Historicizing Heritage

These are silhouettes of my paternal grandparents, Francis and Helen Brown, made in 1934 on their honeymoon to – I think – Lake Placid. My father followed not long after in 1936. They died long before I was born, in a car crash visiting my parents who were living in Europe, so I never knew either of them except through photos or pictures.

I found these silhouettes going through my father’s things after his own death in 2014. I think they speak so much to the time – this was apparently a standard souvenir – and although only in outline, I see the contours of my father’s and my face in my grandfather’s profile. I love the shape of the clothing that speaks to smart 1930s style and a newlywed Virginia couple starting out, where my grandfather would work in the Roosevelt administration before becoming the president of a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey.

My grandmother was a socialite of sorts, and very involved in the Mayflower society. Among my father’s other things after his death we found letters describing the volatile relationship my grandfather had with his own father (who had lost all the family money, from plantations, in failed attempts at the gold rush). He was angry that my grandfather had married a divorced woman. My family heritage on this side is deeply intertwined with American history (see: Mayflower society, plantations, gold rush, FDR, pharmaceuticals).

I feel so disconnected from them and that heritage, and yet, these hang in my house now.