Believe it or not, I knew and loved two of the people in these pictures:

[IDemo]

This is a picture taken in the late 19th Century at the family homestead in Central Idaho. The young girl in the center standing next to her grandmother in the white dress is my grandmother. She passed away in 2002, just short of her 106th birthday. Grandma was a major influence on my life and introduced me to the love of drawing and painting. The second pic is of her at about the age of 16 with her horse.

The young boy barely visible at the right (your right) side of that group of people is her brother, my grand-uncle. He spent a lifetime working in logging, hunted and fished for all of the meat consumed by he and his wife, and picked enough huckleberrys to feed an army. He taught me how to fish and gave me plenty of laughs. He passed away in 1994.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. My maternal grandmother was born about the same time as yours.

At 18 she accepted a job in Sasketchewan as the schoolteacher in a one room schoolhouse. The only lodging she could rent was several miles away from the school. As part of her employment package, she was issued a horse, a saddle and a rifle to shoot the wolves she encountered on her daily commute.

The second photo is exactly as I imagine her, but with a rifle and more snow.

[IDemo]

2. It was at about that age that she lost her mother

She was seeking help for a difficult childbirth during a snowstorm and didn't make it. Her father became basically crippled by grief and Grandma was responsible for the care of her other 5 brothers and sisters. Her father died in the year following.

Grandma had a remarkable life in her earlier years. She found work as a stand-in for silent film star Nell Shipman on a film she was doing in Northern Idaho. After marrying my grandfather, he sang in a Vaudeville quartet and they knew the Houdinis and Blackwell the magician. She became close friends with Bess Houdini.

[grasswire]

3. where in saskatchewan?

My father attended a one room schoolhouse in the years the family homesteaded in Saskatchewan. He was born in 1909.

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. I don't know, but I'll investigate. n/t

[grasswire]

5. wouldn't that be a coinkydink...

...if your grandmother taught my father.