My grand-niece,
Genevieve Mae Machado,
called “GG”,
five years old,
a green-eyed, carrot-haired sprite,
is the only child and daughter
of my niece,

Marie Elizabeth Machado,
called “Maribeth”,
a brave young woman
who created and recreated herself,
became a nurse and
moved West to Oregon,
heard her clock ticking
and pushed the button.
Marie is the only daughter
of my sister,

Brenda Louise Greenman-Machado,
called “Be-lou”,
a Bronx girl who left the City,
became a nurse,
and who now holds her Northern Vermont
family and life together
with grit and pluck,
faith and rose colored hope.
Brenda is the only daughter
of my mother,

Genevieve Rae Fagan-Greenman,
called “Rae”,
who lived a tumbled,
passed around childhood and adult life.
She was loved, abandoned, loved, betrayed.
She loved and married a sailor during World War II
and, many years later, divorced him.
She became a nurse,
who treated her patients with gentle care
while, inside, raged at her world
and, as best she could, mothered ours.
Genevieve was the only daughter of
my Grand Mother,

Elizabeth Louise Atlanta Mathesen-Fagan-Harpo(?),
called “Eva”,
a free spirited boundary breaker
who became a nurse,
married and divorced a sea-going,
rough-living Irishman named Michael Patrick Fagan,
who met and married or, maybe,
(“lived in sin”) with some guy named Harpo,
(all quite a big to-do back in the day),
and who died young of cancer,
leaving Genevieve to be raised by
my Great Grand Mother,

Louise Swenson-Mathesen,
a Norwegian immigrant
who, as her Viking ancestors,
braved and loved the sea
and married a seaman named Michael Mathesen.
She birthed three daughters,
losing two of them, the aforementioned
Elizabeth, and Ethel Martha,
who died young of the consumption,
and my Grand Aunt,

Genevieve Eleanor Mathesen-Syvertsen,
the elegant, regal, formal,
mothering, warm, center
of my childhood memories.
I see her in sepia, combing her
thick, mahogany, waist length hair,
saying, “It’s all right. Come in, Kenneth”,
and I tip toe in,
standing near her mirrored vanity, watching,
silent, awed.
We called her “Aunt Gen”.
She was the welcoming door to stability
in Brendas and my alternately severed,
independent and vagabond childhood.
Genevieve was the mother
of three children: twin boys,
James and Charles,
both men of the sea;
and her only daughter,

Ethel Martha Syvertsen-Unneland-Lysloff
a sharp, witty, sometimes sarcastic,
sometimes brittle, sometimes powerful,
woman who skated thin ice all her life,
married twice and birthed one son,
Alexander,
and one daughter,

Gail Lyn Unneland-Leonard,
my second cousin,
called the “the Blonde Bomb Shell”
(with whom I was “kissing cousins”
but that tale will not be told here).
She, like my mother before her,
fought for her own home ground and
mostly, found it, moved South
and is the mother of two,
a son, Evan, and
her only daughter,

Erika Christine Leonard,
who moved North, back to Brooklyn
where most of these lives began,
and is working to break into
the world of film and theatre
in wild New York City.

Erika is the next to the youngest
in a line of only daughters,
free, fiery, fearless females,
of whom you,
“GG”,
are next.

Enjoy it all,
with love from your
grand uncle,
Kenneth Michael Greenman,
who has another story
of another line,
of another little girl,
Brenna Elizabeth Shelley,
which will be traced next.