She was not fond of the outfit at the time, but here is my big sister, about three years before I was born, outside my grandparents farmhouse in Williams, north of Sacramento. I posted a photo of my Grandfather Kelly --Gramps--with John a few days ago. Heres another of the three of us, three generations, about 1989. Gramps had been a cop in Taft but then he and Grandma bought what the called the ranch--it was actually an almond farm, with this house, and moved up north. We four Gregory kids absolutely adored Grandpa and Grandma Kelly, but my earliest memory--grace is my middle name--is falling down those steps just off the left edge of this photo, cutting my knee (I still have the scar), wailing, and having Gramps--you could see the fear in his face, and he was a tough, tough man-- momentarily terrified that it was worse than it really was. He ran over to me and scooped me up in his arms--Im reminded of that wonderful scene in The Searchers, when John Wayne does the same with Natalie Woods Debbie, when you think hes going to kill her instead. He held me and quietly reassured me while Grandma applied first aid. Its funny, life is: My real, biological grandfather--another Irishman, Edmund Keefe--deserted my grandmother and my Mom when she was a little, little girl, and disappeared in the 1920s. No amount of searching, and my parents even hired a detective, has ever revealed what happened to him. He broke my grandmothers heart, but in her second husband, George Kelly, my Gramps, she found the man that, no matter what, was my real grandfather.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 12:33:58 +0000
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