I guess visiting my big sister stirred this up, but it occurred to me that when it comes to scary Great-aunts, us four Gregory kids may have cornered the market.

On Mom’s side, Margaret Fox, born 1840 County Wicklow, Ireland, became Sister Loreto, Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. That’s her in front of her orphanage, once Philip Schuyler’s Albany home, and home, too, to those lovely Schuyler sisters from “Hamilton.”

I would not cross Sister Loreto, but, on the other hand, if her vocation called her to orphans, there’s an equal chance that she had a big, kind heart. She just looks scary in this, the only photo we have of her.

Speaking of scary, on Dad’s side, Jane Wilson, exquisite as a little girl of twelve or so, is seen to the left of my grandmother Dora in the next photo.

Something must have happened to Jane in puberty—was it a lightning strike?— and it’s not just the Frida Kahlo fused eyebrows: Suddenly, she’s the spitting image of her grandfather, Confederate Gen. James McBride.

And I, a Lincoln man, was named after the general.

There are other photos we have of Jane. See that look? It gets worse. She starts to look more and more like Rasputin. Without the beard.

Thank God.