Saturday, December 21, 2013

Jennie's Mother

Written on verso: Jennie's Mother, 1889, Lydia Melissa Reeves

My great-great grandmother. Although this has an 1889 date, I suspect this photo was taken at a much earlier year. In the late 1880s she survived Typhoid Fever, but died as a result of complications from surgery for cancer in 1892 shortly after she turned 50.

She lived in Centralia, Washington for a brief time, 1889-1892. I have a copy of a letter she wrote back to relatives in Michigan about her impressions of this area. It's very charming and hopeful.

Unfortunately, no one in my grandparents' generation was old enough to remember her, so I didn't get any firsthand accounts of what she was like, except that she was terribly missed by her family.