52 Ancestors Challenge Week 11: "Flowers" - 3 generations of my Earle grandmothers' heirlooms

This is an adaptation from an earlier post published in March 2013; but when you say "flowers" in relation to my family history, I think of these objects among my family's heirlooms.

Shortly after my Grandpa Earle passed away in June of 2000, my grandmother (otherwise known as Nanny) gave me an Earle family heirloom as a birthday gift; a hand-painted plate. Nanny told me she was given the plate by my grandpa's Aunt Susie Earle-Gilvey (12 June 1877 - 28 June1965). It is a plate that Aunt Susie brought with her on her immigration from Newfoundland to New York in about 1900. The plate, we believe, was hand-painted by my great-great grandmother, Sarah Samms-Earle-Bromley (13 October 1857 - 20 March 1899). 

As a painter myself with a deep interest in family history I think it was a very appropriate gift.  I am not sure if Great-great Grandma Earle considered herself an artist but hand-painting plates was a popular hobby for women of her time.

This is not the only hand-painted Earle family heirloom that Nanny has given to me. Several birthdays later, Nanny gave me this canister which was painted by my great grandmother, Ethel Mae Losee-Earle (14 February 1896 - 27 May 1960).

There is something profoundly impacting about touching an object that was once held by someone you only know through stories and documentation. The next woman in this chain of Earle grandmothers, though, is my Nanny. She just turned 93 on February 27.

She doesn't paint but she does handcraft afghans and shawls of which I own a few. For a time she did ribbon embroidery of flowers but I do not have a piece of her flower work. Instead, here is a photo a blanket she crocheted for me. As a child it covered my bed. There was also an accompanying blanket she made for my doll. It had a similar pattern and was made in the same colors; my favorite, pink and green. I wish I still had that doll blanket. I don't know where it went.

God willing, I will be able to care for and maintain these artifacts long enough to hand them down to the next "Earle" grandmother or keeper of the family heirlooms.