2012 was the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Cambridge Branch of the Women’s Worker’s Union and Suffrage and first feminist groups.
Expressing a desire to be part of this celebration, CamIris, Cambridge Women's Photography Group, curated their 'Gathering Threads' exhibition in May 2012. They have focused on the common threads that link them to those times through their life experiences, either through the experiences of women they know well, their mothers grandmothers, aunts, best friends, or women who have inspired them from anywhere in the world.
Preparing and thinking of my grandmothers and aunts who enjoyed sewing and embroidery.
Our family tree is well documented and yet I can only go back five generations on the female line. The principle is to follow the male line and when done, the mother’s male line and so on. Therefore the mother of the mother of the mother, and so forth, appears only at the very end of the books.
My great-great-grandmother, Joséphine d’Heurles, is the last mother of a mother I can find.
For my mother, her mother and so forth, I would like to sing the chorus of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song
”Raised by the women who are stronger than you know
A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn
The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth
By your mother and her mother, the weavers of your cloth”
Prompted by this comment my brother wrote
«No you can go a little further as follows : 1) Elisabeth Hugot-Derville, 2) Yvonne de Penfentenyo de Kervereguen, 3) Marguerite Henriette Serret, 4) Marie-Josèphe Laure de Bécourt, 5) Joséphine-Odilia d’Heurle, 5) Marie-Joséphine Auger, 6) Marie-Adélaïde Lobre.»
«A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn
The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth
By the women in your life the weavers of your cloth.”
Mary Chapin Carpenter
La Famille Invisible
Who was she, Mummy? When women’s names disappear
The toddler on the first picture is my aunt in the early ’20s. In the background is Marie-Jeanne Divanach, known to the family as Nénenne – the Breton form of Nanny. Nénenne was the niece of my grandmother’s own nanny. She left a violent husband and followed my grandmother‘s family in their military postings. Like her aunt had done with my great-grandparents, she lived all her life with my grandparents.
The second photograph is of my grandparents’ first three children; my mother is in the middle. Behind them is Mademoiselle Fournes, known to the family as “Mademoiselle”. Only after 24 hours of pondering could my mother remember her family name, yet she remembered Mademoiselle’s teaching and their long walks together with great fondness.
The third picture was taken in Warsaw, Poland in the ’60s. My sister, wearing a white veil, was taking her “communion solennelle.” The photo gathers all those who were present. The priest and a sister of the Parish; my mother between them; and my father on the far right. The children are my brothers (minus the eldest who was taking the picture) and sisters. I am at the front. The tall woman on the left is Grażyna, who helped my brother and sister with their studies. Next to Grażyna is Maria, whom we called Pani Maria. She was the cook. In a direct line behind me is Cenia, who looked after all the children. We called her Pani Cenia. She was my nanny.
To nannies, governesses and teachers too, I would like to sing the chorus of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song, slightly modified
”Raised by the women who are stronger than you know
A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn
The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth
By “the women in your life” the weavers of your cloth.”
Né de la mer
Né de la mère
«The raised and falling waters of the sea
Whose tidal pull and play is in my veins
Spilling and spreading, filling, flowing free
Whose ebb and flow is still at work in me
And in the wombing pulse of play and work
When heart beats pushed in waves of empathy
Till waters broke and bore me from the dark
And found this foundered shore and took me from the ark»
From the poem by Malcolm Guite “Out in the Elements”