One of my interests is family history, however my maternal family have proved fairly difficult to follow. My great, great grandparents came over from Ireland in the early 1800s and I know nothing about their lives before they came here. Their family had a hard life, worked in the coal mines and were no strangers to poverty or ill health. Bronchitis and mining accidents were responsible for the demise of several of them.
I have a wooden ornament, a hand holding a ball which my mother said came from my grandfather. Soldiers made things like that with whatever material they could get to pass the time, and he had brought it home for the children.
grannysatticweb 