My grandmother passed away
Jan. 11th, 2015 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jana_denardoAs many of you already know, my grandma passed yesterday. She was in her 100th year so it was a long and eventful life. I appreciate all the sympathy notes everyone has left for me.
Here is a picture of me and her from her 99th birthday party last year.
I can't say she was particularly supportive of my writing, more like indifferent though she would ask about it from time to time. However, she was tickled this summer when she learned I wrote her into a scene with two of her high school friends (She did graduate high school, one of the few in generation who did, in my family that is. I have her class ring which brings up more questions than it answers. It has 3 pyramids on it as Midway PA used to be called Little Egypt. Why and when/why it was changed are things I need to research). Now, she had no idea what I write exactly. I figured she wouldn't ever read it (she was not a reader) and it made her happy to think she was in the story. And she is. By Name.
It all started with this picture (this is not my grandma. I have no idea who they are. It's from the Phipps historical timeline). I was researching the Phipps Conservatory for my 1930s demon hunter novel Soldiers of the Sun.
It was then that I realized that my grandmother (who would have been 100 this year) could have been in Pittsburgh to see my demon hunters, Caleb, Agni & Temple. The Phipps would have been something they could have taken the train in to see and when I asked her she said she had but she couldn't remember how old she was at the time.
So I wrote her in. I had planned to read her the few paragraphs when the book came out (it's due out around her 100th birthday) but that is not to be. So later this year if you see an Assunta in the story, that's my grandmother and Guiseppina, who'll be a major character, is the name of Assunta's mother, my great grandmother.
Have a little music from the story's setting, 1932. My grandmother would have been seventeen and probably would have been dancing to this sort of thing.
Here is a picture of me and her from her 99th birthday party last year.
I can't say she was particularly supportive of my writing, more like indifferent though she would ask about it from time to time. However, she was tickled this summer when she learned I wrote her into a scene with two of her high school friends (She did graduate high school, one of the few in generation who did, in my family that is. I have her class ring which brings up more questions than it answers. It has 3 pyramids on it as Midway PA used to be called Little Egypt. Why and when/why it was changed are things I need to research). Now, she had no idea what I write exactly. I figured she wouldn't ever read it (she was not a reader) and it made her happy to think she was in the story. And she is. By Name.
It all started with this picture (this is not my grandma. I have no idea who they are. It's from the Phipps historical timeline). I was researching the Phipps Conservatory for my 1930s demon hunter novel Soldiers of the Sun.
It was then that I realized that my grandmother (who would have been 100 this year) could have been in Pittsburgh to see my demon hunters, Caleb, Agni & Temple. The Phipps would have been something they could have taken the train in to see and when I asked her she said she had but she couldn't remember how old she was at the time.
So I wrote her in. I had planned to read her the few paragraphs when the book came out (it's due out around her 100th birthday) but that is not to be. So later this year if you see an Assunta in the story, that's my grandmother and Guiseppina, who'll be a major character, is the name of Assunta's mother, my great grandmother.
Have a little music from the story's setting, 1932. My grandmother would have been seventeen and probably would have been dancing to this sort of thing.
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Date: 2015-01-12 01:43 am (UTC)That's cool you have her high school ring. I have Mom's. Not quite the same thing.
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Date: 2015-01-12 02:18 am (UTC)Well Mom has it (and her own) but eventually it's all mine and I'm almost the end of the line...
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Date: 2015-01-12 04:38 pm (UTC)My dad's brother and his wife are the same but I think they finally are getting one since I'm supposed to be the executor and I know they want my grandmother's house to be sold and divided between me and my brother and her kids from her first marriage (which was the bone of contention, Uncle didn't want them having his mom's house) I know I'm getting the mineral rights (hello frackers, I guess you're answering to me eventually)
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Date: 2015-01-13 12:59 am (UTC)Aieee, aieee.
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Date: 2015-01-12 04:41 pm (UTC)The music is interesting