There are NO coincidences in life...

My father died when he was 58 years old.

While that in itself is devastating, the fact that I was too young to care about family history is now almost equally difficult.

My father’s parents died young, and he was an “orphan” when he (at 36 years of age) married my mother. His father died first, of an apparent heart attack, and it was rumored that when my grandmother passed on several weeks later it was from a broken heart.

While rummaging through the corners of my attic crawl space just a few months ago, I discovered an old, worn yellow folder. Inside where beautifully handwritten pages that told an amazing story about that woman who would have been my grandmother.

My aunt Jimmy sent this “gift” to her brother’s children one Christmas when we were too young to appreciate it – or remember it.

Imagine my incredible surprise when I sat on the floor of the attic that chilly Saturday and opened this treasure. Inside, on the first page was the name of my Grandmother, and this.

“Gladys Ruth McKinney Marsh”

March 22, 1892 – January 14, 1950.

Her birthday and Sassy’s are on the SAME DAY.

And her age when she passed?

58.