of my grandmother, Carolyn Mable Johnson,
taken when she was about 8 years old.
She sits scowling on a cane-backed chair
between her mother and father, but
the names don't match.
Her mother, Clara Mary Linthicum,
a dark-haired beauty just sixteen,
lounges on a hammock;
her father sits in full uniform, not quite at ease.
Walter Thomas Franklin,
served as a soldier at Fort Reno, Oklahoma.
So why is my grandmother's birth name Johnson
and not Franklin?
The photo taken sometime in the early 1900's
shows his mother, a spare woman,
her mouth a straight line.
Maybe someday I'll resolve the mystery
of these people sitting on this porch.
Was my great-grandmother part Cheyenne?
And his mother named Caroline Missouri,
another mystery not even the internet
can resolve.
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| Click to see a larger size |
I actually got a little genealogy research done with today's post. Not quite a poem, but maybe a reflection about family and questions that cannot be resolved.
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