When Rachel was 12 she found this picture in a box of old photos in a closest. Rachel learned through her Great Aunt Mary that the baby’s name was Eleanor. Eleanor’s mother had been surprised when she realized she was pregnant 10 years after her youngest was born, and she joined the family of 4 boys. Eleanor was Rachel’s Great, Great, Great Grandmother. “She was a Triple G.” Rachel used to say, also realizing that the women in her family had babies compulsively young.
Baby Eleanor, named for her grandmother (“Too many Es to count!” said Rachel) but called Baby E., Ella or just “Be” for short – much to the dismay of her mother – by one of her brothers, was a well-loved and much wanted baby.
Rachel learned from her Aunt Mary that for years the family joked about Eleanor being born on January 16, 1919 – the day Prohibition went into effect. The men folk often raised a glass of something alcoholic in her honor every birthday and many more days throughout the year. Something that was made on their land, illegally, which supported the family for many years.
When Eleanor was just 3 weeks old her Grandmother Eleanor knitted a beautiful baby sweater that she wore throughout the spring and summer in the cool evenings, then cool days as the year progressed. The sweater had been handed down the in the family and Aunt Mary had remembered the color as beautiful as the lilac blooms in the garden of her childhood home in the since long lost sweater.
Rachel was captivated by the baby and the beautifully knit sweater, especially how it hugged that little round face of “Be.” Rachel longed to knit like that one day. She longed to make something beautiful that would be handed down a generation or three.
Delighted to share her knitting skilled she hadn’t used in years, Aunt Mary started to teach Rachel how to knit. Hours working together, Aunt as teacher, they created a pot holder, then a scarf, then a blanket and years later, an itty bitty sweater much like the one that baby Eleanor wore in 1919. A gift for her much loved, much wanted niece.
What began as a fascination from that sweater on baby Eleanor grew into great knitting skill, one that provided comfort during sad times (boyfriend breakups) and joy from gift-giving. The more valuable gift to Rachel was the special, irreplaceable bond with her Great Aunt.
Years after she learned to knit, Rachel entered college as her Aunt entered a nursing home. With every return trip home during that first year of college Rachel always made it a point to visit her aunt and proudly show her latest knitting project. A sweater she made for herself and shoulder wraps for girlfriends for chilly nights out on dates and a beautiful lavender blanket for her Aunt that keep her warm for the rest of her days. By Rachel’s senior year in college Aunt Mary had passed away. She was buried with the lavender blanket wrapped around her, the color of lilac blooms from the garden of a childhood home from long-ago.
Written by Julia Roberts, Kidneys and Eyes
There’s a photo of my mom that looks alot like this!