20 May 21

While working with my family tree at ancestry.com I recently noticed the curiosity that Beth's maternal grandmother Marie (Eggers) Lange was born on 20 May 1890, while my maternal grandmother Sophie Ethel (Kinner) York was born on 21 May 1878. We think they both would have liked this green/gold paisley tie, so I'm honoring both of them today. I never knew Sophie York; she died when my mother was 15. About all I know about her is that she kept house and family for her school-teacher-and-principal husband Lorenzo, in various locations on Long Island, and later near Rochester, New York. Beth's mother Wilma remembers Marie Lange as "a very courageous woman who had to deal with some great challenges in her life." One important family story is that Marie, who was living in Hamburg, Germany, boarded a ship in 1926 to come to America because a childhood acquaintance named Albert Jurgen Claus Lange asked her to marry him! They hoped to wed on the Friday she arrived but it was too late so they had to wait until Monday! Beth remembers her Granny living with their family until her death in 1962.

Photo from 1957: Granny Marie Lange at right.
Photo from 1924: Sophie York, middle of back row.