My grandmother, Helen May Rickard, grew up in Boston, MA and Detroit, MI during the Great Depression.

Estranged from her father, she lived with her mother, the two of them working menial jobs and attempting to escape from the monotony and disappointments of everyday life by going to the movies and reading novels.

A gifted writer with a passion for film, photography, and music, Helen, like most women of her generation, never had the opportunity to pursue a fulfilling career. Her adult life was dedicated to being the wife of a world famous mathematician and the mother of five children, but she never forgot her love of film and literature.

She nurtured these qualities in future generations who still honor her memory by going to the movies together on holidays.

In 1932 she began keeping a diary where she recorded her thoughts and aspirations. Now, 80 years later, you can read her diary entries in the form of a blog that I maintain. (It’s a work in progress!)

Her diary is a window into the life of a young woman much like myself who lived in a world that was remarkably different from my own in some ways and quite unchanged in others.

~shared by @beccaepollard