116/365 Tuesday 04/26/2011

It's dead relative day here once again on Auspicious Alltag!! This charming image is of my paternal grandmother: Gertrude Prietz, who I'm pretty sure is the one sitting on the bench with her twin sister, (sitting on the arm of the bench) (whose name I don't have--if I find it I'll add it). I'm not sure why, but I truly love this picture--their faces, the pretty white dresses, their hair, the soft focus that makes it all kind of glow. It's a very sweet photo. 

12/365 Wednesday, 01/12/2011

A picture of my great grandfather Major Colin McKenzie Taylor there on the far left with the cane. I wish I knew where they were-I need to do a bit more research--he lived mainly in New Zealand. (Born 1844 in what is now Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, grew up in England and in 1863 he went via Sydney, Australia to New Zealand. I think he went back to England for a period of time, but he did return to New Zealand. 
My great grandmother Magdeline Ratahi Watkins-Taylor was a part-Maori nurse who I think looked after his first wife until she died and then he married her and they had two daughters one of whom was Mamari Augusta Lane Taylor, my maternal grandmother. I think the above must have been taken in New Zealand--that big cannon does not bode well for whoever it was being aimed at..