Wow! Another hoarded momento!

[Elizabeth Herts]

In yet another envelope full of miscellaneous bits and bobs, I have just found my mother's

School Certificate (University of London) dated 1934 in Divinity, English Language and Literature, History, French, Latin, Elementary Mathematics, Chemistry, Botany, Physics and Zoology!

I didn't know it was there! In with letters, birthday cards, etc.

[BridgetM]

How exciting!

They keep us on their toes don't they?
I found share certs filed in a pile of magazines & knitting patterns, among my mother's stuff

[vikki brace]

you are on a real roll at the moment, graves, documents whats next :D

[Elizabeth Herts]

When we cleared my mum's house when she died, we thought we had been through everything thoroughly - obviously not! It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

[Little Nell]

Elizabeth

House-clearing is horrible. But as for discoveries, when I first started this lark properly I was on the phone to my Mum and talking about my Dad. She decided to look for some war medals, etc belonging to Dad. Under the bed is a box where she keeps this stuff. So she rummaged under the bed and found - another box. This one was from when my Grannie (Mum's Mum) left her bungalow to live in an old people's home. She gave it to my Mum for safekeeping.

Anyway in this box was all the letters Grandad wrote to Grannie before they married plus two from afterwards, photos, certs, newspaper cuttings of obituaries and all sorts. And my Mum had popped it under her bed the day Grannie went to the home and forgotten all about it!

[Elizabeth Herts]

Nell, aren't you pleased that you come from a family of hoarders! My Gran was a terrific hoarder - she kept most of my grandfather's clothes for 20 years after he died! She had her three daughters' Brownie and Guide uniforms too!

I have the letters that she wrote to my grandfather before they married in 1915! They are just lovely.

I bet you had a wonderful time going through the contents of the box.

[Little Nell]

Yes, and its a consolation when I think of all the stuff that various folk would have chucked in the past!

[Elizabeth Herts]

However, some branches are a total mystery! Not a photo, not a letter, zilch... :(

[Janet in Yorkshire]

LOL, my house is like a junk shop - for about three years I have been stuffing old tin biscuit boxes into a tardis like cupboard, or clutter into drawers, just to get stuff out of the way.
This week has brought the day of reckoning as new furniture was coming and I HAD to go through drawers etc before disposing of the old stuff.

So far I have found:
a mislaid photocopy of a will (in a folder of old knitting patterns)
a receipt for the bill for flowers for my aunt's wedding in 1952 (in a folder of patchwork patterns)
3 pre WW2 St John's certs for my Dad
Dad's WW2 souvenirs - postcards of Tunis, Amalfi, Pompeii, ENSA concert ticket stubs, an Afrika corps armband
a preserved leaf with an Italian address written on it (!!!!)
a letter to me from my paternal grandad
the artwork my father did for his hometown hospital carnival programme
(1936)
a newspaper clipping giving a brief outline of the working career of Dad's uncle, who retired at the age of 70 in the late 1940's
a book, which was a school scripture prize, awarded to my maternal grandmother in 1902.

Wonder what next week will bring and if I'll live long enough to get all this stuff sorted and into some form of presentation!!

AND as an only child, with no children, what the heck am I going to do with it all??

[Darksecretz]

LOL, my house is like a junk shop - for about three years I have been stuffing old tin biscuit boxes into a tardis like cupboard, or clutter into drawers, just to get stuff out of the way.
This week has brought the day of reckoning as new furniture was coming and I HAD to go through drawers etc before disposing of the old stuff.

So far I have found:
a mislaid photocopy of a will (in a folder of old knitting patterns)
a receipt for the bill for flowers for my aunt's wedding in 1952 (in a folder of patchwork patterns)
3 pre WW2 St John's certs for my Dad
Dad's WW2 souvenirs - postcards of Tunis, Amalfi, Pompeii, ENSA concert ticket stubs, an Afrika corps armband
a preserved leaf with an Italian address written on it (!!!!)
a letter to me from my paternal grandad
the artwork my father did for his hometown hospital carnival programme
(1936)
a newspaper clipping giving a brief outline of the working career of Dad's uncle, who retired at the age of 70 in the late 1940's
a book, which was a school scripture prize, awarded to my maternal grandmother in 1902.

Wonder what next week will bring and if I'll live long enough to get all this stuff sorted and into some form of presentation!!

AND as an only child, with no children, what the heck am I going to do with it all??

perhaps bequeath it to a family member?