I was recently reinspired to to visit my grandma and listen to her story.

Specifically about my great grandfather - her father.

Over the years when family has gathered together we would always end up talking about our family roots. Stories of those who have passed.

I feel it is our duty to keep these stories alive.

When visiting my grandma or my mother all you need to do is look at their walls and there’s picture after picture along with drawings.

While at my Grandmas she will tell parts of her story and point up at the wall at the pictures her daddy drew or the photography he took - that she has kept.

I listen to her tell me the story of her mother and father for probably the tenth time and everytime I see her face as if she was right back with them. A smile crosses her face and her eyes wet with tears.

The reason I was inspired to go over there today with a pen and paper is because I love to hear about my great grandfather and his photography passion. Not to mention back then photographs were developed in a black room and his wife - my great grandmother learned how to paint the photographs with oil color paint.

& my grandmother? Well she was the cute child who loved to get her photograph taken, to be dressed up and in her fathers studio. In the picture I share here - she tells me that her father had an idea.

So her mother finds a huge piece of fabric and begins to wrap her up in it to look like a dress. My grandmother would say that it was the craziest thing and you wouldn’t even know it if you looked at this photo.

Fabric and safety pins.

I picked up my first professional camera almost two years ago. I started to document my family and our garden treasures.

I started to really travel and capture life other than my backyard in the last year.

I wanted to share my passion more instead of just social media so I started making and developing my own greeting card line.

I remember a friend coming up to me with an idea. She saw that there was a need for homeschool families for yearly pictures of their children. I thought that was a wonderful idea but eventually my focus went elsewhere.

Fast forward to chatting with my grandma last night on the phone. She asked me what I have been up to.

I told her I have five photography sessions this week and how excited I was. She begins to tell me a story that didn’t quite stick with me the first time and it was about how her father took all the high school yearbook photos when she was growing up.

She even told me there was one time one of his friends contacted him to have him photograph his Night Blooming Cereus plant. She said they immediately packed their bags and headed out on a trip to photograph a plant that blooms once a year at night.

My kind of trip!

To me it’s astounding to see the parallels between my great grandfather & I.

Back to that phone conversation with my grandma - I share that I just had a session and I was asked to take single photos of their kids. They remind me of school pictures I tell her. The background is blurry and a close up picture of the child. She then says - That’s what my daddy did.

I could just feel her smile through the phone.

I just wanted to share this story here because going to visit the living oldest members of our family and listening to their story is wholesome. It’s needed to keep them alive for the next generation when older ones pass on.

& who knows - you might just have the same passions as your great grandfather & begin to feel more support than you ever knew.