What about all the Grandmothers?

As I do more and more genealogy research I have notice that it's difficult to find much information for our average Grandmothers.  I'm not talking about the extraordinary ones that have done amazing things that you can find evident in newspapers, letters, and archives.  I'm talking about your regular grandmother that gave birth to 12 children with the same husband and lived on a farm and handled all that difficult work. The grandmother that lost babies in infancy and went on to have more babies.  Where's the evidence of her life?

We know she was there because she is the mother of her children.  We know she lived because of her gravestone that tells us she was born and that she died.  What records exist for her?  We  might find her name in a birth registry or christening, if the county or church kept the records.  We can find her name when she married, if we can figure out her maiden name and her husband wasn't named John Smith and her name wasn't Mary.

The deeds and wills aren't as likely for her.  She didn't have to register for a draft for a war, so no information is there for that.  We can't know if she was tall or short or slender or what color her eyes were or what color her hair was. She's on the census, and for that we are happy.

With our grandfathers we can find so much detail about his life; who he was.  It's not as easy for our grandmothers.  I hope to begin next week with a series of the ordinary and extraordinary women in my family tree.  Some will have very little detail but we will know she was not insignificant; because without her there would not be a me.