I’ve always been a bit nosy. Whenever we visited my grandparents’ homes’ I’d love to look through their china cabinets in search of pretty shiny things. I’d admire the collection of Waterford crystal vases and gifts given on silver wedding anniversaries.
On a memorable occasion, we convinced my grandma Rose (pictured above in her high school graduation portrait) to open her cedar chest and we found layers of history. Old report cards of my uncle and father, a layer deeper the hospital jackets from when they were born, below that her wedding dress and veil wrapped carefully in layers of tissue paper, and then the fine linens and hand-crocheted lace doilies and tablecloths given as wedding gifts – still pristine because they were always too nice to use.
Sometimes I’d explore further and without adult supervision, poking my head into closets and boxes stored in basements. That’s where the true treasures were hiding. In one sagging and dusty shoebox, we found the letters my grandfather had written to my grandmother from Egypt, where he was stationed during World War II, along with snapshots of the pyramids. In another, stacks of formal black and white (and some hand colored) wedding portraits, each neatly in it’s own display folio. Both of my paternal grandparents came from large Italian immigrant families, so I spent a good while quizzing my dad on the identities of each bride, groom and member of the wedding party. Doing this, I learned that one universally-beloved unwed aunt had in fact been briefly married to a man seeking a green card.
At my other grandparent’s house, I found a fireproof box that we sifted through, finding old glass-plate negatives, my great-great-uncle’s ship captain’s paperwork, and a portrait of my great-great-aunt Minnie Harbort taken as a young woman at the famous Bachrach photography studio. At this particular time, I was in high school and immersed in black and white film photography, and my grandfather gifted me the image. Great-great-aunt Minnie apparently had strong opinions about who was a “real Harbort” and while my mother had the seal of approval I don’t know that I would. I do know that I am happy to have seen and held these images and heard these stories.
