Please meet Opal, the woman behind our name and my great-grandmother. She was born Opal Ruth Halsey in 1900. She met and married Albert Helm ("Gaga" to the grandkids and quite a looker). They had one daughter, Geraldine ("Gerry" or "Mamoo") and lived a simple life in San Antonio, Texas. Opal was strong, creative, cool, hard-working, humorous, independent, and self-employed as a beautician (as they were called then). She owned and operated a beauty salon in her house. Albert was a barber. So they said. Come to find out, he was a snitch for the FBI while working at a barber shop in a downtown bank building in San Antonio. Together, they survived the Great Depression with endurance and grit and lived long lives that are examples of hard work, perseverance, and love. After retirement, they remained in San Antonio and enjoyed days on the back patio playing cards and dominos, as well as visits from grandkids and great-grandkids. Her "grandmother" name was...Opal. We hope she would be proud of her namesake.