While Aunt D had saved, among other things, the bible that her ex-husband had given to his Grandmother in 1965 and every bill she had ever paid, still in the envelope with all inserts; Grandma L had saved every piece of paper that anyone had ever sent her and then some.
The years of Aunt D's back bills and banks statements I dealt with before she was released from the hospital to hospice care. They had been neatly arranged in rows in her dresser drawers. A few things were in boxes in closets. I didn't throw away anything that was needed. Once a utility has acknowledged your payment on the next bill, I don't see any point in keeping back copies.
The bundles on the top are letters, cards, and postcards. Underneath are diaries. Some of the entries were in handwriting that was perhaps 3 points tall. (Check that out with your computer font.)
The diaries scare me a little.
I'll share an email that I sent to my sister while my desk was looking like the top picture. Can't see my keyboard? Well, I did have to move that maroon box to reach it. Or the burgundy box if it's necessary to be picky. (Skin Horse is a cool webcomic, but it's best to start at the beginning. Immerse yourself in the archives.)
So many ways to start this email . . .
1 - I have strange relatives all over my desk . . . and under it.
2 - The urge to light a match has been mollified by finding a clipping of The Mob. (No, there will be no explanation.)
3 - OMG she never threw any piece of paper out.
Aunt D was a pale echo of the original. Although I didn't find any bills beside the 1939 water bills and doctor bills. Either she didn't keep those or she only kept things that were evidence (they were from when she was married to Woody, if that's pertinent) or Aunt D tossed the rest of the bills. My recycling bin is grateful, whatever spared it.
Aunt D was a pale echo of the original. Although I didn't find any bills beside the 1939 water bills and doctor bills. Either she didn't keep those or she only kept things that were evidence (they were from when she was married to Woody, if that's pertinent) or Aunt D tossed the rest of the bills. My recycling bin is grateful, whatever spared it.
As it is, every diary and photo album is filled with random clippings and bits and pieces. I can't just toss them because maybe one in six is related to a relative. The rest are poems, advice columns, editorial essays, etc. (Etc. includes a clipping of the birth of a 16lb 4oz girl at General Hospital by caesarian section, with speculation that it may be a record.) ((It also includes a little notebook with hand-written risqué jokes from someone named Ted Storm.))
I am evil because I threw out all of the negatives. I blame new technology. I collected the pictures and threw out a couple of those sticky page albums - minus the sticky. I am evil because I'm going to throw out the disintegrating "family" bible after I'm sure I got the information out of it. It was started by Grandma L some time after she married Woody, so it probably doesn't have anything I haven't already logged.
I am evil because I keep saying "Who are these people?" instead of thinking of it as a treasure hunt. She did label some of the older pictures and the newer ones that came pre-inserted into album pages. But some of the old ones were kicked around a bit, then glued into one of those old black paper albums, then ripped off and put into a sticky page album. So the writing is often half covered with adhered black paper splotches.
I'm evil because I keep thinking "Why did you people write to each other in pencil so often?" Smudgy handwriting on darkened paper is not fun to read. Saving letters may have been a generational thing. She not only has the letters her kids sent her when they were away, she has her letters to them. That means they brought them back to her. Or maybe they were just trained.
I’m also evil because I’m only going to keep so many pictures of Cousin R. For some of them I had a set and then I inherited Aunt Linda’s and now I have Grandma’s too. I like R and all, but I have to assume that he and Uncle L have copies of these, too.
Found another copy of the RCH will, with his step sister listed has having tenancy of the Sunland house for her lifetime and then it going back to JH (Grandma's first husband and RCH's son). Also some correspondence, which petered out about the time that a lawyer said that they'd need to have the wife that was married to JH when he died petition for it. And that it had to be done before someone legally bought it. (Which may or may not have been true. The lawyers weren't estate lawyers, they were helping Grandma out for free because they knew her.)
I think that's were the adventure of The House That Was Meant To Be Ours ended. Aunt Linda never mentioned the surviving wife bit (it would have been his third one), and may not have known. She certainly latched onto the story. It was one of the big tragedies of her life and proof that she could never catch a break. She was determined that it would never happen again. Not determined enough to, you know, make a will, but determined enough to give me marching orders. See previous post.
Well, I'm going to be more evil and try to identify enough letters as tossable to make the rest fit into one bin and one box for stuff to keep. Did S take up the harmonica? Because it looks like I have Grandma's now. Also an embossing stamp with her name and address. And diaries. I mentioned that the diaries scare me, and not just because I found another set of cheesecake photos . . . taken outside.
I'd better get back to it. May your desk be emptier than mine.
