FedoraFan112390
Practically Family
- Messages
- 642
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
I never met my grandfather. I was born in 1990, and he died 40 years ago on October 4th 1975. However, I was given a tote bag, which was his, which contained all of his personal possessions, including his WW2 and Army photos, licenses, work IDs, his wallet(s), even down to his 1935 School Album...It's led to a great curiosity about him and his life. He would seem to have been a very sentimental man - He kept work IDs and membership IDs (such as a VFW and American Legion id cards) that were way outdated by the time he died; he kept, besides the early 50s Hack License, every driver license he had issued to him between 1966 and 1975, as well as things like his Presidio of San Francisco library card, his reader's guide to Germany, his travel guide to San Francisco, his book of NYC addresses as of 1950 (he probably was given it when he became a cabbie?)...Just tons of things, things you'd think would've been thrown away. Like, he had from what has to be the late 1940s/early 50s, a series of rollerderby poster cards of girls on ice skates. He kept his union card from a job he'd long since departed from when he died; he kept his voter registration card, issued in 1963, and even his blood donor card despite not having given blood since 1967 (it has the dates he gave blood stamped on the back).
When someone keeps that much of a 'paper trail' of their life, it would seem to me they want to be remembered, and perhaps wondered about, and I've tried to do my best at that.
I moved all of the items from the tote bag to a black archival box.
I must confess that...I've moved three times in the past year. Each time I've moved, I've had the box closed tight with tape. Yet, at some point, I lost two things from the bag: Two photos from his military days. Everything else, thank God, is accounted for.. One of them was a portrait he hand in full military dress; I know there is at least one other copy of that photo, as my uncle has a copy. The other there was no copy of, it was an impromptu picture from a USO event in 1942 (although, the other pictures from the same event survive - three others).
Thankfully, I had scanned both now missing photos, but I feel an immense amount of guilt over it. My grandfather's whole life was in that bag - everything he deemed sacred and worth keeping - it was given to me by my uncle because my uncle didn't want it. And I feel like, a disgrace. It's only two things - but they were two things he kept for all of his life. I feel horrible about it.
I'm not sure if anyone here can relate, but I feel genuine guilt about this...
When someone keeps that much of a 'paper trail' of their life, it would seem to me they want to be remembered, and perhaps wondered about, and I've tried to do my best at that.
I moved all of the items from the tote bag to a black archival box.
I must confess that...I've moved three times in the past year. Each time I've moved, I've had the box closed tight with tape. Yet, at some point, I lost two things from the bag: Two photos from his military days. Everything else, thank God, is accounted for.. One of them was a portrait he hand in full military dress; I know there is at least one other copy of that photo, as my uncle has a copy. The other there was no copy of, it was an impromptu picture from a USO event in 1942 (although, the other pictures from the same event survive - three others).
Thankfully, I had scanned both now missing photos, but I feel an immense amount of guilt over it. My grandfather's whole life was in that bag - everything he deemed sacred and worth keeping - it was given to me by my uncle because my uncle didn't want it. And I feel like, a disgrace. It's only two things - but they were two things he kept for all of his life. I feel horrible about it.
I'm not sure if anyone here can relate, but I feel genuine guilt about this...