Carrying on a Family Tradition

(From left) Georgia’s great-grandmother Dottie Hall, Dottie’s granddaughter Annie McQueen (holding baby Georgia), Georgia’s grandmother Terry McQueen and Georgia’s grandmother Allison Teare. 

My husband and I recently had our 8-month-old daughter, Georgia, Baptized. It was such a special day. Georgia wore the gown that my grandmother’s aunt, Weezie Bigh, had commissioned by a group of nuns in a convent in Washington, D.C. in 1949 for my uncle and mother to wear during their Baptisms. It is a long, delicately-made white dress. The tiny, sweet white buttons go all the way up the back. Our other daughter, Lila, 3, wore the gown during her Baptism in 2014 and my niece, Mimi, wore the gown in 2012 at her Baptism.

Our families attended the service at Chapelwood United Methodist Church including my 95-year-old grandmother, Dottie Hall. My entire life, my grandparents lived in the beautiful town of Ridgefield, CT. It was only last year that we all decided as a family it was time to move them down to Houston to be closer. Sadly, my grandfather passed away this past May.  

After the ceremony: pictured (from left) are baby Georgia’s godmother, Hannah Teare, and mom Annie McQueen.  

It’s been an adjustment for my grandmother to say the least: a new state, new large city, new climate, and new faces in her assisted living facility at The Village of Tanglewood. However, down in Texas, she gets to experience her great-grandchildren carry on the family legacy instead of hearing about it on the phone.

During the service, our Pastor asked us to come up to the altar for the Baptism. We all filed up there, including my grandmother, who proudly stood next to the same gown her son and daughter wore more than six decades ago. During the ceremony, I looked around the room and then at my grandmother. Under the bright lights above, I noticed tears were filling her eyes. She was beaming with pride.

Later she told me, “I treasured it. This is the third generation.” I treasured it, too, and always will.