Dear Becky,
I just had to take a moment to share a fantastic discovery I made today. My parents (who are in their mid-70s) are finally retiring, and have decided to sell their house, buy an rv, and travel. As the only daughter, it’s now my responsibility to keep all the family photo albums and heirlooms that have been passed down.
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This afternoon I began sorting through some of the items from my maternal grandparents. It has been an amazing experience. Apparently they both believed in documenting life, and they saved every postcard, letter, diary, and so on that they ever wrote or received. Going through some of their items today has been a trip back in time! I know how important the idea of documenting our life story is, and I just wanted to share that I apparently come from a long line of “Project Life”-ers, even if they didn’t have the materials back then to archive stuff properly. How wonderful it has been today to share all this rich history with my own children! How much more poignant because I never met my maternal grandfather (he died many years before I was born), but in his mementos today I have felt him very near to me.
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I wanted to share a few of the things I’ve come across today. I’ve attached a photo collage that includes (clockwise from top left): all the bills/receipts for the building of my grandparents’ farmhouse, two tickets to a 1920 dance, a receipt for $20 for payment of the doctor’s fee for delivering my mother (at home on the farm), a giant wallet containing all my grandfather’s crop locations for each year (he meticulously drew each year’s crops out on paper and listed how many bushels he got of each), my grandfather’s driver’s license from 1941, a grocery list, and my mother’s and grandmother’s war ration books from WWII. I also found post cards and Valentines my grandmother received (from 1909-1930), my grandfather’s war registration cards for WWI and WWII, and even the straight razor he used to shave with (still in its original case)! All in all, this has been an unbelievable adventure today.
As I’ve looked through all this priceless documentation, I am almost transported back in time to the early 1900s. And I am once again mindful of just how important Project Life is. Documenting everything, including the mundane everyday things that we don’t think are important (like grocery lists), will one day paint a picture of us for the generations to come. How awesome. So thanks for being such a big supporter of all of us who believe in documenting our life story. You rock!
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My name is Sabrina Pobst, and I live in Oran, Missouri. And I love Project Life and what it has done for me. Amen. : )
Tags: heritage, Project Life
Wow!! What an amazing collection!!
What a great letter. How lucky Sabrina is to have such great momentos! Thank you for sharing it with us Becky.
Beautiful – how special are those memories! Thank you for sharing.
AWESOME!!! And hey Sabrina..I am in Missouri too!!!
I know a Borcherding who lives in Missouri!
Small world!
Call me emotional but it makes me ready eyed!
Thanks for sharing this. My eyes started watering while reading this. Amazing!
Simply AMAZING!!! Those are true treasures.
Thank you so much for sharing. It goes to show how important it is to document the “Everday things”.
Absolutely amazing. Thank you for sharing!!
WOW, I too recently came across unknown buried treasure in my MIL’s basement, like this, but even older. I have a marriage certificate from 1867! It is my husbands great-great-parents, the original immigrant to this country from Ireland. I found dolls from his great great grandmother, and that generations “facebook” an autograph book of sorts that was full of quotes and all handwritten as though it were used as a year book…full of well wishes to her as she graduated. I have graduation announcements from 1887, two bibles from the 1880′s and my father in laws hair clipping from his first hair cut as a baby! *he passed away before I met my husband…and he was an ONLY child! To think that all of this from his side of the family was down there…Ah mazing! numerous newspaper clippings about the family spanning over 130 years. I cant wait to photograph these items and blog about them
thanks for sharing…So glad that there are treasures for us to share with our kids!
WOW!!! This is totally priceless. Thank you for sharing, gives me so much more to appreciate and I hope my kids will learn to do the same as they get older looking back on the stuff I’ve done/do for them.
Thank you SO much for sharing (both Sabrina & Becky). I have to admit this was a bit of a wake-up call for me! I’m on my 2nd year of PL and journal a TONNE but haven’t included a lot of stuff. My method is to take a photo every day and fill out an accompanying journaling card, so I’m not sure how to incorporate all the stuff??? This post makes me realize how much I would treasure items like this from my grandparents and makes me think twice about throwing out all those grocery lists and the tickets to the Smurfs movie (which I actually stuck in a PL pocket but was considering throwing out because there was nothing really special about them).
How does everyone else incorporate “stuff” when you have a photo in the 4×6 slot and a journaling card in the 4×3 slot?
Kristy – go to Ali Edwards.com she incorporates alot of stuff. She will be moving to a 3rd binder for the year soon. She saves all sorts of bits and pieces. She has a post done for each week this year – so lots to read and get ideas from.
There is no other reason to do Project Life than what is right there that you have shared with us. Thank you Becky for that. Sabrina, I hope you keep finding many more amazing pieces of history and much more of your famillies dots are connected. A truly wonderful thing. xo
What an absolute gift they have saved for your family! Thank you so much for sharing this with us! You brought years to my eyes. When I work on my various memory keeping projects (Project Life included) I think about the people who might someday look through the projects I am putting together. Will it be my own children who view this as a treasure, their children…I don’t know, but just like your grandparents I do it anyway. I do it for myself and for those who come after me. I know that some of them might view it as just a bunch of old stuff, but others like you and I, will view it as a treasure chest! Thank you again!
This gave me chills!
