We Love You, Nana!

On October 25, 2008, we got the call that Nana passed away. Nana is my great-grandmother and Baby's great-great-grandmother. She was 102 born in 1906. The photo to the left is from her 100th birthday party.

Last summer, we went to visit her. She got to meet Baby which was nice. All the photos below are from this past summer - with Baby and with Sister and me. One of the other photos is some of her great-grandchildren and her great-great-grandchildren. The other photo is the 5 generation photo of Nana, Mom, Grandfather, Baby, Sister, Nephew and me.


There are so many great memories of Nana. I always remembered that she was pretty no-nonsense. She wasn't prone to dramatics. For instance, I cut open my foot once as a (really) little kid, and her response was basically to suck it up because it was just a cut. Don't get me wrong, she'd patch it up and give snuggles, but the hysterics were always going too far. You also could never change her mind about anything. She had definite views about everything and everybody and that was that. She believed one thing and, if you disagreed, well, you were stupid.

It was very special that she could make it to both Sister and my weddings and unfortunate that she won't make the other great-grandchildren's. It should actually be noted that the other great-grandchildren are a bit younger, but when I say that, it makes me feel old. Speaking of weddings, I forgot to add that Nana was there when Husband proposed. She gave her blessing immediately. About 4-5 years later, Husband and I still had not had a child. All the support she held vanished as she informed us that we were hopeless. After all, she had a baby the first year she married. Because times were different, she understood that we didn't have a baby the first year we married, but it was ridiculous how long we went. It was nice to show her we weren't hopeless.

Here are some facts pulled from Wikipedia:

When Nana was born Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States and Charles W. Fairbanks was Vice-President. Since then, there have been 17 other presidents.

A First Class Stamp was 2 cents. A First Class Stamp now is 42 cents.

The population in 1906 was 85,450,000. The population now is 305,513,784.

Other notable births in 1906 - Bugsy Siegel, Lon Chaney, Jr., Ozzie Nelson, and Eddie Albert.

Notable deaths in 1906 - Henrik Ibsen, Paul Cezanne, Susan B. Anthony, and Pierre Curie.

We're all lucky to have known Nana and all better people for having been related to such a special woman.