Keepsakes

The other day I was going through everything I could think of to scare up as many photographs of the Overmans I could find in my possession. Overmans, as opposed to the Chamberlain side of the family were infrequent photographers. This may have been for monetary reasons, or it may have been because they just didn't see the point in taking photographs when remembering was enough. My great grandfather John Milton thought the radio was a waste of of money when you could read all the news in the paper, so I imagine he had little interest in photographs. Then I remembered a box that belonged to my father. The box is something he made in school. It is cedar with a nice red finish and the metal straps he added to it are a little crooked, but overall its a nice piece of workmanship. I keep the box on a bookshelf for display, but I don't open it very often, and I forget what is in it until I think to open it again.

There is a Christmas story called "The Littlest Angel" my mother liked to read to us when we were little. In the story, the youngest angel, hearing that everyone in heaven is preparing gifts for the Christ child decides the best thing he can give is the box he kept under his bed at home when he was mortal. If you've heard the story you know what that box contains. It isn't the value of anything in the box; its that everything in the box is attached to a memory. So it is with my father's box. Nothing in it has any real monetary worth; the things within are only triggers for a memory.

There are little photos of my grandmother and of Max, the brother who died when he was sixteen; a photo of my father on graduation day clowning around for the camera; there's a pocket watch with no crystal that belonged to my great grandfather John Milton; letters for a Letterman sweater from El Monte High School Marching Band; a graduation program and tassel; an old thermometer from Montana, where my uncle Ray worked as a cowboy and met my aunt Betty; the list goes on. Each item had meaning to him. Fortunately he told me what memory was associated with many of these items, but some I don't know and I wish I did.
So it is with many an old box in many a family, when photographs were less important and a small trinket could trigger a memory.