My grandpa was the type who never threw anything away, and as such we went through all kinds of garbage cleaning out his garage after his death. I was a kid at the time so I don’t remember much, but one find that sticks in my mind was the drawer full of “vote for Reagan” bumper stickers. This was about a decade after Reagan last ran for president.
We also found five or six pin-on name tags, all with his first and last name. I kept those, because I thought it such a great symbol of his mania for keeping everything.
I guess finding somebody’s porn stash isn’t so odd, huh. My dad died unexpectedly when I was seventeen, and when my mom (they’d been divorced for several years, but were friendly) and I were going through his stuff we found his. I was HORRIBLY embarassed, but she took it pretty much in stride, and we gave the magazines to a friend who’d appreciate them. I still think it’d be weird to find my now-dead ex-husband’s porn stash, though.
I still can’t see my dad BUYING that stuff, but I guess he did. sigh
My mother died right before Christmas, her favorite holiday. She liked to organize herself by making lists and we found one detailing gifts and recipients. This was helpful and many people appreciated a last gift from her. One of my parents’ old friends had “monkey in the box” by his name. We couldn’t figure what the heck she meant. Was this a toy? Why would she be giving a 60-year-old man a monkey in a box? Dad hadn’t a clue. A couple of times while stumbling through that intense period of grief, emotional ups and downs, and even numbness my siblings would look at each other and wonder “monkey in the box?”
The mystery was solved two weeks later when cleaning out a closet I came across an old wooden box. Inside was one of those sock monkey dolls with a name safety pinned on it. Turns out my mom had made the doll for her friend’s grandson for Christmas and had hidden it away from her own grandkids. Sometimes we use “monkey in the box!” as a taunt when one of us is stupidly confused.
A couple of months ago, we began cleaning out Grandad’s house after he passed. At age 100 he knew it wasn’t too far off so he’d already gone through most everything for us, throwing out the junk and labeling most items with the name of the person he’d like to have it. Nothing all that unusual came up except for the five cases of Worstershire Sauce. He and Grandmom had each been in the habit of taking a tablespoon of the stuff every day because they believed it was good for your health. Seeing as how she lived to about 94 and he to 100, it must have worked.
As to the enormous quantity, 60 bottles, I’m not sure if he bought it at bulk for the discount (another habit from the Depression) or if he thought it worked so well that he’d need it for yet another twenty years.
I had an Uncle that was killed in WWII. Through family history I knew that Uncle Bill had died in the war and that the army had notified them of his death but there was no record of where he was buried. They could only say that he was buried in France. About a year ago a cousin and I started trying to research our family history and eventually Uncle Bill came up. There is only one member of his family still living, she is eighty seven, and all she could tell us is that no one ever knew anything about her brother other than he was buried in France.
Last July my cousin placed a query on a WWII web site asking if any one had information on a Lt. William O’Brien. Two weeks later she received an email from a wonderful Frenchman who and called cemeteries where American soldiers were interred until he found where Uncle Bill was buried. He gave her the plot location and number. From that she was able to go to another web site and they went to his grave, placed a wreath at his headstone, took a photo and sent it to us. We felt as if we had closed a big gap in our history.
Two months later my Mother passed away and I have slowly been going through her house trying to sort things out. Just last week I went into the attic for the first time and saw one box that caught my attention. I thought, what could all this be? I reached in and the first thing I pull out was Uncle Bill’s Last letter home to his Mother. The letter was post marked November 10. 1944. Uncle Bill was killed November 11.
There are many other letters from him and all the cards of sympathy she received.
My Grandmother last lived in this house in 1945. This cardboard box has been there for fifty-nine years and the letters are in excellent condition.
My grandfather was a very stern law abiding upright sort of man, pillar of his community, local Justice of the Peace and so on.
When he died we found a well maintained and clearly used roulette wheel with all the accessories. As a student studying statistics I was fascinated by it, it didn’t take long to find that this then highly illegal object in my state had also been rigged.
I didn’t know my Grandmother couldn’t write very well.
My Aunt didn’t accompany her on her last trip to the hospital before she died. Instead Gran went by ambulance because it was such a rush.
After she died, my Aunt went to the house and there were little pieces of paper beside the bed on which my Gran had been practicing how to write as best she could ‘I love you all’.
I am very fortunate in that I have not had yet in my life to have to do what all of you have done. Your stories are all very touching and beautiful and funny and sad, all at the same time. I just want to thank you for sharing them, and thanks to Surreal for starting this thread. Excellent topic.
