THE CROOKED PICTURE by Vicki Breeze, [email protected]

When I bought my home a few years ago, my mother gave me a wonderful gift -- a box of framed family photos. The pictures were of my mother, her brother, her mother and father, her grandparents, her great-aunt, and her great-great-grandmother (a woman I had called "monkey face" for years, but now know by her rightful name of Laura Hines Streeter Gore). All the pictures were familiar, as my mother shared them with me repeatedly throughout my childhood. My mother, my sister and I would crawl into my mother's bed and delve into the past while examining the treasures my mother held dear to her heart. I attribute my interest in family research to these trips to the past.

I had always thought the piano covered with family photos on the television show "Family" was a wonderful idea. But since I don't own a piano, I decided the walls of my dining room would be just fine. It has been great having these windows to the past to look at and inspire me to continue researching. I know this may sound odd, but all the photos seemed to be happy except one.

My uncle Vic's picture never stayed straight. I could straighten the frame once a week and it would just go crooked again. I don't mean just a slight slant, but severely crooked. I thought for years that he was restless because he had died a year before I was born leaving a wife and three year old son. But I found out a month ago that I was wrong.

During a trip in October my mother visited with her sister-in-law Shirley (Vic's widow) and her grandniece Victoria (Vic's granddaughter). Victoria mentioned an interest in family research, which my mother relayed to me. Excited to share my research with an interested family member, I decided to give Victoria not only a written printout of her family, but a photographic one as well. I went through my dining room taking pictures off the wall and out of their frames, getting a group together to take to the color copier place, when I came to the picture of Vic that was always crooked.

When I took Vic's picture down and turned the frame over to remove the back, I saw a name written in pencil on the wood of the frame. It said "Hiram Gore father of Sarah C. Gore Streeter." I about flipped. That was my 4th-great-grandfather. I couldn't believe that this frame had once had a picture of my 4th-great- grandfather in it. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad, so I continued taking the back off of the frame. When I lifted the back off, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, because there behind Vic's picture, safely tucked in his frame, was a picture of Hiram Gore. Since this frame was part of a matching set, I immediately took the second frame down and examined it. The second frame had handwriting also, it said "Laura Sabin Gore." I wasted no time taking the back off and found, nestled safely behind a picture of my mother, a picture of Laura Sabin Gore, my 4th-great-grandmother. Not only was finding the picture of her a thrill, the extra bonus was finding her maiden name.

The pictures of my mom and uncle Vic are now in new frames and Hiram and Laura are happy to be properly displayed in their rightful frames. I know this because the pictures have stayed straight since the day they were rehung. Not even a slight slant.

Oh, Victoria loved her book. And I can't thank her enough for having shown an interest in her past.