I often try to imagine what life was like for my ancestors. Not just the events of their own lives, but what was going on around them at the time.
Mind, when I look at old photos of northern towns, and read about the overcrowding, the smoke, the poverty, the disease, I wonder they had time to think about anything much beyond existing day to day.
Across the channel in France, though, things may have been un peu different for my 2x greataunt Catherine Mary Riboldi, aka Vicomtesse Mary-Kate Charlotte Ruinart de Brimont.
In June 1888, just turned 21, she’d married her adoptive cousin André, and la Belle Époque must have been an exciting time to be alive – if you were wealthy, that is.
The following spring, the grand…
