Wyora

My middle name is Wyora, and a lot of times I "sign" my samplers with that name, or at least initial.  My EverQuest character's name is Wyora.  But where did the name come from?  Its pretty unusual.  Despite a lot of Google searches, and looking in various name origin books, I can't find any information about it, either what it means or the country of origin.  All I know is that it was my paternal grandmother's name.  Unfortunately she died when my father was about 4 years old.

Isn't she beautiful?  We really don't know a lot about her.  He she is with my dad, we're guessing when he was about 2 years old.  She looks like she was a very smart dresser.

And a family photo.  My grandfather was a very handsome man in his early years.  As he aged, he became what you would describe as distinguished looking.

And while this last photo isn't of Wyora, its very appropriate to the season.  Its my dad with Santa in 1945.  He looks a tiny bit scared of Santa, but I'll give him a break, he was only 2.

While digging through some of the junk treasure in my mom's house, I found this.  Its a spool of lace from Wyora's wedding dress.  Absolutely gorgeous!  Its about 2 inches wide, and a beautiful ecru color.  There's a lot of it there.  I haven't fully unwound the spool, but I'm guessing at least 5 yards, if not closer to 10.  I want to find a way to use it on a piece of cross stitch, maybe a band sampler.

For about a year I've been having my dad do some genealogy research.  He found some great resources when I was living up in Utah and both he and my mom were up there helping me  get through my ankle surgeries.  Ogden actually has the second largest genealogy library in the world, second only to the one in Salt Lake City.  Despite that, there are still a lot of gaps in my family history, starting with my grandparents and getting even worse the further back you try to go.

What drop this interest in family history?  Why the BBD Anniversary of the Heart series of course.  I've been leaving out all the personal details until I can get a better idea of what I have to work with.  This project is one of my priorities to finish in 2012.  Its been neglected for too long, and I'm not sure I can use the excuse of not knowing the genealogy information for too much longer.