My Grandmother My Twin by Diane Rooney

“ My Grandmother My Twin”
Diane Rooney
San Francisco, CA
My great-grandmother, Anna Bernota, died in Gilberton, Pennsylvania in June 1949. My grandparents, uncle, and my mom (who was four months pregnant with me at the time) went from New Jersey up to Gilberton for the funeral, which lasted several days in those times. My mother felt ill much of the time, and remembers the funeral as the first time she felt me moving around.

I was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on October 30, 1949. My maternal grandfather William, Anna's youngest son, was the first person to see me when I was brought out. His first words were, "Oh my! It's Mom," referring to his mother who had died in June. Throughout my life, family members and older people who remember my great-grandmother have remarked on the eerie resemblance.

Great Grandma Bernota has always helped me with my Lithuanian genealogy. My mother was her only granddaughter and, in a way, replaced her only daughter, who died at the age of 12 in the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918.