I have published this photo before to social media, but not in this edited format. (The shadows have been lightened to the point where my grandmother is recognizably her. The barrels stand out.) My grandmother was raised primarily in Greenup, KY, on the Ohio River, though she also lived in the nearby cities/towns of Ironton and Cincinnati, OH, before she moved with her mother and brother to San Francisco, CA. At that point she was a young woman and soon met her husband-to-be, my grandfather. When this photo was taken, she had not lived in this area (KY/OH) for 40 to 50 years. I am uncertain, but I know my grandparents married in the mid-1920s and were living in Seattle, WA, by 1929 when my mother was born. Greenup, KY is on the edge of the Appalachians. Though northerly (near West Virginia and western Pennsylvania), the so-called hillbilly influence was large. My grandmother told a story of her grandmother (her mother’s mother) coming out of the hills to visit, complete with logging boots and corncob pipe. It likely affected my grandmother–she put on airs all her life. But that is another story….
all the voices in my head 