Family Historicity

So, I told you that my great-grandfather worked in the silk mills, but I didn't tell you what he did.

This oversight on my part potentially allows you to know how I felt for many years, since up until a little while ago that was all I knew.  Until, that is, an extended family member gave us this book

and blew us all away.  

Full of  fabric samples

and elaborate sketches,

the book was my great-grandfather's scrapbook of all of his designs.

That's right, he designed the silk that was manufactured there,

which is completely different from what I pictured over the years, when family members would mention that he 'worked in the silk mills'.  I always--with a child's penchant for romance, and a misunderstanding of which side of the family we were talking about--imagined him hauling coal or some other grunt work like that.  

Turns out, however, that the man was a silk designing genius.

 If we return to the museum (and the genius of Marlo's explanations) we see this machine that punched the design cards,

the first draft of which you see in 'the book',

and the final product of which you see hanging to the right here.

The design was marked on the cards, 

the cards were punched, put into the machine , and

voila, historicity.

Of the family kind.