This 101-Year Difference Photo becomes the Internet Viral

Rosa Canfield was born in 1913 and her great-granddaughter, Kaylee, entered the world 101 years later. Sarah Hamm knew she had to capture their meeting with a photo, but she never anticipated the impact it would have.

Days after posting it on the Life of Dad Facebook page, the image went viral and touched hearts across the globe.

Rosa’s photo currently has 2.5 million likes and over 77,000 shares, and it has inspired more than 120 people from around the world to post their own multi-generational photos. Patrick Quinn, who manages the Life of Dads page, says he was shocked by the number of responses he received.

“[Readers] thought of all of the things this woman has seen and lived through in her lifetime and imagined how her experiences will shape the life of the baby just starting her own journey,” Quinn told The Huffington Post.

The photo shares continue, and now hold even more meaning: Rosa passed away on March 30.

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The photo inspired more than 120 readers to post their own multigenerational photos and new ones are being added every day, said Quinn. But the real shocker for him, he says, was that many of the photos claim an even bigger age gap than 101. “Our highest gap in age was 112 years, which is pretty amazing,” he said.

“People were really drawn to the image for reasons we didn’t foresee. They thought of all of the things this woman has seen and lived through in her lifetime and imagined how her experiences will shape the life of the baby just starting her own journey,” Quinn told The Huffington Post.

Hamm said even she was delighted that her photo triggered such a response. Grandma Rosa, she noted, was born on June 13, 1913 on Friday the 13th. She was the youngest of two children and had an older brother. Rosa has three children, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren and currently lives with her oldest daughter in Chandler, AZ.

“My grandma was born and raised in Michigan where she spent all her life until 2007 when she moved to Arizona. She went to school in a one-room school house,” Hamm told The Huffington Post. “Her dad was the first one in their town to own a vehicle. She went back to college when she was 43 and became a school teacher in Ludington, MI.”

The reader reaction delighted co-founder Tom Riles. “Our audience started sharing pictures of their families that illustrated the gaps in ages between the oldest and the newest members. To think that they grew up in entirely different worlds than what the newest members will experience, yet their influence, values and love will pass on through them and others to come is simply amazing,” he said.

G. H.

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