Today I started my two-year pre-PCS clean out. During John’s Naval career we have moved every two years on average (one tour was three years, another fourteen months, so I figure on average covers it). We don’t have orders to move this year (or next – yet) but I know that if it stretches too long between move clean outs it can get overwhelming. So, I started today with a bench in my bedroom that has had two boxes of “memorabilia” accumulating on it.
There is a box of books that the kids have outgrown (or aren’t interested in) but have too much sentimentality for me to donate. Some barbie clothes that date back to my mother, or ones my grandmother made for me. A dress that Reagan wore for the two-month pictures we took and which she has used for her dolls since. And a whole box of clothes with various meanings to me.
I have a couple hours between kid drop offs and my workout to get these “me” things done. Usually, I am researching dead people but today I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to really get in my projects, so I decided to tackle my to-do list instead. As I folded and laid things in the Rubbermaid I had bought for this purpose I kept thinking, “I need to label this!”
When my grandmother Geneva passed away, she left a house full of family treasures and memories. The clean out fell to my mother, for which I think she deserves a medal. She is still finding treasures in the boxes of stuff she brought home from Grandma’s. And we know what everything is because Grandma labeled everything. I mean everything. A box of gloves where labeled, “Aunt Gladys’s gloves,” a teacup had a note in it: “teacup from Clarissa Davis’s father, Argyle, Wisconsin.” There was even this odd glass vase with no base on it. It was labeled: “vase from Jonas Norgren’s car when he went on a date with Gladys. She liked it so he gave it to her.” Going through her items is like a trip down the entire family tree, pictures and items of these long past relatives who I have heard stories of or have a ghostly memory of them from my childhood right there in my hand, a note with Grandma’s writing on it – clear, precise cursive.
So, as I efficiently folded and laid items in the Rubbermaid I chastised myself for not taking the time to write a note and pin it to the clothes, or toys, or write on the book covers. If I don’t label these will Reagan or the boys have any idea why their crazy mom saved this, especially when she knew we would have to move and it would just be one more box to unpack, or find storage for in a new house? I am sure some items Reagan would remember, like the replica of her American Girl Doll’s dress I made for her (she better remember that!) Or the Peter Rabbit book series she loved. But some might be lost to memory. Or ones that I never even told her about. Like the Homer Price book, that she had no interest in reading, but I distinctly recall reading while riding in the tractor with my Grandpa Don during wheat harvest one summer. I laid in the small back space (in those days tractors didn’t have fancy passenger seats, your choices were on the small glove like compartment next to the driver’s seat, or a small space behind the driver’s seat against the back window.) I was in the back, and it was hot with the sun coming through the glass, but I had my Homer Price book and I was sucked into it. I usually rode in a tractor with my dad, and he would want to talk (or quiz me about farming) so I didn’t get to read with him. But Grandpa let me read the entire ride. Probably because that is what he would want to do.
I know I have never told my kids that story; they are too young to care or remember. But someday they might want to know why their mom kept that book. And that story might give them an idea about the great grandfather they never met. He loved reading. He didn’t need to talk all the time. He wasn’t super warm with us grandkids, but not because he didn’t care. It was just how he was. And he always needed a coffee can in the tractor to hold his water cup. Never forget grandpa’s coffee can!
Labeling does not need to be an all-encompassing affair or incredibly time consuming. Think about including the following information:
1.) Where did YOU get this item / paper from? For example, most of my mother’s collection came to her from her mother.
2.) What is the origin of the item / paper? Whose item was this originally?
3.) Why is this important to you or your family? This is the history connected to the paper / photo or item. The memory attached to the item can be included.
As an example, the following is a picture of a bowl and spoon that my mother found in Grandma’s items. The following note accompanies it:
“Soup bowl and spoons from home of Anna and Joseph Berns. Henry Berns used his parents items through his lifetime. He liked to have a bowl and spoon at his place at the table each meal. He might finish with bread and milk in it. Or if choc. cake served would break it in the bowl and pour cream over it. Good bowls for oyster stew also. Blanche Berns”
Soup bowl and spoons from Anna and Joseph Berns used by their son, Henry Berns.
