Who is this beautiful woman?

To the Editor,

I had went into an antique shop the other day. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just wanting to kill some time really! As I walked around, I marveled at the old things that I seen, but on the right hand side upon a wall was a picture of a very beautiful young woman in a old large oval glass picture frame. I just stood there staring at it! She was absolutely beautiful! I couldn't take my eyes off that picture. It looked to have been dated probably in the late 1800's or very early 1900's. Her hair looked dark probably brown, long, soft, put up in a very stylish hairdo of her day. She had beautiful skin, soft tender eyes. She was neatly dressed in a beautiful long flowing, long sleeve, high neck dress. She was in a pose. Finally I started to talk away but nothing interested me like that picture. I felt like it was drawing me back. So I just stood there staring at it. All of a sudden I found myself wondering who could this woman have been. I wondered what her name was? Was she married? Did she have any children? What role in life had she played? Questions just kept flooding my mind! What king of person may she have been, by the look of her soft big beautiful eyes, she was probably very kind. "The eyes tell a lot about a person." So many questions in my mind about someone to whom were no answers. Just a picture of a beautiful woman in an old large oval picture frame. Most of all I wondered how did that picture end up in an antique shop. Why wasn't there something, anything about her wrote on the back. Maybe it was a picture that came from an estate sale with pictures included. How sad! Why wasn't that picture hanging in a family members home? My heart began to sink! We have lost the meaning of being a family. Children born today barely know who both their parents are. They know very little about their grandparents or great-great grandparents. Families used to get together just to have pictures made. Starting with the great-great and on down, oh how precious were those pictures.

When I was a little girl our families would get together, get out the photo albums and everyone sat around looking at each others albums to see how people had changed who was beginning to look more like who, how tall the children were getting. We would get out the snacks and refreshments, laugh and talk about old times. That was entertainment. What has happened to our families? What we are seeing and no one wants to admit it is the destruction of the family. John 10 v. 10 says, the thief cometh not but for to steal kill and destroy. The family is under attack and we are doing nothing about it. Lets get back to family again. Pull together, love one another, let family know that you are there for them. Who is to say that in a hundred years if times sand it won't be my picture of your picture in an antique shop on the wall with people coming around looking and wondering who is this person? Think about it. When I was little even until I was grown I heard this saying. "The family who prays together stays together."

Debra Summer

Poplar Bluff, Mo