Fabulous Friday's Forever Family Featuring...

My grandmother, Mary Rose! "Rose" was a Christmas baby, born on Christmas Day in 1874 in Lowell Massachusetts. She died before I was born in 1941. Rose was a remarkable women who know much heartache but stayed devout to her Catholic faith. Her father died when she was only eleven years only. She married my grandfather John Thomas and they had eleven children. Rose buried five of her children before they reached adulthood. Can you imagine? I can't. Three of them were infants when they died. One son John Francis died as an eight year old. He had been cranking one of the old fashioned cars and the crane hit him in the abdomen. Mary Gladys died from tuberculosis at the age of 18. Her babies died from things that would be treatable today, prematurity, seizures, meningitis. I have never met my Grandma. However her strength helps me to be strong in my trials. She has been sealed in the Temple, to her family that has passed on. (Click on the links to learn what LDS people believe about forever families.) I wonder... did she believe that her family would go on forever. Maybe that is what gave her strength. When I meet her I will ask! I firmly believe that I am who I am today because of the my ancestors. I am eternally grateful for the legacy I have been given. I look forward to my reunion with my Grandma Rose, I will hug her and thank her for the strength she has given me!