Stunned!

What happened tonight in my little apartment just absolutely blew my fucking little mind...

For my next painting, I am planning on putting some collage elements in, like old love letters or prayer books or postcards I find in antique shops. I have some old books like that already, that I bought a few years ago in Ventura, CA, in a used bookstore. Some have handwriting inside the covers. I looked inside a few of them tonight, to see what I had on hand.

One of them is a prayer book--that has prayers for different occasions that every good Catholic would know. The book is written in French. I opened the cover and saw the following name and address written in pencil:

Blanche Froment

109 Mendon Rd.

So. Attleboro, Mass.

To wit:

Now this in itself is not so extraordinary.

What is extraordinary is that Blanche Froment was my great aunt, my grandmother's sister.

Who died before I was born.

Whose family of origin lived in Massachussetts, very likely in South Attleboro. Some of our family did live there, if I'm remembering correctly.

I called my mom right away and she concurred that it was most likely Aunt Blanche's book. She couldn't remember if the family had lived on Mendon Road, but they might very well have. It has to be my aunt. Blanche Froment? Not a ridiculously common name. And my mom's side of the family is French, who belonged to a French parish, so a French prayer book would have been in their possession, back in the day.

How in the hell did it get across the country, from east coast to west coast, and how in the hell did it end up in my hands???

That is fucking, FUCKING amazing!!!