Some of the "Groovey" stationary I have found

My Grandfather's Death

I am still in the air on whether I should read the letters, or let them lie (although both definitions of this word work here, I do not currently precieve the letters to be untruthful). I have scan several and can divide the letters evenly between three piles; letters written that are painfully sad, letters written that are the day to day lives of a close family unaccustomed to the use of the phone, and letters written that contain information of an embarrasing nature. It is these last letters that I am afraid to read.

There is a mixture of letters written to my grandmother, and letters written to her parents. It is to be expected in any family when someone was troubled by the actions of someone else these concerns (tattles) are reflected in the correspondences. It is only to be supposed that these letters were not meant to be shared with some unknown reader in the future. And as I am easily embarassed by imagining others embarassed, I am hesitant to read on.

I did overread a letter from my aunt to my grandmother about the death of my dad's father. I have always known that his death was a big deal, he was the cornerstone of my fathers world. I am now impressed with the impact his death had on the lives of everyone in my family, not just his.

One Box Sorted

My Finds
I have completely sorted one box. My sort was a very quick; is this a picture, a negative or something else. However, I accidentally mixed up the negatives and the something else. Many interesting finds. Of historical significance, a newspaper clipping of the marriage of Mickey Mantle to his "19-year-old schoolday sweetheart". Towards the end there were several letters from my mom when I was three, that she was very young, came across very clear. I also found three years worth of picture Christmas cards, in my naivete, I assumed picture Christmas cards were a recent trend, but after seeing all of my grandmothers friends cards from the early family days I am reforming my opinion.

Issues
For the task I agreed to, I am seeing several issues. The first two are obvious, who is this, when was this taken. The next two are subtle, and have to do with significance. There are pictures of telephone line, I personally have taken pictures of downed telephone line after a big storm, but these seem to be installed correctly, even knowing that my grandfather was an electrical engineer, I am still slightly baffled by these photos. Then there are pictures of places, apparantly famous places, that I just do not have enough southern experience to appreciate. Side Note on my Grandmother. Although my grandmother was neither born in the south, nor primarily raised in the south, she would consider herself the epitome of the southern gentle women, or at least that is my impression of her. While she did graduate from high school in Dallas, attend Baylor University, and marry a very blatent Texan (one of the founded families of Jasper Texas with ties into most of East Texas), as a young child, her parents traveled considerable, teaching in the small towns of most of the midwest.

My First Thoughts

My initial thought is to write some background information about my grandmother, but I want these to be about me, which leads me to think I should provide background into my relationship with my grandmother, but I don't want to get bogged down in the details of a relationship established as an infant and evolved over many years.

So last night I opened the box where I have stored the letters and pictures, they are in two smaller boxes and one garment storage bag. My very first thought was of bugs and mice, but I am hoping that by storing these in an air tight plastic container I will kill off any bugs, and any small rodent type animals would have destroyed the letters and made a mess of my moms closet prior to my discovery of the items. Having laid rest to my initial fears, I picked the smallest box with which to start.

I need to expand on these thoughts, but here are the synopsis of my first day of organization
My grandmother looks very much like herself even at a young age, and my grandfather does not.
I am feeling like an eavesdropper, and am dreading and am eager to discover letter written about me.
The importance of marking your pictures - do I need to go back through mine

The Discovery

Christmas 2005
I was looking for baby pictures of myself to proove to my husband that I look like my daughter and had as much hair as she does as a baby. In my mothers closet where she keeps all of the photo albums, I discovered a bag of pictures and correspondences of my Grandmothers. Now I am not a huge scrapbook artist, but I do enjoy the process of taking pictures and telling a story through scrapbooking, and this bag of pictures appeared to me to be an opportunity to create the story of my Grandmother. I asked my mom if I could do this for her, and she jumped at the chance, offering to pay for the supplies. So I pulled the bag out and dicovered two more boxes and several mounted professional photos. My mom helped me locate a large plastic tub to haul the pictures home. (oddly, stored in the tub were pictures from my dad's mom - next project I guess) So the pictures are now in my computer room awaiting discovery.

My first look
My husband was not feeling well, and went to bed early. I have been debating with myself if I should get started going through all of the 'stuff', or wait till I had some organizing tools. With some self reflection I realized that if I did not get started, it might be months before I got all of the 'correct tools' to manage this task, and that I was better off just grabing some boxes (and at this time of the year we have plenty just laying around). My intial thinking was to just start weeding out all of the pictures from the letters, box the letters up and send them to my mom. That is not what happened however, and this has lead me to create this blog to journal my thoughts as I sift through the letters of my grandmother and her parents.