Unexpected Genealogy Gift

A Gift From A Cousin

My husband Frank and I flew to Dallas a couple of weeks ago to attend our nieces wedding.  As we arrived, there was a very bad thunder storm with lots of lightning.  For safety reasons, all of the ramps had been closed down.  We had to wait for about an hour and a half before we could collect our luggage and our rental car and be on our way.

While we were waiting, I checked my email and my Facebook.  One of my cousins that lives in Oklahoma and who is from my Smith line had sent me a photo of my Grandma and Grandpa Smith that I had never seen before.                                                 

Left to Right is my Grandpa Fred Burke Smith, his sister Augusta Caroline (Callie) Smith Butcher, and my Grandma Stella E Marie Holland Smith

I was extremely close to my Grandparents and they practically raised my sister and me until I was eleven and she was nine and we moved from Poplar, CA to the San Francisco Bay Area.  We would still visit them frequently and spent a month every summer with them.

I couldn't find a date on the photo, but I believe it was taken sometime in the 1960s so that would have put my Grandparents somewhere in their early 60s.  This photo was taken when they went back to Oklahoma to visit relatives.

This is how they always dressed for most of my life.  Later on Grandpa started wearing striped overalls sometimes.  When he went outside, he would wear a straw cowboy hat.  Near the end of his life, he would wear slacks, a shirt, suspenders and a dude hat when he went to the doctor.

Grandma told me that when they met, Grandpa was known as that big eyed Smith boy.  Grandpa did have big eyes...big blue eyes.  One of his eyes had a little bit of brown in it though.  My Grandma had very, very, deep blue eyes....almost purple or violet at times.  They were a beautiful shade of blue.

Thank you so much, cousin Medessa Cook Montgomery for the lovely gift that you shared with me.    It turned an otherwise somewhat challenging day into a wonderful, blessed day!  It also gave me one more photo to share with my other Smith cousins.  Medessa's Grandmother was my Grandpa's sister, Aunt Callie.

I heard a lot about Aunt Callie.  My Grandma would talk on the phone to family members and would relay the conversations to my Grandpa who wouldn't hardly ever get on the phone. 

I miss them both so much and think about them every day, sometimes, I think about them several times a day.  They didn't have much money and they didn't have much formal education, but they taught me so much, and gave me unconditional love.  That was priceless!!!