In honor of International Women’s Day, I want to celebrate a woman who never appeared in headlines and never sought attention—my Nana, my paternal grandmother. She lived what many might call an ordinary life. Yet to me, it was anything but ordinary. She is the only grandparent I truly remember. By the time I was born, both of my grandfathers were gone, and my maternal grandmother died when I was just a year old. Nana was my living link to the past.

Memory preserves her in small, vivid details. She called the living room the parlor, a word that felt like it belonged to another century. Every Sunday, the smell of pot roast filled the house. Her clam chowder was a family staple. She colored patiently, always in small, careful circles. A bright green parakeet named Birdie chirped in the background of her apartment. On summer days, we’d make lemonade together, rolling the lemons and oranges to squeeze the juice.

For seven years, my family lived downstairs from her in a three-tenement house my father owned. Her oldest daughter lived with her; sometimes her youngest son did too. She walked slowly in sturdy boots and wore her long hair pulled back in a hairnet well into her seventies. At Christmastime, she could look out her window and see the Tower in Jenks Park in Central Falls, Rhode Island—a landmark that anchored her to place and tradition.

But woven through those steady domestic rhythms was something quieter. She missed her family. She rarely spoke about her parents or her early life. My mother once remarked that Nana did not like her own mother. That silence should have told me something.

When I began looking for answers, the census offered clues. On the 1910 U.S. census for Pawtucket’s Fourth Ward, her mother, Sarah Jane Kelley, reported that she had given birth to nine children, but only five were still living. One of the children lost was from her mother’s disastrous, only days-long first marriage. Nana—born Eliza—entered the world in December of 1892. Earlier that same year, in February, her older brother James had died. For six years afterward, she was the only surviving child in the household. Suddenly, that childhood studio portrait takes on new meaning. There are no photographs of her siblings as young children, but why was she taken to a photographer, requiring a trip by public transportation? Perhaps she represented both hope and fragile survival in a family acquainted with loss.

The 1910 census also reveals her nickname—Liza—and that at seventeen she worked as a mill hand in a tag shop. The household was crowded: several of her mother’s siblings lived with them, four in addition to a cousin, making twelve people under one roof. That same year brought another blow. In December 1910, her father, Harry Wilson, died, leaving Sarah with four children under the age of twelve. Loss, responsibility, and crowded living conditions were part of Nana’s early landscape long before she became the woman I knew.

There was another tragedy she carried quietly. While babysitting her first grandson, he died of whooping cough. Grief visited her more than once.

A later photograph of her, printed on silk (shown above), shows a poised young woman. My father always said it was her wedding portrait. Not every early twentieth-century bride wore white; many married in their best dress, as she appears to have done. On September 30, 1912, she married James William Taylor at St. Paul’s Church in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Together, they would have six children and build the family that eventually included me.

As a genealogist, I have learned that what isn’t said can be as powerful as what is recorded. Nana did not talk about her parents. She did not share stories of crowded rooms or early bereavement. Instead, she offered pot roast on Sundays, careful coloring in small circles, and the steady reassurance of presence.

Her life was not famous. It was not headline-making. But it was marked by resilience, quiet endurance, and the ability to keep going after loss. On this International Women’s Day, I honor women like my Nana—women whose strength was not loud, but lasting.

The post A Quiet Life, A Lasting Legacy: Remembering My Nana appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Dr. Kate Strasdin, author and honorary deputy curator at the Totnes Fashion and Textile Museum. She was behind the exhibition in Bath, England, that was named one of the top twelve exhibitions of the year by Vogue Magazine.

The two discuss historical fashion, and how our ancestors worked with textiles to modify their wardrobes, as well as how we can preserve these garments, and even how the people of the past tried to.

Related Episodes:

Episode 85: Pin-Up Photos and Modern Women

Episode 72: Wearing the Past: A Modern Woman’s Fascination with Period Dress

Links:

• Dr. Kate Strasdin
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Dr. Kate Strasdin joined Falmouth University in 2009 as an associate lecturer teaching histories and theories to students in BA(Hons) Fashion Design and BA(Hons) Performance Sportswear Design. She is the author of  Inside the Royal Wardrobe: A Dress History of Queen Alexandra.  She became historical consultant for the exhibition Royal Women at the Fashion Museum, Bath in 2018 (named as one of Vogue’s top 12 exhibitions of the year).  In 2011 she received the annual Gervers Fellowship given by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Dr. Stasdin is honorary deputy curator at the Totnes Fashion and Textile Museum in Devon.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 186: Fashion History on Twitter appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Gwyneth of Gwyneths.Stories on TikTok. For the past year, Gwyneth has been tackling family history stories by making videos for her followers on the platform. While a relative “newcomer,” to family history, she’s found a passion and love for the storytelling she can do through genealogy. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 181: Clothing Care at the New Canaan Historical Society

Episode 176: Ancestor Trouble with Maud Newton

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Gwyneth is a family historian, storyteller, and content creator. Gwyneth uses TikTok to tell family history stories as @gwyneths.stories and takes the audience along on her relatively new journey into genealogy. Gwyneth lives in the UK and has a background in journalism and communications.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 185: Genealogy on TikTok with Gwyneth.Stories appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Lawrence Verria, whose first book The Kissing Sailor, takes a look at an iconic World War II photo and how to identify it. In the perfect intersection between history and photo identification, Maureen and Lawrence discuss this famous photo, and how even a photo icon can leave plenty of mystery, and twists and turns to discover the answers. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 75: One Man’s World War I Journey

Episode 105: Women in the Dark: Female Photographers, 1850-1900

Links:

• Buy Lawrence’s book here.
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Lawrence Verria is the Social Studies Department Chair at North Kingstown High School, and Rhode Island’s 2000 Teacher of the Year. He will be entering his 40th year teaching United States History and Civics. He is the recipient of the Susan B. Wilson Civic Education Merit Award and Rhode Island College’s Evelyn Walsh Prize for excellence in history studies. “The Kissing Sailor” is Verria’s first book, co-authored with George Galdorisi. Verria plans to publish his second book, “The Cool Moose: Robert J. Healey Jr., Beyond the Beard.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 178: An Iconic WWII Photo Identified appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

This Week, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Greg Kozlick, who helped reunite a woman with long-lost wedding photos – in the story of a photo reunion that’s sure to tug on the heartstrings. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 32: The Man Behind Dead Fred

Bonus: Lost history Discovered in the Recycling with Paul Moar

Links:

• Returning the Slides
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Greg Kozlick has a deep passion for photography including portraiture, architectural images, and photo journalism. He is currently a student at Aurora University.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 174: A Case of Mistaken Identity – Sue’s Wedding Photo Reunion appeared first on Maureen Taylor.