1930's Diary Found in Manhattan Dumpster

[Daisy Buchanan]

Check this out. Halfway down the page on the right is a link to a multimedia story of a gal in Manhattan who found a large number of old steamer trunks tossed out in the dumpster near her building. Upon going through them she found the 5 year diary of a 14 year old girl, the beginning date of which was the girls 14th birthday in 1931. The woman who found the diary, amongst many other things (although they don't talk about these other things, I wish they had), hired a missing persons lawyer to find out information about the girl whom the diary belonged to. It turned out that the diary's owner was alive and well and living just outside of NYC, in the town of Westport Connecticut.

This is a multimedia story with pictures and audio. Thanks to Mr. Hemingway Jones for telling me about it It's truly amazing. Gosh, I wish I new what else she found in those trunks. I wonder if she even knows that there is a market out there for "old" clothes and other items....

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

What a shock to the owner. Lucky girl. Very good story. Maybe she'll keep the rest. If she doesn't know about the vintage market, someone will tell her about it.

 

[dhermann1]

Wow. I have a mountain of letters and diaries like this, but the people are all long gone. What a wonderful thing to have the connection to the living person!

 

[ShooShooBaby]

wow, neat story! thank you so much for posting this!

i have a diary from a young lady from 1939. it's pretty boring though... the entries are like, "went dancing tonight." i want to know details!!!

 

[ohairas]

Amazing Daisy! What a great story. I too wonder what else was in all of those trunks and what happened to it.

And of course it makes you sad to wonder about all the trunks and such that don't get found.

Nikki

 

[ShooShooBaby]

Amazing Daisy! What a great story. I too wonder what else was in all of those trunks and what happened to it.

And of course it makes you sad to wonder about all the trunks and such that don't get found.

Nikki

fftopic: it drives me nuts that so much stuff is thrown in the trash! one of my coworkers (i work at a thrift store) told me that whenever they find "old" sewing patterns they go in the trash because "they're not in great condition and no one would want them." i just about flipped out and told her that they're actually worth quite a bit regardless of condition, and if no customers purchase them, i would! i have to try not to think about what else doesn't make it onto the sales floor or else i will drive myself crazy.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Or the ones that have things happen to them.

I recently moved, but before that shared a Victorian house with friends. Up in the attic was a trunk full of banking papers. Every check from a year span of about 1922-1930 or so...check registers, investment reciepts......

Sympathy card mailed to her when she sent flowers to a funeral....dated 1917....

I took pictures of a lot of it, the more interesting checks...(country club dues, AAA memberships, Robinsons dept store)...and pictures of the pictures.

I was -sooooooooo- tempted to take a few of the letters....but because our landlady grew up in the house...i figured she knew they were there and they were thus not -mine- to take...


I moved out shortly after that...and 3 weeks after I moved, the house burnt....basically a total loss...but definatly a loss of the attic space....

 

[jitterbugdoll]

It always makes me sad to see diaries, photo albums, scrapbooks and the like abandoned in antique stores. I always wonder who these memories belonged to and what happened to the original owner.

I have a couple of scrapbooks--one made by a bride and documenting the various showers she was given, the wedding, and long honeymoon taken by the couple in the late 1930s (decobelle so generously shared this one with me), and one made by a women covering her service in the WAVES (she passed away several years ago, and her daughter generously gave me this book, two of her high school yearbooks, and several other photos that her mother had saved.)

 

[Lotus Leroux]

What a great story Daisy! Thanks for sharing!

I agree with you JBD, it makes me sad also to see abandoned photos, yearbooks and such at the flea market. I actually have a scrapbook that I picked up at the flea market and it appears to have belonged to someone in the service in WW II. Inside is the Western Union telegram that announced the birth of his baby daughter. I have always wondered what happened to him and his daughter and how the scrapbook ended up at the flea market.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Yes it is a great story. But like you all I do get a bit sad when I think about all of the things that just get tossed in the trash because the people who found them just assume that it's "old junk"[huh] :eusa_doh:

