Thursday, May 6, 2010

A Long Lineage of Long Living Women

Now here is a bevy of mothers and daughters! All but the worried baby lived into their ninth decades, and she has a good start on keeping up with the Franks. Although I have other equal parts of Shortess (the tall, artist & preacher genes) Jansen (the moody, wandering Norwegian genes) McMahon (the moody, wandering Irish genes) I owe a lot of my determination and stamina to these beguiling ancestresses:

Lizzie Beaver Frank, my great-grandmother
Luella Frank Shortess Shambach, my grandmother
Olga Frank Shortess McMahon, my mother who is now a bright and vital 94


I hope I have passed on to my daughter, Kirstin and her daughter, Sterling some of the gifts I have received from these sturdy and beautiful creatures.