As we set about collecting and cataloging the items in his home, we found history pamphlets written by his grandfather about the first settlements in Arizona, catalogues and books about his sister-in-law who was a well-known feminist artist in Boston and Europe in the 1920's and a silver chalice with antler handles from his grandfather's Masonic Lodge in California pre-1900.
Our most surprising discoveries however, were pictures this young air force officer took of Hitler's house in Germany when our troops reached it, pieces of brick from Hitler's bunker and pictures of Russians in labor camps. Yesterday, while looking for certain legal documents, I came across his military identification card-a proud, serious young man stared at me from those musty, cold files.
Sadly, his heirs are not interested in these items. It appears that their wish is that these items be sold and the cash divided among them.
I do not know what kind of relationship this man had with his family. He could have been arrogant and degrading to them or he could have been the best of fathers. Whatever those private circumstances, I find it astonishing that these people appear not to care about the past nor the role their family played in key historic events of the late 19th and 20th centuries.
If we take the time to talk to our children and relive the roles our families played in our common histories in the United States, perhaps those things we leave behind will be cared for and cherished, and not allowed to moulder in cardboard boxes.
1 comment:
Jackie,
I'm not sure you're right about this. I think that you're making a lot of assumptions about people without knowing many salient facts that could impact these people and the decisions that they are making.
For example, perhaps they are struggling financially? It wouldn't be tough to imagine, things are tough all over. Maybe they already discussed this and were trying to save face with you?
Or perhaps they simply didn't know how to divvy things up and instead of "cutting the baby in half" they decided it best to let it all go?
Still another possibility is that these kids loved their father a tremendous amount and the idea that these tokens of his life would be with them, haunting them with the memory of something dead instead of the memories they have of the life that each one of them shared with him made them choose to be rid of the physical reminders of his passing.
The point of course is that unless you asked them, unless they said something to you that gave you a solid indication of their own personal reasons for what they had decided, all you've got is speculation that is tinged it seems by your own propensity towards attaching a lot of importance to physical things.
There's nothing wrong with that but you should be sure to try and remember that other people form different kinds of attachments and in some cases the memories that live, vibrant and green and breathing in someone's head are a far more important and tangible connection to someone that has left them behind than anything that they can physically touch.
Oliver
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