# What sort of odd momentos do you cherish from loved ones who've pass on?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 3, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694 "2013-04-03T03:13:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/21 "2013-04-03T15:26:10Z")
There are two things I keep: In shop class, my father made containers, I guess you would call them, out of discarded artellery shells. They graced his dresser for as long as I can remember, and now they are on my set of draws.
The second I found this week on Ebay: My grandfather was a cop in my home town. as the years rolled on and the motorcycle was no longer a wise mode of catching the bad guys, they moved him into a animal control role. His picture was in the paper, a lot, with whatever strange animal he had that week. The local paper sold off their morge, and somebody bought them up. His name was the same as mine, so a google search (never hurts to check six…) turned the photo up on the top of the search results. I will be getting a photo of him feeding a baby squirll with a bottle, with the story on the back of the photo. The kicker is, for some strange reason,\*\*\* he signed the back of the photo\*\*\*
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/22 "2013-04-03T15:27:26Z")
I keep my mother’s original “Green Card” in a safe place.
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### Author:  [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/23 "2013-04-03T17:07:38Z")
I have, hanging in my closet, a long ‘party dress’ that my mom bought to wear on her & dad’s 25th anniversary. Hanging beside it is my dad’s army jacket. I’ll always keep them.
I have a coffee mug with a Collie puppy on it that my Grandpa bought for me when I was about 3 years old; we would sit together at the table and eat cookies and drink coffee… my ‘coffee’ was mostly milk with a dollop of coffee in it.
When my favorite aunt died, I was given a little carved wooden rocking horse and several of her favorite movies on VHS tape.
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### Author:  [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/24 "2013-04-03T17:07:46Z")
My everyday vehicle is still the '94 Ford pickup truck I inherited from my brother. Even brought it from the States to Cayman. I’m planning to move back to the States and apparently it is not so easy to ship the truck back. Not sure what I will do.
And somewhere I have my brother’s old baseball jacket in storage.
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### Author:  [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/25 "2013-04-03T17:55:30Z")
My grandfather was a big Yankees fan since he went to Yankee Stadium while in his USMC days (Korean War-era), and Billy Martin was always his favorite player and, later, manager. Probably because he was an asshole.
After he died, my grandma gave me his Billy Martin signed baseball, and she also let me look through his closet for anything I might want. One of the things I’ve hung onto and still wear often is a “Billy Martin’s Western Wear” t-shirt. It’s one of those old shirts that has worn to be thin and super soft, and I think of him whenever I wear it.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/26 "2013-04-03T18:25:45Z")
In storage, I have stuffed dolls that either belonged to a deceased grandparent, or weregiven to me by one.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/27 "2013-04-03T19:57:35Z")
I have a pen in the shape of DuGaulle that my grandmother had. She never went to France and I have no idea how she got it.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/28 "2013-04-03T20:17:56Z")
I have my 3 x great grandpa’s gunpowder flask, which he carried in the civil war.
Ah, the memories it brings back, of ggg grandpa and me!
Seriously, most of my mementos are photos of me with my elder kin.
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### Author:  [@TheFaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFaerie)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/29 "2013-04-03T20:18:10Z")
I have a small deerskin, fringed bag that a dear friend made that I won in a silent auction that funds an event that she founded. In that bag is about a half ounce of her ashes. I cherish it.
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### Author:  [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/30 "2013-04-03T20:37:59Z")
My cousin was so proud of his Platinum American Express card. One rests in his pocket with him, the other with me. I also have the tape from his answering machine so I can hear his voice. I haven’t been able to do that just yet.
From my grandparents, I have pocketknives, and trinkets from all 49 states they took me to. His pipes and her knitting needles. His 35mm camera and about 5k color slides. His personal Thompson SMG, and a pistol he took from Freddy Barker after their shootout.
Other grandma: a deck of cards; she’d always play “Go Fish” with me no matter what. And I have her [stereopticon](http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/10804/11304017_1.jpg?v=8CE531562BB9DA0)with dozens of cards from the 1800’s to 1930 or so.
My mom - some jewelry, and travel industry knicknacks. Some lighters - she had dozens - and a silver [cigarette case](http://img0.etsystatic.com/005/0/6664253/il_fullxfull.393240652_858e.jpg) with a built-in lighter that’s awesome. Her cane that she got in SFO one year with a head that’s just a doorknob. My son has appropriated for some reason. Christmas decorations and a lot of Blenko and Swarovski pieces.
My dad- some watches, some little toys and figurines that were his as a kid. A lot of his tools.
> [@Dinsdale](#):
>
> I remember him rewinding the brushes and replacing the cord on that thing. My wife has stopped asking me why I don’t use the newer, more powerful cordless DeWalt!
Women! They have no concept of burning brushes and the smell of ozone! That’s the smell of power and manhood! Not Old Spice! 😃
My dad took me bowling almost every Saturday morning for many years. As I got older, we’d play golf with his clubs he won in a tournament with his company. In about 1959!
I kept the clubs, and his bowling bag with ball, shoes and glove inside. They’ve been moved around the basement since 1999. I finally got on a cleaning jag a couple of years ago, and after hours of arguing with myself, I threw out the bag.
I told my wife, who agreed that it’s time to let go of some things, but then her parents aren’t dead are they? ☹ The trashman came the next day, making my decision irreversible. I cried every night for a week. His golf clubs stand next to mine, and they always will.
Oh, it gets worse. You know what a headstone is right? Well, my folks have footstones as well, with their knicknames the grandkids called them. The stone guy messed up the first set, so he remade them. Somehow I got them, and there’s no way in hell I can toss something “personalized” like that. So, they sit in my shed by my lawnmower. I hear my mother every Saturday say “Good lord, throw those damn things away.”