This isn’t really as poignant or funny as the others, but here’s mine:
My great-grandmother died in 1987 at the age of 96. Throughout her entire adult life, she’d been plagued with heart burn and other mild stomach ailments. About a year ago, my grandmother found one of her mother’s old glasses cases. Inside was a neatly folded piece of tissue paper. My grandmother picked it up to throw it away, and realized that something was inside. When she unfolded the paper, she found a Tums that was at least seventeen years old. It was just like my great grandmother to tuck a Tums into her glasses case for later. She was a thinker, that one.
My great-uncle Oscar was a lovely man, but he was known as an ‘eccentric’ in the parlance of the day. Today he would be classified as mentally ill, and might have spent his last years in assisted living.
Uncle Oscar had a mania for labelling things. Every time he bought something he would tear off a piece of masking tape and label the item. For instance on his can of beans he wrote “Krogers - 8/12/79 - $.39”. His clothing was simply marked on directly with the Sharpie. It seemed that his older clothing was discreetly marked, but the few more recent items were as likely to be marked in plain view. Without exception, every item in the house had a label as to store, date and price.
My favorite was the label on each felt pen, and the underside of the toilet seat.
The OP started this thread on the anniversary of one death in my family, and I couldn’t bring myself to read it on that day. I’ve now read all of the posts, some of which made me smile and others which brought tears to my eyes.
My father had his share of quirks, but I will always remember that after my father died last year, I found some of his mementos from WWII; my father, a young man from the prairies, left high school as soon as he turned eighteen to join the Navy. In his collection of items were photos of him and friends in uniform. There were also some letters that he’d sent and received. One was a notification that one of his pictured friends had been killed.
When my grandparents died, we found not one, but two, of Grandpa’s old pacemakers! Why in the world he would have wanted them is beyond me.
When my parents died, I found a sealed envelope with my original adoption papers identifying my birth parents. I can’t even explain the shock I felt the moment of opening that envelope. I’ve always known I was adopted but my birth parents actually having a name brought a whole new dimension to my concept of “self”. I’ve never considered myself anyone other than “Ruby Smith” (my adoptive parents) and this document confirms the legal name change from “Ruby Jones”(my birth parents). I’m still somewhat weirded out about it.
I helped some friends of mine clean out their grandparents’ attic, long after Grandpaw’s death (Grandma was on her way to a home).
Hidden behind a beam was a super-8 type movie, still in the original box. It was entitled “Anal Dwarf”, and apparently featured - well, male dwarves having anal sex with normal-sized women.
The concept of either grandparent ever watching this stuff was truly inconceivable - they were very typical gandparents - I must admit, we both broke down in howls of laughter (after which he swore me to secrecy, concerning his family).
This is nothing compared to the porn stashes or the artificial hip story, but…
When my grandmother died, my mom and sisters were going thru her stuff to throw out. They came across an old girdle, and my mom was going to throw it away. My younger sister asked if she could have it. My mom shrugged and tossed it to her.
My sister reached into a secret pocket sewn into the lining and pulled out $94. She knew it was there from watching my grandmother go into her girdle drawer to get a treat for her grandkids.
My sister took us all out to dinner that night on the money. We all drank a toast “To Grandma’s girdle”.
You should have seen the look the waitress gave us.
Regards,
Shodan
My older sister was given up for adoption before I was born. Long story but my younger sister and I never knew she existed and she never knew who’d given her up. Unbelivably, the three of us had mutual friends. They used to tell these two girls, both living in different families, that they knew someone else that looked just like them.
When my older sister’s adopted parents died, she found the announcement for my younger sister’s wedding saved in her mother’s stuff. Her Mom, unaware of what the friends had said, would have had no earthly reason to save that clipping. It, combined with the friend’s comments, was the clue that led her back into our lives.
I too have enjoyed reading this thread; there are some very moving posts here.
My Mom passed away last June and while my brothers and I were going through her belongings, we found an insurance claim she’d made back in 1979, when some jewelry was taken from her apartment. Listed were three rings with their approximate value, and last on the list was … a roll of quarters. Yes, that’s right, my mother put in a claim for a roll of quarters that was stolen from her.
Her father passed away in 1987, and I guess she got a lot of his stuff–he was something of a pack rat and had kept many things over the years. One was the receipt for my grandparents bedroom suite, purchased on something akin to lay-away back in 1931. We also found baby pictures of both of her parents, and some pictures even older (pre-1900) of people we haven’t yet been able to identify. We’re still working on that, and I’m working on getting my grandparents baby pics preserved (or whatever the term would be for being able to keep them without them falling apart, which they’re starting to do, unfortunately!).
After my granfather died, my mom was going through his papers. She found a diary.
Here’s the wierd part. My great-grandfather immigrated from Germany to Hawaii. This diary was not his, but someone else’s from Germany. The first part is fairly normal, but suddenly it changes into a day by day account of what the german immigrants in Hawaii were doing. Personal, private things. This person had to have been spying on the others.
We don’t know who this person was or why my grandfather had the diary.
