A Pocket of Resistance: Family History

i was puttering or piddling, depending on who might be describing my Sunday morning, around in my office when i stumbled up on an envelope in one of my myriad of piles. It was an old airmail envelope.

It came from Mama Jewell’s memorabilia. She, Carrie Myrtle Orrand Jewell was my father’s mother. i’m pretty sure the writing was my grandfather’s. His name was Hiram Culley Jewell. i never met him as he died of tuberculosis in 1939, five years before i was born at the age of 63.

The scrawling handwriting labeled the contents as “Pictures of Mama and Papa.”

grandpa-jewell-envelope

Inside there was one photo about 1-inch by 1 1/2 inches in a small thick-paper frame. It was a woman but hard to make out:

great-great-grandmother

i fooled with the simple photo tools i have and enlarged the photo itself:

great-great-grandmother-1

It is a photo of a young Sarah Jones Jewell. She was born in 1842 and died in 1878. From family stories, she was a most caring woman.

The only other item in the envelope was an unframed photo of my great grandfather:

great-great-grandfather

i also have worked on this photo to the extent i can. He is Hiram Carpenter (Buddy Jewell), born in 1844 and died in 1886 when my grandfather was ten. There are some family stories about how this impacted our lives as well as the one about my great grandmother.

i will provide a link on Facebook and tag all of my relatives that i can.

Tomorrow i will start searching for a place to have these photos restored much better than i can. When that is done, i will distribute the copies to family members. i will retain the originals until i come up with an idea of how to retain them in the family records. By my rough count, my grandfather and grandmother had seven children, 14 grandchildren, and at least 23 great grandchildren. It was at this point in my calculations i gave up trying to count great great grandchildren or other offspring of my great grandparents.

If anyone knows of a individual, company, or service that could restore these two photos, hopefully in the San Diego area, i would greatly appreciate the contact information.

Right now, i feel very connected to my family’s history and small, so very, very small.

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