Careful Keepers…

Good afternoon, dear friends!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  I took a few days off from the computer to be with my girl, now gone back to school far away from her mother…it was a wonderful couple of weeks….and time very well spent.

The night before she left, she was cleaning out her closet, when she found a box that I had stored there a few years ago, and hadn’t seen since.

Inside were treasures that I hadn’t thought of for a while…carefully left to me by my grandmother, Velda…

…who was a careful keeper of all family memories…knowing that I would always be a careful keeper of them, as well…

One day when I was a young teenager and she was showing them to me in her home, she asked me if I’d like to have them “someday”…and to put my name on the box, so that others would know to whom it  should go…”someday”…

…and so I did.

Inside, precious things left by Velda’s mother, Estella…both of whom I’ve told you stories of before…things carefully saved through the years by other careful keepers…

In Estella’s handwriting, tucked into each and every object, a brief description of the item and who it belonged to, so that no one could forget…”The other coin & red ribbon mother had when I was a very small girl”, she writes…

Her mother, Sarah, who I’ll tell you more about another day soon…

A buffalo head nickel (that Estella always kept in her pocket, a gift of remembrance from a loved brother) and a tiny old Mexican coin kept for years for good luck by Sarah…

 

A crocheted piece that Sarah made…

…a very old velvet pillow case…

…a knitted shawl made by Sarah…Estella remembers her mother placing it at times on the end of a bed, or over a chair…a little extra comfort for a loved one on a chilly evening…

…a pair of perfectly preserved silk stockings…a second pair purchased for the burial of Estella’s sweet little girl, Glenna, who died when she was just 3 years old, in 1922…

…carefully saved in the original Goldwater’s (of Phoenix, Arizona) sack they were purchased in…

 

A sweet old photo of my grandmother, Velda, on the right, with her sisters Nathel (left), and little Glenna in the chair…

There was so much more in the box, now used elsewhere in my home…in cabinets and such…where my family can always see them and remember…more stories for other days…

 

…this isn’t part of those family things, but a sweet little antique cup I couldn’t pass by in a vintage shop one day some years ago…Think of Me…..I keep this near those treasured family mementos so carefully kept…

This is a photo of Sarah and her husband John Vance with their 12 children.   My great-grandmother, Estella is next to her father on the right…a beautiful, blonde twin girl…oh, so many stories to tell!

A close-up of Sarah Indiaetta Young Vance from the Mother’s collage I made last year using Crafty Secrets papers, poem & elements…

…one in a loving line of careful keepers…”someday” I will pass these same treasures on to a much loved great-granddaughter I’ve not yet met…and the line of careful keepers will continue……

This is not the post I sat down to write today, but this is what wanted to be written…it’s always such a wonderful thing for me to remember those that I love…even those I never was able to meet in person….and today was filled with those thoughts.  Thank-you for letting me share them with you.

I’ll be back in a day or two with the post I intended…I hope your day is filled with every wonderful thing, and loving thoughts of the careful keepers in your life.

 

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: Family Keepsakes,Mothers,Estella Stapley,Velda Stapley Ostlund,Sarah Indiaetta Young Vance,Crafty Secrets