You accumulate a lot of stuff in 93 years, longer than that if you count the stuff that I recognize from my Grandmother’ house in Advance. It’s hard to decide if it goes into the Annie Laurie stack for sale; the stack for charity or the stack for the dumpster.
One item that was hiding in plain sight all these years was a little copper-clad perpetual calendar made by the Couch Mfg. Co. of Denver Colorado.
You’d move that little black slider on the bottom until the first day of the month would line up with the right day of the week, and everything else would fall into place. (Except for February and Leap Year.) On the back of the inside of the stand was a handy printed chart that showed where you should line up the 1st for 1949 through 1952.
Must have been my Grandmother’s
Back in 2011, I did a bio of Elsie Adkins Welch. In it, I mentioned that I have an undated Missourian clipping that says, “ON TRIP TO YELLOWSTONE.” Leaving Sunday for a ten-day trip through the western states were Mrs. Lillian Ackert, Mrs. Roy Welch, Mrs. H. Zimmerman and Mrs. L.O. Reutzel. They will stop in Denver and Colorado Springs, and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.”
To say this was unusual in that day and age would be an understatement. I remember crying when they left town because I wanted to go with them, so I had to have been around three, which would have put the trip in about 1950. (I’m the little kid sitting on the suitcase.)
If the other boys don’t want it, I guess I’ll claim it.
Think long and hard before parting with anything. We had a public auction following my Dad’s passing and there are still items I think about and wish we had kept. Time changes your perspective on what’s important.
Love this! It’s perfect for your office.
I’m stealing it away from Brother Mark. If he outlasts me, see that he gets it.
When Mommo Vlasta Foster sold the house on Adeline in 2006 (after 40 years there), the Mother-Of-All-Yard-Sales was a joyful thing for Mommo and sister Martha. The move to North Florida included a “storage unit” for the treasures Mom would not part with then. It was just a temporary stay for what will surely come. I am grateful for the exercises of memory and gratitude and wonder at just how blessed we have been to have our Mothers and their love and wisdom for such a long life!
Certain Gill sisters were notorious family ‘photo thieves.’ Scanning and digitizing has solved the ‘who gets which family pics.’ Now we all get copies.