Jesus, it’s dusty in here.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/31 "2013-04-03T20:46:36Z")
While my grandparents still lived in their own home, on the back porch there was an orange candy dish. Grandma had it as a thank you gift from a school board, before she married.
She always kept lemon drops, peppermints, and pillowmints in it. We kids would work at quietly lifting the lid off of the dish, to sneak out candy. We though we were getting away with it, but I realize now she was letting us do it, for the thrill.
I have the dish. It’s a garish orange, with two black circular bands on the lid, probably about ninety years old. Of all my physical personal possessions it’s the dearest to me. I’d give up everything else, except my pets, before I’d give up that dish.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/32 "2013-04-03T21:49:18Z")
I have quite a few things that I use regularly:
- A teaspoon inscribed with the initials U.S., which my Dad inadvertently took home from the officer’s mess at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska. I use it for my coffee every morning, and it is the only acceptable teaspoon for this purpose.
- A very old Singer sewing machine that my mother made our baby clothes with. I like it - I learned on it and I can fix it, so that’s what I use.
- A tooled leather purse that my dad made for my mom before they were married.
There’s more, but uh, my allergies are acting up and it’s hard to see.
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### Author:  [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/33 "2013-04-03T21:51:19Z")
Jade earrings and a peacock tapestry that my father bought for me.
He bought me a kit to make a roll top desk.
Everybody in the family hates my tapestry, I don’t know why.
I’ll agree the desk isn’t pretty, nobody told me not to use a water based stain on white pine until after I stained it, and stained it, and stained it some more.
On day I’ll get around to refinishing it.
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### Author:  [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/34 "2013-04-03T22:52:00Z")
An empty jar, exactly like this one: [http://www.etsy.com/listing/91757953/vintage-collectible-clear-glass](http://www.etsy.com/listing/91757953/vintage-collectible-clear-glass)
When I was a child, it was full of bath pearls and my Grandma owned it. A rare and exciting treat was when she would squeeze one of the pearls into the bathroom sink and let us wash our hands in the bubbles.
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### Author:  [@BeeDubU2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeeDubU2)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/35 "2013-04-03T23:07:16Z")
My grandfather passed away two years ago, and my granny let my kids take an item out of his drawer. One chose a money clip and the other got a broken watch. She still has his items on top of her dresser, though and the other day I had been thinking of him, and put on some of his Stetson.
My daughter kept the collar from our beloved dog. He got ran over after he got out once, and she is very sentimental. It’s hanging on her bedroom wall, tags and all.
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### Author:  [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/36 "2013-04-03T23:22:05Z")
A small piece of coral that my dad and I found on a beach in Kauai in 1977.
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### Author:  [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/37 "2013-04-03T23:23:03Z")
One of the odd things I have is a prescription bottle, ca. 1964. This was back in the good ol’ days when pill bottles were clear and had lids that popped off. The prescription was for my mom, and the bottle is filled with an odd assortment of seed beads and bugle beads.
Mom was a prodigious seamstress and crafter (not to mention Cub Scout den mother), so she saved everything that could have potential use in a future project – scraps of lace and pom-pom trim, rick-rack, odd buttons, and beads of all sorts, whether from a broken necklace or seed beads that she stitched by hand onto the Indian Princess costume she made me one year for Christmas.
Since I now make and sell handwoven beaded jewelry, I keep that bottle of beads in my studio as my artistic totem from Mom.
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/38 "2013-04-03T23:47:02Z")
This thread was popping back into my head all day, while I was making two huge pots of homemade spaghetti sauce!
When my father’s mother died, his sister returned to him, from his mother’s drawer, an old tiny diamond ring in a very old hinged box, covered in silk. I was the only one of the rest of the family to attend her funeral with him, he handed it to me with a shrug. Come to learn before he met my mother, he had been engaged to another woman, and she had backed out! A shocking revelation of a life before me, when I was still young enough to be struck by the possibility. My Dad was a man of few words, I still know nothing more about it!
I also found, among my beloved mother in law’s things, a much folded and worn telegram from the war office telling her that her husband was flying back into Halifax and coming back from the war safe. He called her Blondie, and signed Johnny (variations on the names we knew them by!). She must have kept it in her purse or bag for her lifetime!
Your thread made me remember both of these things, thanks so much, I’d forgotten all about both for a long time now!
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### Author:  [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/39 "2013-04-03T23:48:45Z")
I have my grandfathers’ pocket knife. It’s nothing special as knives go, a simple two bladed folder he must have purchased in the 1950’s.
At some stage while using it on the farm he broke the longer blade in half and, rather than getting a new knife, ground the broken blade down to a sheeps-foot profile and kept using it. When I was a kid visiting the farm I always knew that he would have that knife (and a bit of twine and some matches) in his pocket. I also have his old electric drill and a map of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake\_Eucumbene](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eucumbene) he used when he went fishing there.
My other grandfather, I have a striaght razor that my grandmother got him. They were both Japanese POW’s and spent years apart during the war, not knowing if the other was alive. It was a gift to him on their first wedding anniversary after they found each other post-WW2.
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### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-sort-of-odd-momentos-do-you-cherish-from-loved-ones-whove-pass-on/654694/40 "2013-04-04T11:22:04Z")
I have a couple sets of my maternal granddad’s eyeglasses around somewhere. After he died, I had them put my lens prescription into one set. Unfortunately as they were metal, they scraped the hell out of my ear so I couldn’t wear them.
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