We called her Auntie Ag. She was my dad’s older sister, Agnes. She was a special aunt…she never married so her nieces and nephews were very important to her, and she treated us well. She pass away in 2004.
Last summer I inherited a couple of her photo albums from the 1930-40’s. I was amazed at what I could glean from perusing the old photos, where few photos had captions, and very few were dated!
I have many good memories of Auntie Ag. I knew her well, particularly in her older years…But when I looked through her photos, I felt I learned a lot more about her as a young woman. I found it interesting that I felt I could capture her essence from the photos. I decided we had a lot of similar traits.
I resonated with the photo of my aunt overlooking Lake Superior when she was a young woman. The photo immediately caught my attention when looking through several of her old photo albums.
One similarity is our love for Lake Superior and the north shore. It is my happy place. It was fun to see how often the north shore showed up in her photos, and to learn she went there often. I also know that my grandmother, my dad and Agnes’ mother, had a love for the north shore.
Another trait I share with Auntie Ag is she liked to travel. She liked to travel a lot; across the country, and to cozy cabins, and to Norway in later years. I like to travel too.
She was an adventurer…There were photos of her on hikes, on bikes, on horseback, on the water, on a toboggan, and fishing…what fun! I, too, am fond of adventure and new experiences.
You could see from the different photos she liked being with friends, and she had a lot of them. She loved hosting them for breakfasts and dinner parties, as do I.
Agnes’ mother, my grandma, was always well-dressed. I think there are stories of grandma having more than one trunk of clothes when she traveled to Norway. I noticed Aggie was always well-dressed in the photos. I know when she was older, her outfits “matched” and she always wore “matching” jewelry. I am not a fashion bug by any means, but do like to dress nice.
There were hundreds of photos of our families. I know Aggie loved her extended family. She was a believer and prayed for me (and for her nieces and nephews) all her life…and for that, I am grateful. I too, am a believer, and deeply love and pray for my family.
