Thanksgiving....

A number of years ago, my father's niece appeared at the family farm with a bag of old pictures. She deposited them on the kitchen table and said she thought my parents would want them. My mother passed them along to me saying they were my father's family. Since my mother and father's mother never liked one another, my mother hasn't shown much interest in researching my father's side the family. So somehow, I ended up with the pictures.

I went through them, mostly old tin types, photos of people I didn't know but within the bag, I found these familiar pictures. Two are of the front of the family farmhouse and only one is of my father's sisters and brothers. It's not even all of them and my father isn't in them. I can only figure out that he was too young to sit on his own for the picture.



I knew they were Dad's siblings because some of the kids look like I did or my brothers and sisters did when they were little. Only one of the girls is old enough for me to see her grown face and recognize her.

My father is gone now as are all of these children except one. I can't say which one is still alive based on looking at this picture. The farm and the front steps where this generation and my generation had their pictures taken belongs to someone else now. I miss it. I'm lucky Dad's niece dropped off the bag of pictures because I'm very thankful I have these photos from my father's family.