It’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with genealogy extraordinaire – Randy Seaver — and tonight’s mission, should I decide to accept it is to blog about a “Fearless Female” in my family tree in celebration of Women’s History Month! Well, I’ve accepted the mission and here is my assignment (so cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):
1) Read Lisa Alzo’s blog post – Back for a Fourth Year: Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month on her blog, The Accidental Genealogist.
2) Choose one of her daily blog prompts from the list (this is March 9th, do that one if you don’t want to choose another), and write about it.
3) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook post or a Google+ post.
So I chose . . .
March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestor(s).
Who is in the photo?
My paternal grandmother, Louise (Newsome) Hubbard
When was it taken?
During the mid to late 1950’s
Why did you select this photo?
I actually had the pleasure of virtually introducing my paternal grandmother, Louise (Newsome) Hubbard, to the World Wide Web community in my Sentimental Sunday post on 7 October 2012 (click here if you would like to read that post). But the reason I selected this photo is because it is one of the last professional photos I have of my grandmother before she died of breast cancer 4 July 1975. This photo was done by The Teal Portrait Studio, an influential African-American photography studio that was established in 1919 and operated in Houston for more than forty years. [1]
I LOVE this candid shot of my grandmother standing by the classic Dodge from the 1950’s that my father gave her to drive from Austin to Houston and back to Austin for her chemotherapy treatments. That’s right! This fearless female did not let her sickness with the chemo treatments after her breast cancer surgery keep her from living life to the fullest and hitting US Highway 290 every chance she got! Quiet as it’s kept, my grandmother had a very heavy foot and would put the pedal to the medal wherever she went. One day she backed out of our driveway headed for her home in Austin so fast, all my father could do was shake his head, wave good bye, and pray that his “hot-rod momma” (a nickname he gave her) made it home safely!
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Source Citation:
1. Curlee, K., & Texas State Historical Association. (n.d.). TEAL PORTRAIT STUDIO.The Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved March 09, 2013, from http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/kjtwc
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My father also told me stories of ya’ll Grandma Louise and her lead foot. LOL! Good choice and great photo!
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Hey sweet potato #1! Hey, hey hey . . . what’s with all that ya’ll stuff — LOL! She’s your great-grandmother and I hear that you can put the pedal to the medal too when you’re driving to and from Austin. So I would say you got some of your great-grandmother in you for sure — LOL!
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Liv,
Your GM was certainly fearless female, females drivers during that time were not common. Driving then took more concentration, as a kid in the back seat when my mom was learning to drive I would hear two words Clutch and Choke. Back then you could drive pretty fast no speeding cameras, very little traffic, a sunday drive was really a treat.Choosing to take the picture by the automobile shows her pride in driving. Great picture.
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You summed up her reason for wanting to take a picture standing beside her car beautifully!!! Driving gave her freedom and independence. And she was definitely a woman who lived life on her own terms. She was such a lovely woman and a character at times. I sure have missed having her around in my life!
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