It's been years since I've tried to look up anything about her on the internet. There was a time when I searched out her name on a daily basis.

With not much luck, I might add. I may have found her father and mother, but I'm not sure. The last names are right, and the county, but there is, as yet, no documentation to prove it.

And as time passed, and people saw the value of information on the internet, a lot of the free sources and databases dried up.

Or, more accurately, got locked up. The personal data is still there, in easily searched digital format. You just gotta pay for the privilege, either by the search, or with a membership.

I'm not to the point of paying money for this information.

Not yet, anyway.

Yes, I still think of her often. As does the wife.

She came to mind today.

I heard the heelers making a racket a little after ten, but since we've moved into summer and the windows are open now, they bark at every new noise they hear.

The new dog catty-corner from us, and the 50+ vehicles passing twice a day to and from the construction job don't help.

So I ignored the barking. For a while.

When I finally went up to check on the sisters, and the house, I found a box on the porch.

A large box.

For the wife.

Had to wait until she got home for lunch to open it.

Inside I found tons of styrofoam popcorn, and another box.

Inside that box were many mysterious, heavy objects wrapped in paper, and a letter.

My wife is one of those annoying people who reads the notes and letters that come with packages first, rather than ripping into the goodies and then reading what they are afterwards.

So I wait.

She tells me what's in the box.

Oh, my lord.

And unwraps the first wad of newspaper. Revealing a glass goblet. With simple flower designs cut into the sides. She rolls it in the light, admiring it, before passing it on to me.

There are five more in the box. All heavily wrapped.

I've been to too many auctions, I guess, 'cause the first thing I look for is a seam in the glass.

There isn't one.

I look at the goblet sideways, and can see a slight bend to the stem. The wife points out a small bubble in the glass on the side.

These almost perfect glasses are blown, not molded!

The flowers, roses I would guess, were cut by hand. Flawlessly.

The wife unwraps each goblet, one at a time. One has a slight, slight chip in the rim. Otherwise they are as perfect as hand crafting could make them....

Over one hundred years ago.

You see, these were Nora's glasses.

My wife's great-grandmother.

Nora, the Irish ancestor of whom my wife is so proud. To whom I am so grateful, for I see her Irish heritage in the woman I share my life with every day.

Nora, who emigrated from County Cork sometime in the second half of the 1800s, and built a new future for her family in the new world.

She held these glasses. Filled them with water and tea for her family. Washed them by hand afterwards, and carefully put them away.

As did her daughter-in-law after her, and that woman's daughter.

And now they have come to my wife.