Probably because I'm a photographer, I've inherited ALL of my family's photographic archive. This girl on a hill was my paternal grandmother. She was born in 1914, and died in 2004. She lived nearly her entire life in the same farm house situated on a hill above a hollow. Though she was a farmer's daughter, she was no farmer. No, she became a merchant, owning a successful string of dress shops in neighboring mill towns. My first job was straightening and sizing racks in the main store when I was 10.
For the last ten years or so I've been working seriously on my family tree, and now that I believe that I've done as much as I can with it, I'm writing up a companion piece to go a long with the tree itself, and the corresponding photographs. I'll probably delve deeper into this in another post, but on my maternal grandfather's side, I discovered a line that goes back to the Winthrop Fleet, then to minor British nobility, then to major English Lords, then to William the Conqueror, Vikings, Charlemagne, Beowulf, Odin, finally fading into history with the Frost Giants. One ancestor, in the 15th century, reportedly slew a wyvern terrorizing his village, but not before offering to slay his newborn son before God. Luckily his wife snatched the babe away before the lad could be sacrificed on the chapel altar. Proof that no matter the age and era, people are crazy and mythical creatures are real.
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