Wow! I felt like this was me all over again! We did this 3 years ago with my parent’s/grandparent’s collectables as well. The items, clippings, postcards, obits, etc that we found are priceless. I found things of my mothers (who’s been gone for 32 years) that I didn’t know existed! My grandparents were immigrants from Denmark in the early 1900′s and the papers that we discovered are priceless. I’ve been sorting, organizing and documenting all of this which has been a huge task for my parents and grandparents saved everything too! I love it as it’s a journey through the 1900′s till present about their lives which is so fascinating! Enjoy and have fun organizing! It’s time-consuming, but, oh so worth it in the end!
What an amazing find. I keep getting lost between PURGING papers out of my own home and trying so hard to save some of the stuff like you found today. I must remember to keep some things.
This is wonderful! I had goosebumps reading this letter and looking at the pictures. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for all the comments on my letter. I’m so glad all of you feel the same way I do about this stuff! It’s made me much more aware of what I throw away because I think it’s mundane or unimportant. Some day down the road, someone’s going to go through this stuff and want to see real bits and pieces of my life. I have been inspired by Ali Edwards’ take on Project Life, and the way she includes all the extra stuff (movie tickets, letters her kids write, important cards and papers, receipts) into her albums. I want to make sure I add that kind of stuff to my album as well. Although I love the photos and journaling, I want to make sure I include those tangible records of my life and what I’ve done, too.
I agree that it’s difficult to find a happy medium between purging and saving. I still feel like I save too much, but I’m working on finding that perfect balance.
Sabrina….Thanks to you and Becky for sharing all this with the rest of us! What a find!! I too have some of these same items from my grandparents. I needed to see this today..I am married, but we don’t have children yet. Lately, I have been questioning why I save all this stuff, if we end up not having a family of our own……for some reason, seeing all this today has made me realize that all my nieces and nephews may one day be happy to see that I saved all the letters and postcards they have sent me….So Thanks! Janet
Oh My God, this is Wonderland to me, i always collecting ond stuff from the family. I just Love it!!!!
That is so amazing! It reiterates and motivates me to continue on Project Life! Thanks for sharing!!!
This is so awesome! This is the sort of thing I hope to accomplish for my family by doing Project Life. I actually grew up with my grandparents and I gave them books to record their memories and stories in when we announced that were expecting our first baby. I’ve heard so many neat stories but I hope that by them recording some of them, they can be passed on to my kids, grandkids, and the rest of our family for generations to come, as well as all of the documenting I am doing in my Project Life books.
Terrific!! I come from a long line of memory keepers and have been continuing the tradition. I LOVE seeing things like this because it reaffirms how important it is to save some of the little things in life! This is my first year doing PL and I love it. Quick and easy to get the basics down!
It is all
So
Worth it!!
Thank you for posting this – this was just the boost I needed to get me going again, as I have fallen behind a few months. But now, now I am determined to get caught up. Thank you!
Unbelievably awesome!!! Re-affirms my belief that the things I’m doing to document life will be appreciated in the future. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, Sabrina, did you hit the jackpot! What a wonderful look into the past — and what a treasure! I really envy you, I”d love to find something like this. Thanks for sharing, your letter was wonderful.
What an incredible collection! I love all of the things that they kept and passed on, precious now but amazing that someone kept them at the time.
Great letter!
I absolutely hope that one day I can provide such wonderful treasures for generations to come. It makes me want to put some of my bills in my Project Life album. Paperless bills are clearly over-rated! LOL
She’s very lucky to have all of that family history. Too many people throw it all away when a family member passes away.
Wow! Wonderful story and photos of artifacts. Just marvelous. Thanks for sharing and for valuing telling your story.
very very cool! I bought project life back in 09. I didn’t make it through Jan and I gave up. I absolutely love love the new designs, but i think I’ll get it back out and start it this coming year.
That’s great!
Have a question, Becky. What’s the best way to store all these memorabilia? I take pictures of each of them but I find that I cannot just throw them away even if they are practically disintegrating.
Thanks,
Maria
oh wow… you lucky lady!
Thanks for sharing.
Love this! My Grandma is going to sell her house and downsize into seniors housing. She has lots of old papers, I want to help her go through them and take some of the ‘gems’.
Each and every piece is a gem. May I suggest you scan all the papers before saving just some of the gems?
WOW…so enjoyed your post. Very nice and just a nice little pick me up of a not so wonderful day…thank you for that:)
Thanks so much for sharing! I also recently was given some family pictures and history to scrapbook. I would love to see what you end up doing with everything!
My father died a month ago. Irene dumped 5″ in my parents’ basement. So I’ve been slogging through the mess… I scanned many paper items that simply can’t be saved. Other items I have kept – keeping them from the trash bin in many cases. I love knowing others are doing the same.
Now — Becky — do you know of any way to share these treasures with scholars who would drool at the opportunity to delve into ordinary lives?
I love this story, how sweet and wonderful to have all these treasures. Enjoy them.
Every moment is a gift. It should be treasured.
I, too, have a lot of memorabilia-stuff from my grandparents, etc. Your letter made me think about the possibilities of using a Project Life album to store and display it? I might end up scanning and photographing some things to get them to fit, but it would be a fun way to make it all accessible vs. in boxes and forgotten.