Today, August 13th, is International Left Handers’ Day, a celebration for those who write with their left hand.

Until today, I was not aware we had a day set aside to honor those of us who write with our left hand. But, we do!

On my paternal side, my grandmother, Rosemary Richardson (Jolliff-Mroz-Bateman) was lefthanded but when she began school, the teacher tied Rosemary’s left hand to the desk chair so she would be forced to write with her right hand.

Rosemary’s son, my birthfather, Danny Jolliff, wrote with his left hand but never dealt with any restrictions to write with the right hand.

Nor did I. I picked up the pencil/pen with my left hand and kept writing.

There are only a few family members on my maternal side, which I know, who wrote with their left hand. My great-great-grandmother, Anna Greenlee Jones was left-handed, but none of her children were left-handed.

Anna’s granddaughter and sister to my grandmother, Joyce Clary Riser, went to her first day of school in h the one room schoolhouse just east of Forrestville Cemetery in Boone Township, Madison County, Indiana. Mae Tapin, the schoolteacher and family friend, told my great-grandmother that Joyce sat her desk and picked up her pen with her left hand. She looked around at how the other students were holding their pens and had their papers angled. Aunt Joyce switched the pen to her right hand and changed the angle of her paper and wrote right handed from that moment on.

So here’s to all my left-handed comrades!