What I found today

I think my fascination with 19th century photographs stems from my relationship with my grandmother who loved everything Victorian and was always so good to me. I remember dropping a bottle of milk on the floor, and Nana saying: “Don’t worry Sue—it will be good for the wood.”
I used to love going to her apartment to stay overnight because she would make me chocolate cake and sew clothes for my Miss Canada doll. Nana also let me read her True Detective magazines, which she kept hidden under her bed. I loved those mags because they contained the kind of lurid details I just couldn’t get enough of.
When I was looking for something else today, I came across this tintype of my great-grandmother Wakelin—Nana’s mother—and one of her children. I’m not sure which one it is since she had thirteen of them, but I know it’s not my grandmother.
Everyone in the Wakelin family had beautiful blue eyes and tight eyelids that made them look like Malamutes or hawks. I don’t mind having brown eyes, but I’ve always envied those eyelids. Oh well, maybe in my next lifetime.