I blame Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. After all, watching Professor Gates' Finding Your Roots is bound to make a person want to fire up an ancestry.com account and see if you too have a witch, or a witch-hunter, in your past. Knowing that I don't, but thinking I might be able to go back a little further than the stories my family has told over the years...I opened an account and went to it.
What a great treasure you found from MY Great Aunt Stella, who I called Ciocia. I think Irene typed things because her handwriting was terrible and her arthritis made it hard for her to write. At some point, she started signing our Christmas gift tags with "Gr" because writing "Grandma" was too difficult. At least then we could tell which gifts were from Grandma Irene (maternal) and Grandma Anita (paternal), who both went by the simple "Grandma." ~ Cousin Karen
What a great treasure you found from MY Great Aunt Stella, who I called Ciocia. I think Irene typed things because her handwriting was terrible and her arthritis made it hard for her to write. At some point, she started signing our Christmas gift tags with "Gr" because writing "Grandma" was too difficult. At least then we could tell which gifts were from Grandma Irene (maternal) and Grandma Anita (paternal), who both went by the simple "Grandma." ~ Cousin Karen