Danna Shirley
My friend, Cathy, wrote me the following
account of how her family history was lost…
“My crazy cousin who would never share a single
thing from my father’s side of the family, just called and asked for copies of
everything I had associated to the family. I reminded her she'd been
promising to store them with me in a fireproof safe so I could copy them, but
she never followed through.
“Anyway, she and her husband are both
old age hippies (72 and 78) living on a sailboat part of the year and spending the
rest around their children and grandchildren. They purchased an old motor home
and parked it in their son's yard and in that rickety old thing they stored the
entire family archive of papers, photography going back to the Civil War, the
family Bible going back to the Scotch-Irish over the mountain boys from the
Revolutionary War, and a box of Civil War mementos from both sides.
“Rather than put them in a
waterproof/fireproof safe, they stored them in plastic bags and cardboard boxes,
never allowing anyone to touch anything. Though their children saw it all, no
one from here ever knew about them but me (I was a nosey child and used to comb
through all of it whenever we were at my grandparent’s.)
"So all Pap's papers from being a circuit preacher and a justice of the peace in Oklahoma and then Arkansas and the rest of it went up in flames when her husband started up the motor home to love it. A lighted candle inside tipped over and started a fire.
"Heaven help me, I was so angry. The 14 pictures she shared with me of the old farm and some of the family I have kept in special paper, in a special album, in a special safe, and I made sure that everyone in my family had copies of every picture plus disks. I refused to return them to her so mine were safe from the fire . . . thank You, Lord!"
AND THAT IS WHY WE NEED RESCUERS!
...someone who will preserve the past, appreciate historical and sentimental value, and pass it along for safekeeping to future generations.
One of my favorite quotes:
"At most, living
memory endures for a hundred years or so.
Thereafter, even the
barest outline of the past is forgotten,
unless it is recorded in
writing . . ."
John Morris in Londinium: London in the Roman Empire,
p. 205.
We must preserve
that writing (also video history) in the safest place possible. I learned from
a retired librarian that two copies of your family history should be sent to
the Library of Congress for safekeeping. When you share incidents of your
ancestor’s lives, not only is it your history but it provides United States
history as well. These copies will never get lost or destroyed by fire or flood
or be forgotten in the attic of an old home.
In our family
the debate is to whom will our treasures go next . . . and treasures are many,
lots of keepsakes from my father during the war and from his restoration
projects. Quilts and afghans that my mother made, glassware, antique desks,
mirrors, and pictures. My generation knows the people involved and the
sentiment attached to each item but our ancestors are long since dead and they
are strangers to our children and grandchildren. Therein lies the dilemma.
With all of that
said, I come to the story of my sister. She is not a hoarder but we have
christened her a Rescuer. Oh, I could
say she’s a hoarder of some things, collections and such, but she loves the quest
of finding the old item, the handmade item, the wooden item, and rescues it from the woodpile or the dump
or from being used as an ashtray or a dog bed.
For instance the
Chinese wedding bed that no one wanted at an estate sale and would have gone to
the dump had she not rescued it. It
sat in my mother’s garage for a few months and was advertised on Craig’s List
until a nice Chinese family bought it. The wife’s grandparents had one long ago
and she wanted it for the sentimental reasons—Rescued!
Then there are
the three hand-carved, wooden spoons and press she found in a yard sale. Yes,
they would have probably been bought but would they have been safe enough—Rescued!
My
sister’s collections are extensive, among them her weeping gold glassware, perfume bottles, music boxes, strawberries, ivy, rolling pins, etc., but then again she has a large home to display
them and they give her much pleasure. She has confessed, however, that the time
is near to downsize so only her most prized possessions will remain. I know it
will be a challenge because she has collected them from all over the United
States.
Yes,
I can understand her infatuation of their beauty and her desire to be their Rescuer but at some point we must
release our grip and pass them along to future Rescuers for safekeeping. They are out there somewhere and they
will Rescue them from my sister.
