WHAT I TREASURE

Great-grandma's sampler

by Jennifer Jones

Our family has a great tradition of sharing tales of family members. Vignettes were painted of parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents. I felt that I knew them. I never met my great-grandma Caroline, but I grew up hearing so much about her. Born in the mid-19th century, her early life was one of hardship and challenge. When I gaze on the sampler that she sewed when she was 14, I gain some sense of the woman that she was to become. I only have snapshots of Caroline's life, gleaned from family conversations and from scrutinising family history records. We know that she was born in Canterbury, Kent, but by the age of 11, Caroline is a homeless child in a convent in Birmingham. We don't know why she's homeless, but 10 years later…

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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2024

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