Look at these women. There is a story here. This is my Great Aunt Silla, my Great-Grandmother Sasa, and my Grandmother Cecelia. There is a philosophy of poise embedded in this image, an assertion of grace. It was taken during a time when scientists were speculating that these women had more in common with an ape than with a human being. There is a message about a way of being encoded in this photograph. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that they are dressed in white even though the roads would have been muddy, and unpaved from here to anywhere they were expected to go. I suspect it has something to do with my grandmothers unruly, natural hair stretched back into that neat bun. The way white women wore their hair. I suspect it has something to do with my grandmothers love for the Queen of England. Though she would not have been welcome on the grounds of the Country Club, except as a maid. I suspect it has something to do with the paper crown of nobility in this photograph that betrays nothing of the hardships that would have been their lives, but speaks loudly of the dignity with which they lived it.

The following is the life story of my Great Aunt Silla Rosales.