It fell to my brother and me to go through many of the keepsakes that our mother left behind. Daddy passed away in 1988, and it has been six years since Mother passed. The last large box of her things has been stored at my house, and we decided it was time to do our due diligence.
On two different occasions within the last couple of weeks, my brother has made the five-hour round trip to my house, and we have risen to the challenge (that’s what we do).
There were 60-70 manila envelopes, all organized by year, thankfully. We simply would not have been able to accomplish what we did if Mother had not divided and labeled everything like she did.
In the end, we spent more than 14 hours of solid work (and fun!). Breaks for meals and snacks — oh, and always coffee—kept us going. But by the time we finished, we were tired—and seeing old photos and mimeographed programs when we closed our eyes!!
My brother was particularly interested in the envelopes that contained keepsakes and photos from Daddy’s time in France and Germany (USArmy Air Corps) during World War II.
It seemed daunting at first. We had thought we could accomplish our goal in one afternoon/evening, but after those first 7 or 8 hours, it became clear that a second attack would be required.
We separated out keepsakes for all our siblings and ourselves—my Hobby Room became a veritable heap of manila envelopes!
So many newspaper articles of their children and grandchildren winning awards and scholarships and accolades (we talked about how we just took it for granted, all the successes in our family, due in large part to our parents’ encouragement and guidance). So many letters from people in their churches that Daddy pastored, and from the professional world (Daddy was also a teacher and Director of Teacher Certification for the Missouri Department of Education)! So many greeting cards and church program bulletins. So many years’ worth of memories.
We made several interesting and fun discoveries. In addition to the envelopes, there were a couple of very old photo albums. These nice 8x10 studio pictures of our parents’ senior pictures and their wedding picture were amazing (also some studio pictures of Daddy in military uniform).
R.V. and Leona Wilson
1945
Leona Cox (we saw a photo that had this 8x10, in a frame, sitting on Daddy’s footlocker while he was in military training in Florida, before their marriage.)
1945
R.V. (“Red”) Wilson
1945
I framed these to add to my bookshelf where I already had some family and heritage photos.
#heritage #family #familyhistory
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