Life-101

My Grandmother turned 101 years old on her birthday this year (2007).

At her age, she complains that her memory is not as clear as it used to be. I asked her to try to recall as much of the past 101 years as she could while I took photos of her remembering.

The earliest memory she could recall was an episode at the convent where she attended school as a girl. She and some of the other students found a dead bird and conducted a secret burial for it. They did not tell the nuns. She tried to remember more about the convent, mentioning that there was a music room in the basement, but the memory seemed to end abruptly there.

She remembered her Mother's cooking - saying that she was a master of soups. As a girl, she didn't much like her Mother's cooking because it was too Portuguese and not American enough, but grew to like it more as she got older. Her Mother's soups were a hit however with a neighbor - Earl Stewart the town mortician.

She remembered living on a farm as a young woman with my Grandfather. They had a cow on that farm that gave lots of milk, and so there was never a shortage of fresh milk or butter in the house.

She remembered trying to feed carrots to her oldest daughter (my aunt) when she was a baby. She tried to disguise the taste of the carrots with something her daughter liked, but the carrots were detected and promptly spit out.

When asked if she could recall anything about my Mother as a child, she thought for a moment, then sighed and said she could remember nothing.

She was getting tired so I finished by photographing her hands and feet.

In loving memory of Mary Alley 1906-2008