During this last trip back to the farm in West Virginia, Dad let me gather up old photos and letters so I can preserve them. A wooden box probably isn’t the best container!
I’ve sifted through them and am really looking forward to putting everything into some semblance of order. Items from Dad’s baby pictures to Grandma and Grandpa’s marriage certificate. Letters from WWII and ration stamps. A story idea treasure trove . . .
In addition to the printed materials, I gathered a few other treasures. Now, the funny thing is, there probably isn’t anyone else who would want this stuff. A pair of bookends I remember from the shelf in the family room. An elephant-shaped bottle opener Dad gifted Grandma Nellie with one Mother’s Day. The butter mold my Great-Uncle Willis made for Mom. A salt-box that used to hold recipes.
It wouldn’t amount to much on eBay.
But to me, these items are beyond priceless. I already have the butterfly rug my great-aunt made. When we came in the house as children our shoes went immediately onto the little rug. And the bookcase that sat at the end of the hallway. Not to mention several of my great-grandmother’s quilts.
If there were a fire, this stuff would be right behind my laptop on my rescue list.
How could I assign a value to or replace something the grandmother I never met once held in her hand? I can’t. But I can hold it in my hand and feel as though we are–almost–touching.
Priceless, indeed.
Do you have the butter paddle that Willis made to exactly fit the butter mold? Countless pounds of butter I pressed into that mold with that paddle….. The salt box was on the wall in the kitchen of “the old house” the first trip I made to meet Larry’s family and Jerry Lou actually kept it full of salt and used that salt nearly every day in making biscuits! I never knew that the elephant had been a Mother’s day gift to Nellie. Loved those bookends….
Unfortunately, the butter paddle is gone–of course I have some memories of the “other” use for that paddle!
Love this and you are right, I have some things from Grandma and Grandpa’s house that I know no one else would want. My kitchen is strawberries now, wonder where I got that? lol
Oh, the strawberries! I’d forgotten. Do you have African violets in the dining room 😉
No violets for me, but my Mom does. 🙂
Family stuff is meaningless to others yet truly is priceless because of the memories attached to it.
Memories seem to be my theme this week!
When you have good ones they should be shared.
I love that you get to have these special items now!
Now all I have to do is train my nieces and nephews to appreciate it as much as I do!