My maternal grandmother was Elizabeth Barnwell Alston who was always called Bessie.. She passed on when my mother was only two so mother never had the chance to know her nor did I. When she was 14 her father gave her a small journal which she kept from February to October 1906. I don't know if she kept other journals before or after but this little journal has made it's way into my hands along with a box of old family photographs. Reading it has been a way of finally getting to know her after all these years.
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| Bessie married Amos Lee Franks in 1910 |
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| Bessie (standing) with her sister Susan |
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Swimming in Grand River
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| Horseback riding - side saddle like a proper lady |
Old family photographs reveal Bessie to be a very pretty and vivacious young woman. She was married to Amos Lee Franks and left two small children, my mother Ina Mae, age 3, and my uncle Billie Lee, an infant. Bessie died at age 24, and like my daughter Catharine who died at 17, she will be young and pretty for all eternity.
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