Three things....

The theme for this week's Texture Tuesday over at Kim Klassen's Cafe is "Three."  I tried to play with this idea, but everything I came up with seemed so trite and clichéd.  That's not to say that my solution isn't any of that, but it suited me -- and that's all that matters.....

I thought of three heirlooms that have come down to me from my great-grandfather, Abel Perminter Lynch, who was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina on 13 January 1859. They are: a prayer book, a pen, and a wonderful tin box, which, according to family lore, once held cash that his father buried for safekeeping during the civil war.

Click here to see all the wonderful images over at Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday party!

For those who are interested, I used three of Kim's beautiful textures on this image: "canvas back" (color burn @54%), "warm grunge" (overlay @ 60%), and "pourvous" (overlay @100%).  I happen to like the warm color and distressed, vintage look you get with a heavy hand on the textures, although some might think it is overdone.  I'm curious -- am I alone in this?

Back to Abel.... Here he is with his twin daughters, Eileen and Kathleen.  My grandmother was Kathleen, and I don't know which one she is in this picture since they were identical twins.

I love this picture of Abel with his girls:  he looks so glum, yet resigned to his fate.  You see, he was 60 and his wife, Jessie Lee (Seabolt) was 45 when the twins were born.  Jessie and Abel were just about to retire to the good life down in Florida, when doctors doing gall bladder surgery discovered that she was pregnant.  In 1919, that was practically a death sentence, so they sewed her up and sent her home.  They moved back in with Jessie's family in Tennessee, where she made a gown for the baby's burial and prepared for the end.  Much to their surprise, "the baby" turned out to be healthy twins; everyone survived, and Jessie and Abel had to scramble to find clothes and cancel their retirement plans so they could raise those babies!

For years, my great-aunt Eileen wanted to be on the "What's My Line" TV show.  Her line was that she was the middle child:  her brother was 25 years older than she was, and her sister was 25 minutes younger....

I made this wall hanging for my grandmother a year or so before she died.  She and her twin sister (or "sin twister") were very close, as you might expect, and in typical twin fashion, dressed alike, had their children days apart, often even bought the same furniture without knowing that the other had done the same.  Both were very active in international causes (in fact, a faculty office at the Johns Hopkins University's Bologna Center is named for them) and they both loved family history.  My grandmother was my genealogy buddy and inspiration, and I miss her.