My Great Grandmother, Sarah Jane

My Great Grandmother, Sarah Jane

I was named for my maternal great grandmother, Sarah Jane Long. She was married to Peter Long, a musician and band leader.

I know very little about my great grandmother except that she remarried an Englishman was not kind to her or her five children (3 boys: Harry, George, and King and 1 girl: Carrie, who was my grandmother). She and her children all died of tuberculosis except Harry and my grandmother who was still just a kid when her mother died. Both Harry and my grandmother had tuberculosis, but lived.

I met Harry Long when I was a child. He seemed kind and robust. In a family of all brothers in a time and place where only males were treasured, I am certain my grandmother had an unhappy childhood. She was expected to do the cooking, cleaning, and sewing on her own...such was the expectation of girls in those days.

I only have 2 pictures of Sarah. One is a charcoal rendering of her around the age of 12 and this picture I posted of her as an adult in her finest Sunday clothes. I wish someone had had a journal back then and had written something about Grandmother Sarah and what their lives were like back then.

Do you have a family namesake? Did anyone in your family keep a record of the family? Do you journal about events and our time in history?