Tag Archives: vintage photos

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Secret Stashes: Old Family Papers

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Old family papers may hold hidden historical gems. These documents were from a Seattle woman living in British Raj India, 1926-1933.

Bins of musty papers, inherited from deceased family members, can be a nuisance to deal with. Yet fascinating historical details and stories may be nestled inside.

Just call me Paper Girl. Somehow, through every branch of my family tree, vintage papers from parents, grandparents, even great-great grandparents, trickled their way to my attic. Well, now to my closet–I’ve downsized. That makes it urgent to use, lose, or carefully store them for the next curious generation.

It certainly requires intense curiosity to want to mess with musty old family papers. Other family members have thrown hands up in despair, eager for me to take custody of anything paper.

Thankfully I’m the right person for that, as I’m finding an abundance of historical clues. And as a writer, my imagination is fueled. I’m seeing wonderful details for articles and books — even plots for historical fiction as well as nonfiction.

It’s also helping me decide what papers to save and organize for my own grown kids and grandchildren, to avoid overwhelming them in the future.

Some papers I can digitize. But in a frenzy to digitize everything, we can lose historical significance. We may only see that significance by physically holding a vintage passport or letter in our hands and noting small details. The feel of the paper, the embossing within it.

One story I wrote for Nostalgia Magazine was sparked by an old letter from my great-grandfather to my grandmother. It’s truly a wonder to hold that original letter in my hands! Legacy of a Walla Walla Pioneer: John Martin Gose (1825-1919) describes my great-grandfather’s journey on the Oregon Trail, including how his wife Hannah was a bit overwhelmed juggling five children in their covered wagon. You may enjoy reading that article to see what I did with the information from the letter, coupled with research I did through ancestry.com and newspapers.com. In case you’re curious about how I figured out how old the children were on the Oregon Trail, see my post Calculating Characters in Family History.

My husband shudders when he opens closets with bins of papers threatening to fall out. But here’s what gold I know those closets contain:

  • Letters from a 19-year-old Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, my husband’s father — and a related WW2 scrapbook and diary.
  • Documents and photos of a U.S. Consul and Foreign Service officer, working in Embassies around the world, 1920-1943: my paternal grandfather. His father-in-law was also a consul and a reporter who witnessed the Wright Brothers practicing their first flights.
  • Letters, diaries, passports, photos and even movie reels from a Seattle couple who lived in the jungles and islands of British India between 1923 and 1933: my maternal grandparents. (See my Jungle Diaries page.)

Feeling overwhelmed by family papers passed down to you? Don’t be in too much of a hurry to toss them or even digitize all of them. There may be gold in them thar bins. If you’ve found interesting historical tidbits, tell me about them! Encourage others to be curious, too.

Laurie

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Finding Stories in Vintage Family Photos

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Are you a writer? A reader? Or a history buff, curious about your ancestors? Regardless, stories intrigue you.  Here’s the first post in my series, Researching Your Own Attic Mysteries. Learn how to dig into your vintage family memorabilia to uncover stories and the personalities behind them.

I  thought of titling this post “I See Dead People”.

Not that it has anything to do with apparitions. Instead, it has to do with those Ahah! moments: when images of people in musty sepia-toned images in your attic suddenly become people who intrigue you. With a little digging, you end up seeing them in whole new light.

Take, for example, this image of my great-great-grandpa, John Martin Gose (1825-1919). My grandma’s grandpa.

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A year ago, this photo meant nothing to me. Even seeing his name marked on the back meant little. But now I know his story, I’m impressed with this guy!

What an adventurer he was. He traveled via covered wagon — from Missouri to California — to take part in the gold rush. He then moved back home, started a family, and brought them all on the Oregon Trail. The journey took nearly a year until they settled as as pioneers in early Walla Walla, Washington.

If that doesn’t beat all, although a farmer, he managed to raise a whole passel of young’uns who became lawyers, a judge and a doctor. All his children prized education so highly that one, my great-grandpa, made sure all his own kids –including four daughters—were university educated before 1920.

One of those girls, my Grandma Gladys, (1897-1994), was also an athlete. She scandalously swam across a lake at U-Dub in a men’s swimsuit to beat the fraternity guys, became a PE teacher in San Diego, then lived in British Raj India for seven years.

It seems that apple Gladys didn’t fall far from the family tree — adventurers begetting adventurers.

Do you now see John, in this photo, a little differently?

Naturally you’re wondering how I learned so much about him. No, I didn’t make his story up imaginatively out of whole cloth. Playing armchair detective, I combed through a combination of oral family history, online ancestry programs, photos, census records, diaries, and letters. A fuller picture of John emerged. It’s amazing, once you have online tools and documents at your fingertips, how quickly you can pull facts together about people in the past.

Old census docs contain a lot of cool details, including occupations, i.e. blacksmith or farmer. Perhaps someday your own great-grandkids will look at a census record about you, and say, “I didn’t know great-grandma was a writer!”

As an author currently writing Gladys’ biography (about her time in India), my exploration of John is more about understanding her backstory. But Gladys is a sum of DNA parts, of her parents and grandparents and their attitudes towards life. It’s nice to not only know her better but also the people who raised her.

I’ll explain more detail in future posts how to use various resources to uncover fascinating family details, which can be used in nonfiction stories, as elements of fictional characters,  or simply help you learn more about your own ancestry.

To not miss any future posts here,  subscribe to CrossConnectMedia.com (upper right of this webpage), and follow my Facebook page, (Laurie Winslow Sargent: for Parents, Writers & the Eternally Curious). I’d also love it if you’d join me on Twitter at @LaurieSargent with #MyAtticMysteries.

I’d love to know if this inspires you to drag some boxes out of your own the attic! Let me know also if you have any questions about this process of exploring old family items.

Feel free to comment with your own tips on researching family documents, to encourage us all in our fun history explorations.

Write on!

Laurie