there was nothing good about the old days".  That young woman with the umbrella looks like she doesn't have a worry and the elderly lady at the bottom looks like she has been through a lot.

Today, my sister is called Mimi by her 2 grandchildren.  One of them is Evely.  I think the first Mimi would have liked that.