#52Ancestors - I'D LIKE TO MEET - Gone too soon

I'D LIKE TO MEET

This week's prompt from Amy Johnson Crow really made me think.  There are so many of my ancestors that I would love to meet.  Only one of my grandparents was still alive when I was born, so I never was able to feel that connection to my past.  Though I was blessed to have wonderful great-aunts and great-uncles, they were always someone else's grandparents.  

One reason I'd like to meet my grandparents is to ask all those troubling research questions of who, what, when and where.  But when I really thought about it, the main reason I would like to meet them is to get to know what they were like.  That made me realize that the one person I'd love to meet most would be by maternal grandmother, Virginia Slater.  She died a very young woman, leaving behind 3 small children.  One of them was my seven year old mother.

Virginia Slater Hammon

Virginia was born in Slaterville, Utah, a town founded by  her great-grandfather, Richard Slater, whom I wrote about here.  She was the 4th of 7 children, though only 6 great to adulthood.  I think their's must have been a hard life.  In the 1910 census, her father is listed as a laborer in the "salt works".  By 1920, he is listed as not having an occupation. 

She married Daniel Glenn Hammon on 28 February 1923, when she was just 20 years old.  Her first child, my mother, was born in December 1925.  By 1930, they were living in Mohrland, Utah, where Glenn had work as a miner.  Mohrland was a company town which my mother recalls fondly.  It is now a ghost town.  This is where Virginia died, pregnant with her 4th child.  My mother came home from school and found the door locked.  She could see Virginia lying on the floor.  A neighbor had to let her into the house.  Virginia lingered for 18 days before dying of "mitral insufficiency".  Her heart gave out.

It was a devastating time for her three remaining children, my mother Jean and her siblings Sharon and Donald.  Now in her 90s, my mother often speaks of her own mother.  I would love to meet Virginia and let her enjoy the large family that is hers.  If my count is correct, she had 10 grandchildren - one named after her - with dozens of great-grandchildren.  I only knew Virginia through her two sisters, Thelma and Marvel, who were surrogate grandparents to me.  They were down to earth, loving, hard working, thrifty and kind. 

I love this picture of Virginia and Glenn.  She is so beautiful with a shy smile.