Gratitude Catch up. Day 2

The weekend was pretty hectic, ( as usual I know)  This is kind of funny to me, but I find myself debating how to do this task this year.  Do I just go through all of the things I really truly AM thankful for?  Or do I go through my previous lists and make sure  dot repeat myself.  I am still unclear of what to think here. 

But in the mean time,  I will just continue.  Looking back at last years blog, on day two I was thankful for my family of origin.  I went back and reread that post and can say I am STILL thankful for my family of origin.  But this year I want especially to say that I am thankful for my two grandmothers specifically.    I am grateful for the legacy each of them very unknowingly passed down to not only me, but to my daughters. 
My paternal grandmother,  Myrtle,  was born in Tennessee in the late 1800s  Lets see, lets work this through, my dad was born in 1933 when she was 40.  So if you do the subtraction, she was born around 1893.   She was a school teacher in one of the local community schools when she was just a young woman.  The legacy that she passed down through her children lead to many school teachers in her descendants, including myself, and both of my daughters,  My younger daughter finished her teaching degree in May and got her first official job as a 4th grade teacher.  She has worked with children most of her teen years and to this point.  Her older sister has also worked with children for most of her adult life.  She now has 2 children that she is very diligently teaching them every day as well as continuing her own education. 

My maternal Grandmother, Bessie, is the grandmother I THOUGHT I knew best, as I grew up near her, but in the last couple of years I have found out how much no one really realized about her. She was born in a very small mountain community in Southern New Mexico in 1912. She was an athlete during an era that most women were not.  She played basketball on her high school team and "lettered" 5 years in a row and was team captain for either 3 or 4 years.   She was the consummate "home maker"  a job that she took much more seriously than I had any idea. I have found out since that she was "taught"  Home Economics as a science, not as something to do in your spare time. 
Her siblings called her Dr. Tiny.  She studied and took care of her families medical needs during the early part of the previous century in an area of the country that medical care was sparse at best.   She was a spiritual woman.  She passed her faith on to both of her children and to all of their children and now it is falling on her great grands.    Through her lineage I see the grace and beauty in my daughters.  I see daughters who are dedicating themselves to being the best they can be for their families.  I can only begin to see where my oldest daughter is going to land in her time at the seminary, where she has the opportunity to learn the Art  AND SCIENCE of homemaking as her great grandmother knew. 

I end with the thought that I am grateful for the women in my life.