Family memorabilia

Monday morning, before I even got up, I decided that I had better get busy with the boxes that suffered water damage in the latest leak. Up until this point, I had just moved them to another place, and, perhaps more importantly, I had noticed from the writing on them that several contained family pictures and family documents. For this reason, I had rather dreaded what I might find and what irreplaceable, precious treasures might have been ruined. But, I only had one class Monday, and it was in the evening, so I decided that it would be a good time to get to work on that task.

So, Monday, yesterday, and today, I spent nearly every moment that I didn't have to be doing something else (like teaching) working on going through not only the water-damaged boxes (there were really only 2 or 3 of them, and only one got really soaked), but also the other boxes in the basement, most of which also contained various family memorabilia. It was a big task, but it's mostly done now.

First of all, I found that, luckily, very few really important things had been damaged. The box that got it the worst did have some very old family things, but I think that many of them were so old that no one alive would even be able to know what they were, exactly. They did have to be dumped in the trash, though.

My main goal in going through the remainder of the materials was to sort out family pictures that we might hang on the walls, something that we have been intending to do ever since our shipment arrived (in February or March of 2006!). So, I went through everything, setting aside pictures that were already framed (most of which had hung on the wall in the mobile home we lived in before we bought our house in San Bernardino in 2000) and other pictures that were both important for family reasons and also nice pictures. I found plenty of really great pictures of me and my family, both immediate and very extended: grandparents, great grandparents, uncles and aunts, my brother, cousins, children, and even relatives of relatives.

After I set all of these aside, I sorted them further into categories and tried to eliminate duplicates, for the most part. The next task will be to decide which of the pictures that are not framed should be. Then we will have to see if we can get some cheap frames for them. Some of the pictures are nicely encased in portrait jackets, and I don't think we'll want to remove them. Perhaps we'll put them all together in some convenient place where they can be easily brought out and enjoyed. Finally, we'll have to plan where to hang the ones that we do want displayed. Most will probably find places on the walls of our wonderful triangular staircase, where they will look very nice! Others will probably be hung in the living room or the upstairs hallway.

Of course, I found many things besides pictures in going through all this material. These included family letters that my mom used to send out every year in about December or January telling about what the family had been up to during the previous year. My mom was a good writer if I do say so myself (besides, she had been an English major in college!), so these were never boring. However, I really didn't read them this time because I have read all of them many times before.

I also found quite a few letters from family members to other family members. For example, I found a handwritten letter from my grandfather to his mother, written nearly a hundred years ago. I also found the collection of letters between my mom and dad when they were courting (and she was in the hospital still recovering from serious car accident injuries, including 2 broken femurs!). I didn't read those yet, but I certainly set them aside! I also found the letters that my mom wrote to her mother when I was a baby. My mom had told me about these and about how she had told grandma to save them because they contained so much information about me as a baby. I haven't read these yet, either, but I do intend to!

I found many official documents from my family's past: my great great grandparents HUGE marriage certificate (rolled up), various other marriage certificates (including both of my mother's marriages), official birth certificates, and other legal documents. These are not of any real importance anymore, but they have great sentimental value, and it's quite amazing how many of them I have, all thanks to my mom, of course.

One of the most interesting things I found was a type-written story written by my grandfather, Claude Eldridge. He wrote it only a month of two (it's actually not dated, but I can estimate based on the contents) after my mom's terrible car accident. Of course, I had always known about this infamous tragedy because of the pivotal role it played in my family history. But I had never known that grandpa had even written about it. In reading it, I learned new details that I had not previously been aware of. My grandfather, too, was a good writer, and he not only told the story, but he also poured out his aching heart. You see, my mother's sister, Florence, and my dad's first wife, Mary, were killed in this same accident. So grandpa had lost his elder daughter and had very nearly lost his younger one (my mom), as well. Perhaps I'll type in most of grandpa's account of the accident at a later date, together with some of the rest of the story that happened afterwards.