My great-grandparents on my mother’s side were married Sept. 29, 1901. Jennie Smith and Joseph Brown, and this is their weeding photo.
Frank Smith (brother of Jennie) was best man, and Julia Brown (sister of Joseph) was maid of honor.
They had 11 children, then Jennie and the 12th baby died. Joseph then married his second wife (Emma Marie Racine Cook Franks). Emma had one son from her first husband and two sons from the second husband. Then Jospeh and Emma had two sons of their own. My mother was close to both of these sons because she was born between them. I had met both sons.
Sadly as much as my grandmother loved Emma, Emma died in 1930 giving birth to another child (child also died). Measles hit the family in 1931 and so my grandmother, my mother (age 4), and uncle(age 6) moved into the Smith home. My grandmother (who had just turned 21) cared for her two children, plus all the others who were sick in the household, with as many as six people sick at the same time. Only two of the entire household never got sick: my grandmother and my uncle.
In the photo above is Joe and Jennie with eight of their children. My grandmother is the girl standing on the left. She died in 1984. Sadly both my great-grandparents died before I was born. But my mother wrote about some of the episodes of their lives. I met all of the great-aunts and great-uncles. Pictured above are the eight oldest, and three youngest pictured below. All of them died decades ago.
“believe, teach, and confess” 