Happy Birthday Grandma Katie

On this day in 1891, my great-grandmother Katie Hays was born.

It's really amazing to think that she was born before the turn of the 20th century, and she died in 1982 - just 1 year into the space shuttle program.

When she was 18 years old, in 1909, she could not vote. That right would not enter her life until she was 29 years old. I do not know if she ever did register and vote. When I knew her, her focus was on God, not politics.

She lived to see two World Wars, and I know that one of her two sons (my grandfather) served in one of them. I think her other son, my great-uncle Jim, may have served in the Army but I'm not 100% sure.

I do have one photo with her in it on my computer; it shows her talking to my mother, with my father standing between them, at the reception following my parents' wedding:

I think Mom told me that Katie was welcoming my mother into the family, and naturally that went over really well with Mom.

That picture was taken inside this house:

Some changes have been made to the house and property - the landscaping is more open now, a driveway was added, and the front porch enclosed - but otherwise it's the same little house she lived in, and where I used to go on my way to school when I attended Woodside Elementary in Silver Spring (located at the top of that hill where the house sits).

I was only 12 when Katie died. I wish I'd been more inclined to ask her questions about her life and experiences growing up. I'm sure she would have had some really interesting tales to tell.

Stribling Arms

In doing some family research - which is quite difficult, I must admit - I found that my great-grandmother's line included the name Stribling. This was a great find to me, because after my father died and I moved his furniture into my apartment, including an antique dry sink, I found in said dry sink a family book of Striblings. I thought, "who are these people?" I didn't know anything about the family connection to the Striblings. 

As it turned out, George Frederick Hays Sr (son of George J. Hays & Ruth-Ann Cornelia W. ROSS) married Martha Alma "Dora" Stribling (daughter of James Harvey Stribling & Nancy Jane WILLIAMS) and had 10 children, 7 of which survived. 

One of those children was Katherine Magnolia Hays, my great-grandmother. She married Owen Holladay, and the children of that marriage were Frederick Owen Holladay (my grandfather), James Douglas Holladay, Martha Holladay (ZEIGER), and Mary Holladay (FORNI). 

Anyway, here's the Stribling arms (enlarged but somewhat pixellated).