My Great Grandma, Emma was born in 1875 and died when I was 10 in 1973. She has confused me a bit as she has a lot of relatives on Pine Ridge Reservation, and several of them came to her funeral, but that was the only time I met them. I have seen her family names on a family tree, but they are only names to me and I have no idea of any relatives connected from her family before her generation, only her sons and their children were a part of my life. She married a stage driver in Hot Springs, South Dakota when she was 17 and her father disowned her and she never got to go back to see her mother until her Father died and she herself was in her 50's. My Mom's Dad was one of her 4 sons, and my Mom is the young girl in the top picture, with an aunt and Great-Grandma Emma.
The middle row is the wedding picture of Emma Lafferty and Frank Slack and a picture from the middle of her life and one about 90
in the bottom row, she is the grainy young mother holding her son, Bill, Then in the middle is a picture of her holding me, and the bottom right she was riding with my grandpa Lawrence and a friend named Bill Anderson, at the Cody, Wyoming 4th of July Parade
She was a feisty woman who drove the stage, danced with Buffalo Bill, (she told me he was so drunk that he fell into the punch bowl) She survived her battle torn younger years which included Custer's Last Stand and the massacre at Wounded Knee and married a white man who gave her a life of adventure and four sons. They ended up on a ranch outside Cody Wyoming for awhile and tun on the banks of the Greybull River in Meeteetse, Wyoming.
She was tiny and I always called her "Little Grandma" but she was strong and determined and fled with love for her great-grandkids. I remember her singing School Days, School Days" and slipping me peppermint stick candies in the log cabin her sons built - then sleeping in a twin bed in my room when that cabin burned down.
I remember when she died, I was her size and I got a bag of sweaters and long nightgowns and when I wore them they felt like a hug, but also it felt so wrong that this simple cloth should still be around when she was not.
@gizathecat wen Queen Elizabeth mailed a huge Cherrywood bar to Cody, as thanks for the Wild West Show Visiting London, My Great Grandma and her husband loaded it at the depot at the train station in Red Lodge Montana and drove it through the mountains in their stage wagon
@sarasdadandmom and that is the whole point as my Mom slips further into dementia every week I realize I am becoming the oldest generation with memories to share or lose
Fascinating woman. I have several relatives that I barely know and their lives seem so mysterious to me, even now. The photos of your Grandma are so compelling.