My parents have a suitcase that belonged to my Great Grandfather Max Huterer. The actually suitcase is the one he used when he fled Vienna during the second World War. Inside it are many old photos, bank and other types of receipts, a couple of journals, and letters. Also, to our surprise in a small compartment that my Mom did not notice when she first found the suitcase was a yellow star. The yellow star that he was forced to wear being a Jewish person in Austria during the reign of Hitler. We also found his "tefilon", which is a religious article that Jewish men wear at all times. This, along with other artifacts are now in the Holocaust Museum of Rhode Island. My Dad as a gift to my Mom many years ago found a gentleman with connections in Vienna. Many artifacts from Synagogues were being uncovered in Vienna and the smaller towns surrounding it. One of the artifacts that was found was a Torah, dated from the early 1900's, it also had the name of the Synagogue it had been used in. The Synagogue was one that my Great Grandfather's family had attended for many generations. It was old and battle scarred, but one can see that it was once a very decorative item and quite an object of beauty. My Dad purchased the Torah as a gift to my Mom and donated it to our local Synagogue in the memory of my Mom's family. He could have had it restored to it's original condition, but he felt that it would have an even deeper impact if he left it as it was. It, along with the other artifacts my Mom found in the suitcase sat in a beautiful case my Dad had built for the lobby of our local temple. The case had the names of our family members who were lost in the war engraved across the top of it. It was a lovely dedication to my Mom's family and to all those lost in World War II.
When the Rhode Island Holocaust Museum opened a few years ago my Mom was voted onto the Board of Directors. They made arrangements for the Torah and case to be moved to the museum. Although we loved having it in our own temple, we thought it would be nice to share it with people who belonged to other congregations. Of course our temple was mad, and they took us to court. They weren't taking care of it, and even though it was in there lobby, my Dad was paying for the upkeep of it. I don't know what the temple's motivation was to keep it. We thought that they would want as many people to see it as possible. Well, we won the right to have it moved. It's not as though we were trying to take back something we had donated for our own personal use. We just thought that after years of being in one place, if it were in a museum it would be better cared for and reach more people.
It really is an amazing thing to see. I think it's so sweet that my Dad went to such lengths to do something so sweet and sentimental for my Mom.

I actually wrote an email to The New York Times in regards to the diary story. I was hoping that they might know more information about the other things that were found in the trunks. Maybe they will forward my questions to the girl who found them, and possibly she will get in contact with me in regards to my questions. I'll let you know if I ever hear back from them. I'm not getting my hopes up though. They are a very large paper and probably receive millions of emails a day. Since this isn't a front page story, I'm not sure if they'll want to take the time to email me about a public interest story. But, we shall see. Who knows, maybe she will get in contact with me and not realize the value of what she's found in the trunk. Maybe she'll have no use for it, and not enough space to store it. In that case I'd be more than happy to take anything she's found off her hands!! I think it's so amazing that one day she's finding all of this old stuff in the dumpster and a short while later she's talking to the woman who the stuff belonged to. What was once just trash to someone became someone else's treasure....

 

[ShooShooBaby]

i agree - very sad!

whenever i come upon something very personal at a flea market, i feel like i hit pay dirt, but also kinda sad. like my 1947 bride book - i got it for $3, but geez! that lady kept such a great record of an exciting time in her life, and no one in her family wanted it? it's amazing how little personal stories are "worth" when a dollar amount is attached to them. at least it went to someone who loves it - ME, but still, she is a stranger to me. i can't imagine my grandma's stuff going to someone we don't know. it's insane the amount of stuff my dad and i each kept after she passed away.

i'm about to start an oral history project with an elderly lady in my city, which i'm really looking forward to it. the man who organized the program says she has a very interesting past. i feel like so much of personal history is lost. hopefully she has family members who will want a copy of her history when it's finished, but i will make sure she isn't forgotten regardless! i'm afraid i'm veering this way off topic, but i feel like it fits - recording the personal histories of loved ones and strangers really helps our societal understanding of an era in ways that statistics and news stories don't - like our relatives' stories, this lady's diary, the photo albums we collect, scrapbooks, bride books, etc.

 

[jake_fink]

That's a really interesting story and would be a great basis for a full length documentary film as the multimedia show merely whetted my appetite.

It is a shame about the girl's voice though; she reads like Margaret Atwood. Maybe they can hire Nathalie Portman or some such to narrate the film that I hope they make.

Thanks Ms. Daisy.

 

[jake_fink]

There is a term for all the sadness you feel for the forgotten chattel of the once living.


Memento Mori