I knew only one grandparent.

The ones on my father’s side died before I was born. So did the grandfather on my mom’s half, leaving me with Daisy Mae Johnson.

Granny was a tough lady. She lived alone in tobacco country in North Carolina. Smoked like a chimney, carried a spit can for her chewing tobacco, and kept a revolver in her purse in case anyone wanted to fuck around and find out.

I used to marvel at the Johnson sisters. Mom and her three siblings each outlived their spouses and hardly shrunk in grief when left on their own. They kept jobs, raised kids, and held more than their own at a time when women weren’t allowed to hold much other than their children.

Where does that toughness come from? How is it forged in hardship?

I may have found out. More importantly, I may have seen what it looks like.

My aunt Lessie shared a history I knew nothing about. My great-grandmother was a Tuscarora Native American. In the early 1800’s, mom’s grandparents were forced out of North Carolina and sent on the Trail of Tears, the displacement and murder of more than 60,000 Native Americans.

Desperate, mom’s forebears took a chance and left her grandmother on the doorstep of a white family in the hopes that they would adopt and raise her as one of their own.

They did, naming her Susanna Pierce and spawning a family line that kept its Carolina roots. They remain there to this day.

Recently, ChatGPT announced new generative Artificial Intelligence that takes a seismic leap in collaborations in design, including photography. I uploaded some pictures of my grandmother, along with some details of great granny’s Tuscarora heritage. The AI program extrapolated bone structure to get an approximate rendition, as there are no actual pictures of the family back then.

The above picture is the first of my great grandmother. Meet Susanna Pierce.

Beautiful, isn’t she?