If I remember correctly, my father sold his parents' farmhouse and the accompanying acreage in August 1983, about a month before he and my mother moved from Walton to Florence. I helped him a time or two that summer to clear things out of the farmhouse, which had sat unoccupied for more than a decade--my grandmother developed dementia in the early 1970s and spent the last few years of her life first at her sister's house and then in a nursing home.
My folks' new place was larger than the previous one, and some of that additional space got claimed by furniture that had been Grandma's, including a Victrola in a cabinet and a two-piece secretary. The latter found a home in the living room, and somewhere along the way they had it refinished. The secretary followed them when they downsized to their townhouse in 2003 (again residing in the living room), and became one of the very few pieces for which I made room in 2015 after Mom and Dad were both gone. These days, it primarily sits looking pretty in our basement. Every Thanksgiving weekend, we fold down the large door on the top piece to store knick-knacks that are on display during "normal time" as we make room for Christmas decorations. I've been remarkably incurious, though, about the drawer in the base, or at least I was until a couple of days ago.
It turns out that Dad never took time to go through it himself. While there's evidence that Mom placed a very few things in it, otherwise there's perhaps just one item less than sixty years old. In other words, I've been housing a time capsule for the past nine years without realizing it. Well, now the seal is broken--let's take a look at some of the contents. Forgive me in advance for going on at such length.
Martha has commented that this picture resembles something out of the I Spy books published by Scholastic twenty years ago. She's also not wrong in claiming that this must have been the "junk drawer" at my grandparents' house.
(Aside: I feel certain that the "Best Afghan" ribbon at the top is one of my mother's contributions, from the mid-80s. The winning entry had been knitted by a congregant at the church to which Dad had been minister in Stanford, given to us we left there in 1972; I've recently come across a letter elsewhere from the creator responding to Mom, who had written to tell her about the award.)
We found almost a complete set of my grandmother's report cards, missing only first- and third-grades. Here are two; I've learned recently there were only three, all women, in her graduating class.
Dad's year-end first-grade report is far less detailed.
One of two letters from July 1940 written by my nine-year-old father. It appears he was spending a few weeks in Warsaw with his mother's sister, my Great-Aunt Birdie. At the time, my grandfather was the principal of an elementary school about 30 miles away, not too far from Cincinnati.
Some sorta interesting rulers, including a 15-incher. Now you know more about the nutritional value of milk, and I want to research the history of the Transylvania Printing Company.
When you're a family of educators, you wind up with chalk.
The ceramic dogs all have "Japan" stamped into their backs. A cursory internet search isn't revealing any match for the Sleepy pin, but I presume it's from the late 30s or early 40s.
There were five copies of this in the drawer, so I have no choice but to let you know all about how to make Weeny Witches and other sundry culinary delights for this upcoming Halloween.
One of the several keys in the drawer seemed to fit this lock. I think that's a fuse on the right, but I'm stumped by the item in the middle (note that I'm holding it in the picture near the top).
This must have been my father's--he wrote his name on the inside top of the box (oddly, the pens hang from the top like bats after you slide them into loops).
This drafting tool is my favorite discovery. With a patent date in the 1880s, I'm mighty curious as to when and why it was purchased.
More cool tools. That's a 50-foot tape measure; my grandfather did some surveying work in his younger years.
The things people keep. I've learned that Air-Way Branches, Inc. was a vacuum cleaner company.
The "victory garden" guide on the left is from 1944, naturally enough., while the UK publication has a 1948 date. Somewhere in this time frame--I need to research exactly when--my grandparents moved back toward Warsaw to that farmstead that would stay in the family until '83.
My grandfather maintained a small herd of dairy cows on that farm for a number of years, all the while commuting 25 miles one-way to teach (until he began his second stint as superintendent of the local county school system in 1958).
My grandfather Willie was also a diabetic. There's actually a syringe in the box on top (one of two such boxes I found), but the insulin box was full of dry-rotted rubber bands. Dad relayed to me a number of times that my grandfather would often eat what he wanted and then double up on insulin.
Between farm life and working as an educator, my grandfather didn't feel like he had much time for vacations. We discovered postcards (mostly written by Dad) and letters (written by my grandmother) addressed to him from two long trips that Dad and Grandma took together. In the spring of 1960, they traveled south, first to southern Florida and then up the east coast as far as D.C. In September of 1961, it was a big western foray, combining visits to family and friends (Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado), sightseeing (Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Yellowstone), and business (the annual International Convention of the denomination of the church Dad was serving, in Kansas City). Not long after arriving in KC, though, they learned that Willie was in the hospital following a heart attack. He had been trying to conspire with Aunt Birdie to keep the news a secret until their planned return; of course, they rushed home immediately. Above are the postcards and letters they'd sent while on that trip, along with notes from relatives and friends after Grandma had written to spread the word.
My grandfather lived for about six more weeks following the attack, initially rallying a bit before finally succumbing in mid-November.
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I don't know whether it was grief or something else, but it appears that my grandmother left the drawer alone after October 1961. The only thing that definitely came after that is a note from the Women's Fellowship at her church, dated November 1970. They're missing her; I'm thinking that this was just about the time that her long slide began.
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