My Soul Will Sing

March 3, 2013 By 2 Comments

I think about my grandmother often, but even more lately. Yesterday would’ve been her 105th birthday. It is strange to me that someone born so long ago hasn’t been gone all that many years.

I remember her last days. How she was a 100-year-old woman, warm in her bed. I still remember how thin and tiny she looked the last time I saw her. How the skin on her hand was so thin it almost wasn’t there.

This morning in church we sang a song with lyrics that brought her quickly to mind and caused tears to quickly prick my eyes.

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end is near and my time has come
Still my soul will send your praise unending
10,000 years and then forever more
- “10,000 Reasons,” Matt Redman

I know my MeMe had 10,000 reasons to praise Him. Her name, Josephine, means “Jehovah will increase.” I smile when I think of it, because in her case, it was literally true. Whenever we’d gather for holidays or birthdays, she’d remark in wonder that all those folks were there because of her and my PaPa. Seven children, 17 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren (at the time of her death), and even about half a dozen great-great-grandchildren.

My cousin Colleen and I both became moms around the same time. In those early days we would gratefully remind each other that at least we weren’t having to leave our little ones swaddled indoors to cry while we went out to milk cows at 4 am, and that our kids weren’t piled five to a bed, or that we didn’t have to wash our hair with rainwater.

Hers is a legacy of strength and just sheer perseverance.

And though our little Posey may not have Josephine’s blood running in her veins, this legacy is hers all the same.

We are shaped by the women who come before us, and for us mothers to daughters, we are shaped by the women who come after us as well.

I consider it a great privilege to be bookended in my life by two remarkable Josephines. One inspires me, loved me, provided for me, prayed for me, rocked me in her porch swing, my head in her lap, singing over me.

The other I have no doubt will challenge and refine me.

May I mother her well.

 
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Treasure Chest

August 20, 2010 By 6 Comments

I come by my love of photography honestly. My dad was always taking pictures when we were kids, and I remember as a teenager getting my hands on his SLR and burning through rolls of film, just in love with the continuous shooting and the sound of the shutter.

Recently, my dad has been working through his boxes (and boxes and boxes) of slides getting them scanned in to digital files. He was in town yesterday, and gave me two DVDs of his progress thus far. They are amazing, and I hope someday that our children will appreciate my incessant photo taking as much as I appreciate my dad’s huge archive of images.

My dad and mom moved from Ohio to Utah in the mid-1960s so that my dad could attend graduate school at Brigham Young. (He was one of only a handful of non-LDS students there.) They lived in a few different places in Utah (including a one-room apartment behind a gas station in Provo). From there they moved to New Orleans where my dad worked for Shell Oil. In those early years, he traveled quite a bit with Shell for continuing education classes around the United States, as well as to places like London and Borneo. So he has a lot of cool old shots.

London, late 60s/early 70s:

Like this one, of the Superdome as it went up in the early 1970s, taken from his office in the Shell building:

My dad got his pilot’s license at age 17 and has had a lifelong love of flying, aircrafts and airports. The bulk of his slides are shots taken either from an airplane window (most of which he was piloting) or are of airshows or old airports.

LAX (early ’70s?):

Aireal shot of Toledo (I think!):

My grandfather was also somewhat of a shutter bug, and it’s incredible how crisp and clear the colors still are, in some cases, 65 years later. Film! It’s amazing.

My uncle at age 4 in 1942ish. I just love this image — the lighting, composition, his skeptical expression:

On one of my grandfather’s many fishing trips (the colors!):

My dad (right) and his brother, Bruce:

My dad (I assume taken by my grandfather, as he is in some other shots):

And of course it’s the family photos that are the real treasure.

Mom & me:

They took that dog everywhere:

And seeing my parents, young, happy and in love? Well, these are priceless to me:

It is what I love most about photography. That you can capture a moment in time and make it last forever.

 
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Those Prices

June 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

My husband’s great-grandparents, Howard & Elizabeth. A couple of native Minnesotans.

170|365: Prices

It is very strange to me, sometimes, to think how our children will have a rooted connection to this prairie, pioneer land. Though I was born and raised in Texas, and consider myself a Texan in many ways, Ohio is in my blood. Sometimes certain smells or sights will whip me back to my grandparents’ farm or old house — places I spent a very small amount of time, relatively.

But our children will be Minnesotans, through and through. (Even if they were born somewhere else entirely. Even if they are born half a world away!)

They’ll come from a long line of Minnesota Prices.

 
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A Week of Thanks — Day Five

November 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Ha.

I am thankful for photography. For my camera. For family. For her.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend with your friends and family.

 
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