Sample This

By Robert Sample

Great Gramma's Reading Glasses

Great Gramma's Reading Glasses are made of silver and have extendable ear pieces. They also have small lenses. The frames have "McAllister" stamped on them. The glasses were made in the 1800s and have a steel, leather covered case.

As a small boy, my father, Joseph Sample, who would have been 85-years old on May 19, told me that his grandmother McGarvey carried them in her apron pocket and read stories to him and his two sisters.

His grandmother came from the County of Cork in Ireland in 1850, and always said they were as poor as church mice.

She weighed about 70-pounds and was only 4-feet 3-inches tall. She always wore black clothes and dipped snuff.

My dad remembered mostly the wonderful food that she cooked in a wood stove. The picture is of my dad and his two sisters with Granny McGarvey in 1913.

Robert is a car inspector at the Crest Yard in Fort Worth. He and his wife Gloria operate "The Colony", a bed and breakfast located in the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards.

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