Of Times Past

These sisters stare into the future from long ago, frozen as stiffly as the tintype that recorded their images. These are the Wormell sisters who stared at me from the mantle of my childhood home, and now do the same over our fire. Five women, looking older than their calendar years, posed stoic and unsmiling for this long time-exposure. Downeast coast women, from Lubec, Maine. Quilt makers, wives of fishermen, sardine workers and lighthouse keepers. Maternal ancestors all, but the one in the jaunty straw hat is my great great grandmother, Wealthy Ellen Wormell Leavitt. She raised the grandmother of my May 30th blip after the death of her mother, Lulu Ellen Leavitt Mahoney. She left me gifts of unknown talents, a lovely gold watch(an engraved gift from her brother, Francis A.) and the earrings worn in the old image. Would I see parts of me if I could go back in time? Could she paint or did she love cats, was it my great grandmother's tiny and sharp tooth that left that dent in the watch that lay on her mother's breast? So many questions, so many swirling bits of DNA contributing to what it takes to make me, so many years later.