Today's Genealogy Gem

Once upon a time, probably early 1907, a young couple and their infant daughter sat for a family photo. They look like any normal young family, but by late 1908 it was all over.

The ordeal the young woman experienced to give birth to the daughter was one she did not want to repeat. The story goes that she declared there would be no more children. Mother Nature had other ideas and in the spring of 1908 she became pregnant with their son. The young wife was not happy and before the year was out the husband had departed. He joined the Navy and died less than 6 months afterward from a bowel obstruction.

He never saw his son. My grandfather was born in February 1909 in McDade, Texas. His father died a month later in California.

Until this past Saturday I had only one photo for Elmo Elisha Hodge. I never knew there was a photo in existence of him with his wife and daughter.

Faded memories.

LSW