It's Grandma's Way or The Highway

Anyone who has done genealogy knows it's time consuming. Several years ago I thought I'd try to find my family's history so I eagerly opened my laptop, searched for a website where I could hunt down my ancestors and, with shaky hands, keyed in some names. I was so excited! Well, if I should know anything about Mennonite history, I should have been aware that there were about 50-75 people with the same name that came on any given boat to Canada in the late 1800's. I totally understand why the people I know, who have done extensive research on their family's lineage, are retired. That's right...retired. They generally have a little more patience, can organize their time better and probably know more relatives and have connections to figure out which relative on the boat was their ancestor.

So I gave that up...for now.

This is my maternal grandmother. I don't know much about her. She looks like a no bullsh*t kind of lady, doesn't she? I feel like yelling low german expletives when I look at this picture too long. She raised many children and did a lot of cooking and cleaning. I know that in this picture she is about 65 years old. 

Elizabeth Harder was born in 1890 and died in 1968, which was a year before I was born. My family doesn't talk much about her and I don't know why.  I hear little snippets of stories about her but nothing that sticks to my memory bank. I know that this is a passport photo so that makes me wonder whether she travelled. 

My mom and I went looking for her grave about 8 years ago and we found it, unmarked, in the Winkler cemetery. Grandma's grave had not been visited, by anyone in my family anyway, since her funeral in June 1968. My mom and her sister purchased a nice little headstone and had it placed at her grave. 

I often wonder whether Elizabeth and I have anything in common. Oh, I need to talk to her!