My Journey Through Time

I've uploaded my challenge layout to the gallery! Here it is:

It was meant to be a journey through time for my daughter. I wanted her to see that she comes from a long line of strong women.

You see, my great-grandmother who lived in Belgium (top left picture on the first page) had 12 children. She had to be strong, right? LOL! She would have had 15 but three of them didn't live past 4 months of age. But, there's more. Two weeks before World War I began, her home burned down. All that remained was one wall and a storage shed. They did the best they could and rebuilt one room out of that wall and lived in it and the shed all the way through World War I.

Yet, it doesn't end there. During the war, the German soldiers were passing through and stopped at their home. They demanded all the food the family had so that they could feed their troops. My great-grandmother who was barely 4' 10" stood up to the German soldiers. She told them that if they took the family's food, they'd have to take the family too and if they did that, they'd have to feed all of them too. The soldiers left without taking their food.

Then, after the war, she, along with her husband, took 11 of their 12 children and emigrated to Canada sight unseen. (The twelfth choose to stay. She joined a convent and became a nun.) They finally settled on what my family calls the Hill Farm in Manitoba, property that remains in my family to this day.

Yet, my journey through time wasn't just into the past. You see, whenever I look at my great-grandmother's picture, I see my grandmother. They are virtually identical. And, if you compare my pictures of my grandmother to my pictures of me, you'd see that we, too, are virtually identical. Take a look at the second page of my layout. My grandmother and my mother are in the top picture on the left. My daughter and I are in the picture on the right.

So, for me, this journey into the past became a journey into my future. I know what I will look like when and if I live long enough to be 90. I have reason to be proud to look like them.