Friday, June 22, 2007

Show and Tell Friday

I am really excited about Show and Tell Friday today! When my parents came a few weeks ago, my mom brought me a suitcase full of things of my grandmother's. My grandma died about a year ago and my mom has been trying to weed through all of the stuff and decide what to keep, what to give to me and what to toss. I come from a long legacy of pack rats. LOL But this suitcase is special. My mom told me to wait until I had some time to open it, and since I have a little time, I decided to open it this morning.



Here is the suitcase in my living room, where it has been since my parents left.





Here is what it looked like right after opening. I didn't know what the cloth was, but the books were yearbooks (or annuals, as my grandma would have called them).




okay, the cloth is a pillow case. (not very exciting)



Here are two of the annuals. One is the 1926 yearbook for East Orange High School in New Jersey. The other is the Epitome, 1931 Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. These are my grandfather's annuals. (In the High School one it says "Yale will be honored to get this gentleman" under my grandfather's picture. However he went to Lehigh. I will see if my mom knows that story)


I easily found my grandfather's picture upon opening The Epitome. He was in wrestling. You can see him here third from the left, in the back row. I haven't found the other pictures of him yet. The annuals back then didn't have indexes in the back so I will have to go through page by page to find all the pics of him. I know he was involved in a lot of sports. There are lots of other annuals, too. Maybe a total of 8 or so.


This is amazing!! It is a travel journal that my grandmother kept from 1948-1953. It has a few pictures in it, some calling cards, newspaper articles, luggage tags and lots of other neat things! Just by looking at it quickly, it seems that she went on a cruise or two, went to Norway, England, France, Brussels and Stockholm.




It came in a little box, here is what was on the front.


I tore myself away from the other stuff and found this doily.




There are lots of pictures in here. Here are some of my grandfather. These were on my grandmother's wall as long as I can remember. (He died before I was born)


There are also some Christmas ornaments in here.

Here are some of her passports and her immunization record.



There are LOTS of photo pages. I can't wait to go through them all.



Here is a picture of my mom at her wedding.


And somehow I managed to get this whole thing done without showing one closeup of my grandma!! Here is one of her dancing with my grandfather.



I can't wait to go through this suitcase more thoroughly. My mom was right. This needs LOTS of time. I can see that my grandma was starting to write down her life story for me on the backs of bank deposit slips! Someday I will get this all together and make a journal type thing.

Thanks for looking at it with me!

If you'd like to see other people's show and tell Friday, check out Kelli's page.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

So many wonderful treasures out of that suitcase. How great that you get to have them. The photo of your mom at her wedding is so cool!

Susan said...

Oh WOW Kahri. I can only imagine how excited you are opening this and discovering all these treasurers. I was excited as I scrolled down each picture wondering what was next. I am so happy and delighted for you!! Especially her journals (the form of blogging of that day :o)!! )
Susan

The Zandi Zoo said...

OOOH!! !THose are So cool, Kahri!! What a neat thing to have in your family.

LadySnow said...

Very nice...those are neat treasures. :)

Mary L. Briggs said...

What a fun morning you must have had. Those are great treasures from your grandma.

... said...

what great treasures you were given. even the suitcase is cool. enjoy your time discovering and remembering. and thanks for sharing it with us.

Kim said...

What a wonderful suitcase of treasures. Thank you for sharing.

LBP said...

Wow! I can't imagine how much fun you have going through all those treasures!

Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Love it! A true treasure hunt. I love the picture of her too!

Anonymous said...

That is such a wonderful gift. You are really going to enjoy going through it. I am so happy for you. ~Kimberly B.

Amelia Antwiler said...

Oh! I love things like this!! That's part of the reason it breaks my heart to get rid of stuff. :-) You never know what memories it will bring back.

I love going through old photos and hearing the stories that went with the scene...so I can't imagine what it feels like to go through history like this - all in a suitcase!!

It's exciting!! Thank you for sharing ! Can't wait to hear more!!

Michelle said...

How Neat! Love it ~ it must have been fun to open it up and go through it all. Thanks for sharing
Michelle
www.raisinglittlewomen.wordpress.com

Trella said...

Wow! How exciting! I am so glad you got to share some of it with us. What a box full of treasures. That is neat. That is funny about the bank slips:) How neat though.
Blessings,
Trella

Ruth said...

What a treasure box of past history to have. Enjoy going through it all and learning more about your family!

Annie said...

That is so cool! I love looking through things like that. Matt's grandmother gave me her father's trunk years ago and it had an old checkbook and other things in it. I loved looking through it.

Carole Burant said...

Oh wow, I would have been so excited also, to be given such a suitcase full of your grandma's treasures!! What fun to go through it all...the travel book is what would interest me the most!! Just awesome! Have a wonderful weekend! xox

Kelli said...

How exciting!! Almost like opening a family treasure chest! The travel journal is wonderful and your mom's wedding picture is a wonderful keepsake. I like your idea of making a journal!
Kelli

Sara said...

That's awesome! I have an old briefcase of my grandfather's with old check registers from his Barber Shop, his business license and other things. It's pretty cool to have :) Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

WOW!! (Trying to see if this will go through)

Unknown said...

Wow!!! What a precious gift to have!

Anonymous said...

What a treasure chest! My family was just the opposite -- hardly anything has been kept and passed down. That is so special.