Maternal Great Grandmother - Lura Weatherly Nye

I'll start with this photo, taken October 1, 1944 at my great grandmothers home in Santa Monica California,  The baby is me at 17 days old being held by my grandmother Faye Hamilton.  My mother Dorothy Faye Hamilton Kerr is in the middle and our subject for today is on the pictures far left.  She is Lura Weatherly Nye, born in Marshall County Iowa July 26, 1874.

Parents are Iowa farmers James Weatherly and Viola Denbow.  By the time she was 18, she was in Longmont Colorado where she married Oscar Nye in 1893.  Lura was a part time school teacher and housewife.  She and Oscar had 3 girls, Marie, Faye, and Fern.  In 1928 Fern married and family stories have the Nye's loosing the family farm in 1929.  By this time Faye and Fern have settled in the Los Angeles area.  Making a move from Colorado to California a logical choice.  They settled in Santa Monica and Lura took up work as a seamstress plus taking on a few students for home taught piano lessons.

Memories of her are vivid to me as I mentally revisit their modest but tidy home at 1934 22nd Street.  Holidays were spent with her playing carols and the family doing our best to sing along.  I am very happy that I was old enough to know my great grandmother Lura.