This photo is roughly taken circa 1913/1914… my Great Grandmother is on the left… and her cousin is to the right… They are Lithuanian, but that was taken here in the United States, right after my great grandmother immigrated over.
I have a story… it gets kinda tangled, so stay with me if you can…
At the turn of the century, over 100 years ago… 1900… my great grandfather and my great grandmother’s “cousin”, came to America. They were a young couple just beginning their lives and coming to America… looking for a better life.
Before coming to America, they had been living in Lithuania 🇱🇹… in 1900 Lithuania was ruled by Russia.
There was a lot of oppression in Lithuania at that time, and around 1900 was an era of liberation, some began to immigrate to places where they could be free.
So in 1900… my great grandfather and my great grandmother’s cousin came to America in hopes of a better life. They married in 1901, had 2 children – a girl, then a boy…
Everything was going really well… my great grandfather had a really good job, he became a fire fighter, learned English, had 2 children and a wife and melted into American society.
During that time period, here in America – the area they were living, had a high population of Irish and Italian … during one of the census recordings – perhaps it was their accent that caused the change? Or maybe they changed it intentionally to better fit in? But their formally Lithuanian last name, was changed to a similar Irish one.
From that point on, every census recorded them as having that Irish last name, instead of the true Lithuanian one… times were judgmental back then for jobs and such – so was probably just easier and more opportunities available to them if they left it as Irish, instead of Lithuanian.
Around 1910/1911… my great grandmother’s cousin became ill with “consumption”… aka… tuberculosis… back then it was dangerous and feared and they didn’t fully understand the disease yet. Back then, it was a death sentence.
Times were different back then and families HAD to survive … my great grandfather could not lose his job if his wife died, he still have 2 children to raise!! He was in a foreign country and it would have been too hard.
So he sent word back to the families in Lithuania about what was happening and needed someone to help.
That’s where MY great grandmother came into the picture. She was 18 years old, and came over about 1913/1914… she moved in with them to help with his dying wife/her cousin, and the 2 children. She cooked and cleaned and helped with anything she could.
Patients with tuberculosis were isolated to their homes or hospitals at that time.
Eventually, in 1917, the cousin died ☹️ … my great grandmother stayed on to help and eventually married my great grandfather, they went on to have 5 girls of their own.
I’m not sure if was true love or circumstances? But I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that.
While this was a horrific family tragedy … very sad and many family members were lost … it had to be extremely devastating during that time… but I am ONLY here because those events occurred.
I have mixed feelings because on one hand, you never want to have people experience such pain or even the terror with something like that – I can’t imagine how hard and devastating that must have been for them.
Without that course of events – and the actions they made… I would not be here … and I am thankful to be here.
There are reasons things happen in life and things that have to run the course.
Many medical advancements have occurred since then, and tuberculosis can now be treated and is better understood. We no longer have the fear or the deaths that was once there
I just thought I would share this to show a few things… we will always experience some health issue that we will fear and could cause devastating deaths… we do have medical advances that get better everyday… Today they injected the first person with POSSIBLE vaccine 💉… 45 individuals will be in the TRIAL of a vaccine conducted by Moderna out of Cambridge, Massachusetts
Part of living is also dying, and along with dying comes renewal…
Life is not promised, no one ever said that… they also never claimed it would be easy.
So while we wait and hope for ANYTHING that can help, we will and are going to, experience some very hard unknown times.
This is a part of my story, before I was even a thought … I do love life, I love being alive … and I hope to stay that way… I am sad for the devastating losses, but I also appreciate the chance to be here and have hope for future medical advances! ✌️
Learning Life 
We so should learn from the past. They seem to have gone through equally scary times without the need to panic.
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