Box of memories (zaibatsu.circumlunar.space), 04/14/2020
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Grabbed a box from the garage yesterday, marked "Harrys
Memories." Harry was my grandfather, who passed away a
couple years ago.
It was filled with treasures.
One of these was a tintype photo (a picture on metal plate)
from 1845. A 175 year old photo, easily the oldest photo in
my possession. Did some research online and found out that
it was a photo of my fathers mothers mothers mothers
mother... my 3rd great grandmother I think they called it. I
can't remember now, but in any case, it was a direct line
relative on my father's side.
I suppose I should post a scan of it to gopher, but I'm on a
tablet in my living room right now.
The cool thing about this photo was, it connected a whole
line to my family tree that I didn't know about. I who this
woman's daughter was (my 2nd great grandmother?), but I
didn't know her parents. Now I do, and that linked up a
bunch of other stuff. I've never been able to do that
before.
It was an adventure.
I also found lots of military docs from WWI and WWII. My
grandfather was in the Marine Corps in WWII, my grandfather
was in the Air Force in WWI and WWII.
Another interesting find was an estate appraisal and
accounting for Samuel A Hart, my 3rd great granduncle. Or
was it 6th great granduncle? Anyway, someone's estate
valuation. He owned lots of property and stocks, etc. I ran
it through an inflation calculator online and it totalled
2.3mil in today's dollars. He died in 1926; if he had died
any later, that estate probably would have suffered greatly
in the Depression...
I have no idea why that document was in this box, but it did
help verify a relation, which is interesting in and of
itself.
On a more serious note, my grandfather was adopted, and his
birth mother wrote some letters to his adoptive mother.
Those letters were in there. She gave the story of her
pregnancy at 16 and his birth. It was pretty raw, I choked
up reading it. She was quite alone in her experience, no one
explained anything to her. She didn't even know where babies
came from until one came out of her. Even while in labor, no
one told her what was going on. How horrible. Man, my life
is easy.
There were also a lot of family letters from my dad and his
siblings, and from my granddmother and grandfather on that
side. They had a lot of problems. I knew that, but it's
different reading their words, very different. That was
pretty rough to read too, which is odd considering almost
all of them have already passed. Still, I knew these people
growing up, but never knew about their pain.
I look forward to going through the rest of that box, and
getting to another. When my grandfather passed, I basically
ransacked his house looking for documents and photos. I just
haven't had time to really go through them in detail yet.
