Grandma

Grandma, Francesca Victoria

circa, 1920-1930

My grandma would have turned 100 this year. 

This is a picture taken some time in the late 1920s or early 30s. It is framed and has sat on the same spot on a shelf in my grandma's house for decades. When we asked anyone about the story behind this picture, they always said that grandma was fascinated with gypsies, and longed for the gypsy life. 

Here's the actual backstory: 

She lost her dear mother and her new born brother when she was only three years old. Then her father married again. Her stepmother was a terrible stepmother in her ways to grandma. She was sent to a boarding school from a very tender age, from where she used to be sent from person to person for her holidays as the stepmother never wanted her back. 

Maybe to drown her miseries, and escape from them, she made a fantasy life of being a gypsy and being carefree and among the stars and communing with God in nature. She was a real country child. She loved to milk goats and drink their milk. She had a pet goat too, gifted to her by her uncle and aunt who loved her like their own child. That uncle and aunt were grandma's father's own sister and her husband. Grandma loved them so much and they too loved her so much.

...but that too was short lived. Owing to some money matters, grandma's father to take revenge on his sister's husband, forbid the Holy Family Convent boarding school nuns to let them visit each other. 

It broke the heart of grandma and the two people who loved her so dearly.