A Happy Coincidence and a Visit to the Past

This is a photograph of my Aunt Florence Grisdale, taken in about 1957 or 1958 when she lived in Hudson Quebec. My mother, my sister and brothers and myself visited her in Hudson sometime in the 1960s, but I really don't remember too much about it. 


Flash forward to 2010, when I was talking to my friend, Fran Bailey, and we discovered that Fran had lived in the very same house in Hudson that my aunt had once lived in. Fran and her husband George bought it from my aunt's ex-husband after my aunt had left Hudson. It was such a wild coincidence, Fran and I decided that we would make an expedition to Hudson together to visit the house. So we did just that, last Sunday.

Fran and I parked the car in downtown Hudson and decided to walk to the house. She shared memories of the town, the streets, the places and people as we walked. Finally we arrived and I took several pictures of the house where both my aunt, and later Fran, had lived. But I had only the haziest memories of visiting it when I was a child.

I have no old pictures of the outside of the house, but I did find this picture of my mother and my cousin James in the kitchen of the house. This photo was taken in 1958 when my mother was visiting.
 

Back to the present - on our way back to the car, Fran and I stopped by the Wyman Memorial United Church in downtown Hudson. Jack Layton's ashes will be scattered in the cemetery affiliated with this church. I took this picture of Fran while she was checking out the sign in front. It was an interesting day, thinking about change and permanence, the past and its impact on the present.