March 20 1892

My paternal grandmother Rosalia Margaretha (Margriet) Ravijst was born in Meerbeke. She was one of (at least) six children of Petrus Joannes Ravijst (Nieuwenhove 1861 - Meerbeke 1944) and Joanna Maria (Leontien) De Schepper (Meerbeke 1864 - 1926).

She married Pieter Jozef Timmermans (Meerbeke 1886 - 1953) and they had seven children, five of which lived to adulthood. My father was their second child.

Margriet died in the university hospital in Ghent on December 2 1973 - exactly twenty years minus two days after her husband, and one day before my 33d birthday.

She was the longest lived of my grandparents, and not the easiest of characters. Seen from that point of view, I cannot deny she was my grandmother !

I know little or nothing about her forebears : her father was a natural child - father unknown so he bore his mother's name ; her father's mother married but I do not know where (the few surviving family members do not have the information) and up to now I have been unable to trace the provenance of his maternal grandparents beyond the early 19th century, but then I haven't made a priority of that research. I still have a very significant lot of work to do on this branch of my genealogy.

But as I stated often enough before, my grandmother's maternal grandmother Antonia De Vidts, born in Pamel in 1840, was the sister of my mother's maternal grandfather, Felix De Vidts (Pamel 1853 - 1940).

More : see various previous posts.