RESCUERS . . . AND WHY WE NEED THEM

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.