My great-grandmother has been someone who I've admired my entire life. Even though I never met her, I've always felt a special connection to her because she shares my name, had a similar personality, and people that I had never met, cousins and second cousins all wanted to meet me just because I shared her name and with her name her legacy. Something that connects us, even more, is that she died in 1992 on my birthdate. My great-grandmother grew up in a small northern German fisher town called Kiel. Her mother and father had a furniture business where they would carve and craft their own furniture by hand. When my great-grandmother was just 16 she immigrated from her small town that was all she had known and moved away from all her friends and family to Hawaii. When my great-grandmother arrived in Hawaii she instantly fell in love with everything about the place, her parents continued to make furniture for businesses and started using Hawaiian tree wood, such as koa to make their own chairs and tables. Two years after my great-grandmother had immigrated she handmade her own chair using koa and designed it and detailed it herself. She told the story to my grandfather that she worked and perfected it for months. She kept this chair in her home and passed it down through generations. When the next Dora Derby was born, (me) it was decided that I got to have it and keep it and that is why it currently resides in my room today. This chair to me is a reminder that no matter where you travel, or end up you still keep traditions and skills that you have learned from the past. 

– Doe Derby

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more