grandmother's choice--Amethyst

Amethyst, second in a series of 49 blocks shared by Barbara Brackman in her block-of-the-week history lesson recalling the fight for women's rights.
http://grandmotherschoice.blogspot.com/

My grandmother, Ella (Hillegen) Diekevers Scholten and her mother Carrie (Graada) Rabbers Diekevers. About 1910.

Carrie was born to Dutch immigrants who are commemorated on a monument in Holland, Michigan as being founding settlers. She married Gerrit Jan Diekevers and moved to northern Michigan. They later moved with their five children to Boyden, Iowa where he was a carpenter. Carrie lived with her daughter in her old age, and my mother remembers her living with them.

Ella worked as a housekeeper until her marriage at age 30. She and my grandfather had 6 children. She died of breast cancer on the day her second grandchild was born; eventually she would have 26 grandchildren (I am number 10).
She was lovingly remembered by her children as being a quiet, gentle woman, an excellent cook, and a phenomenal seamstress.