A. B. Graham, shown here at age 6 with his little sister, was (I felt at the time) my small claim to fame (of a sort) when I was a kid. When this little boy grew up, he married my maternal grandmother's aunt Maud...he was a teacher, a principal, a superintendent of schools. And he started the 4-H Club of America.
Here's my...what?....great-great aunt Maud at about 20.
The thing I remember most about A. B. Graham though (and I only knew him through stories my mother told me) was that when he was eleven there was a terrible fire. His father was killed and his mother's hands were badly burned. She was a seamstress, and now the mother of two father-less children, so this was particularly unfortunate. A.B. would work her hands, opening them and bending them, breaking the skin, so that eventually she was able to use them again. And he taught himself (undoubtedly with her guidance) to sew. He took up some of the burden of keeping the family fed. But you know, he must have enjoyed it a little, too, because he kept sewing all his life and sewed clothes for his children and grandchildren.
(Hey, with the initials A.B., how could I not choose him?!)
And, just to tie this in with knitting, look at his sister's little jacket. Does you suppose that's a knit? I'd love to get a closer look at it. It almost looks like something that Debbie Bliss would design today.
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