Josephine, a Mystery

My Mom's maternal Aunt Dora—whom you may remember as an intriguing figure—sent many family photos to my Mom. Dora stayed in Lithuania after the second Soviet occupation, and she lived in the house my maternal Grandparents had built. In that house, Dora found many snapshots my Mom and her Dad, Jake, had left behind when they fled Lithuania in 1944. Beginning in the late 1950s—after Stalin died—Dora started mailing those photos to my Mom. By now, I've posted most of the images on this blog.

Dora was very good about providing written descriptions on the back of photos, especially when she sent an image from a family plot. So this photo, of a headstone and its family bench, is a mystery because Dora wrote nothing on its back. The inscription tells me that the decedent was Josephine, and Josephine was related to the family of my maternal Grandfather, Jake.

Josephine was 32 years old when she died on November 19, 1927. Was she a sister of Jake and his other siblings, Mary, Cody Jr., Zigmas, and the younger brother who died in a shooting accident? My Mom doesn't recall a Josephine or whether a Josephine was a sibling of Jake's or a cousin. Mom does have a foggy memory—from her childhood—of a relative who delivered a still-born baby and then died after she contracted sepsis.

"Rest in peace, our beloved Josephinette, while you wait for us."

UPDATE: Last year, I wondered, "Whose portrait hangs on that wall?" I now see that it's a portrait of Josephine, and I think it's the same portrait that's on her headstone. The placement of Josephine's portrait in a public part of the house—the dining room—tells me that Josephine probably was the deceased daughter of my Mom's paternal Grandparents, Cody Sr. and Wanda. Josphine was a sister of my paternal Grandfather, Jake.

I was searching that "Customs" post just now for some information I had written last year about Kūčios, and there she was, staring at me from the wall, about an hour after this post published.