Every now and then, a blind squirrel finds a nut.

(Or as Lithuanians say, "Even a blind hen stumbles on a corn kernel now and then.")

My Toronto Cousin sent an email last night. In it, she explained that she had found, among her mother Jonė's things, some photos dating back to the early 1930s. I remembered seeing the images my Toronto cousin described, but I could not recall whether we had the original photos or, if we did, where they were.

I started digging around for those 1930s photos, but I did not find them. I instead stumbled across a box I'd not yet seen. My Dad had written "Babos Nuotraukos"—Grandma's Photos—on the box's side. Inside the box were many duplicate photos that my Dad had printed for my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana. Dad organized the duplicates by person. There was, for example, an envelope containing snapshots of each of Tatjana's grandchildren, an envelope with mid-century photos of cousins living in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, and even an envelope with images of my Mom's maternal aunt, Dora.

I didn't plan on finding an envelope called "Babos šeima Rusijoi"—Grandma's family in Russia. In the envelope are photos of my Grandmother's sisters, Natasha and Elena and their families. The photos date from the late 1950s (corresponding roughly with the time Stalin died) to the 1970s.

The envelope also has some old photos I'd never seen before, like this one:

Summer Cottage, Russia, 1914. My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, on the far right, sits in the yard with her younger sister, Natasha, on the left. In between them is family friend. A large dog rests under the table.

This is the oldest photo in the "Grandma's family in Russia" envelope. Like another snapshot I posted earlier, this one is in rough shape because it, too, survived the Russian Revolution. It's printed on paper with prominent watermarks, and it looks as though it might have been glued to some cardboard or heavier paper at one time. It is what it is.