A recent visit to my childhood home, where my 89-year-old mother still rules the roost, resulted in the discovery of a small envelope of items my father had saved throughout the years and kept in the bottom of his jewelry box. For some reason this had gone unnoticed by my family, even though we’d been through most of my father’s things several times since he died in 2001. Because my mother’s idea of sentiment is to make sure all the bills are paid up-to-date before she dies, I decided to bring the envelope home and store it in my collection. But on the way I passed some of the items by my scanner, and though I know I risk boring you to tears, I do think it’s interesting to look at any life through the lens of a few pieces of ephemera someone chose to save.
I won’t say any of these things gave me terrific insight into my father, or shed any new light on what is a fairly dark picture of a man I never had much of a relationship with. But they certainly triggered some memories and helped me realize I might not be so different from my father after all. I have my own small collection of ephemera in my jewelry box and while by no means completely representative of my life, I suppose it says a few things about me and my priorities.
My dad, born in 1920, was an only child who grew up in rural Pennsylvania and rarely spoke of his childhood. Finding so many items from that era really opened my eyes to my dad as a young boy. Turns out he was a Boy Scout, and a Junior Lifesaver, and when old enough, he registered for the draft.
I can’t even imagine my dad as a high-school student, so things like these mementos from that period paint a picture of someone I can barely relate to.
And just thinking about my dad going to his first dance and being named the most-handsome boy at Lincoln High School gives me the willies, as I always thought of my dad as awkward around women and not much of a romantic — he certainly didn’t provide any guidance to me in that area. But there in the envelope was his first dance card, complete with the names of all the girls he danced with. I was slightly freaked to discover that one of the girls he romanced that night in 1936 was named Marguerite, the name he gave to my older sister, his first born. Since it’s not a very common name, I have to believe she made quite an impression.
Kids today have Facebook and MySpace and probably send out Evites for their parties. Things were a little less sophisticated back then, as this invitation to a classmate’s party clearly shows.
After high school my dad attended a year or two of local college. I would never have pegged him for a cheerleader, but along with the other material was his cheerleader’s letter, an award, and a picture of him with the rest of the cheerleading squad (he’s on the far left). And while it has none of the hallmarks of a real fraternity, he saved his membership card in some sort of secret society, complete with a special sign.
After serving in World War II (he saved his identification card), my dad returned to Pennsylvania and worked in a steel mill (and saved the picture below).
I knew my dad to be a bit of a ham, and he was always trying to pull of some sort of magic trick or another, usually without success. Clearly, based on these card-trick items he saved, his interest in magic began pretty early, long before he made the journey out west to California.
At some point shortly after the war, I do know my dad convinced his mother and father that California was where the opportunities were, so they bought a house trailer and made their way to the Golden State. Here is a picture of my grandparents taken somewhere along the way (they’re in the rear) and a shot of the trailer park in El Monte, California, where the family ended up (and my father met my mother).
When my dad met my mother, he was working as a clerk in a supermarket. I’m glad he saved these pictures since there’s little documentation from that time. And this is the only color picture I’ve ever seen of my parent’s wedding.
Soon the kids were on the way; here’s my proud dad with his first born, Marguerite, along with a convertible Buick I heard quite a bit about when I was a kid.
I couldn’t figure out why my dad hung on to a Christmas card he had signed to his own father, until I checked with my mother and got the sequence of events straight. My dad’s father died from a heart attack at an early age, before I was born. It happened only a few days before Christmas, so my dad never had a chance to give this card to his father.
My parents had three kids and my Dad was pretty photo-happy, so there were a fair amount of pictures in his secret envelope. Here’s one of the last of them where we all look pretty happy, and a note I made as a small child reminding my dad that just because I had lost a tooth didn’t mean I should be cheated out of the tooth-fairy loot. And why my dad hung on to my First Communion Certificate, I don’t know. He never seemed to believe in Catholicism, converting only so he could marry my mother.
Things started to go downhill for my dad when, after 18 years, he quit his job with the supermarket chain. He was really proud of working his way up from a stock clerk to Vice President, and he held on to all of his business cards once he hit Corporate. Below those is the last paragraph of his resignation letter, a carbon copy of which he kept in the envelope. In many ways, it is the most defining moment in my father’s life.
After that my dad had a hard time holding down any one job and moved around quite a bit (as these business cards he saved clearly demonstrate). He also had brief stints as a real-estate agent and a locksmith, neither of which worked out very well.
When my oldest sister Marguerite died unexpectedly of Leukemia when she was 18, it hit my dad hard. My mother is an unemotional, stoic school-nurse who prides herself on never having been sick and never having cried, so most of the emotion fell to my dad. It didn’t help that by then he was mostly unemployed and my mom had to go back to work to support the family. He held on to this holy card from my sister’s funeral and this picture of her, which he had taken and was very proud of.
Eventually my dad ended up working his life out as a clerk in a local hardware store, which actually suited him pretty well. I never thought of him as being cut out for the executive life. I’ll end my tour of dad’s envelope stash with these three images, which take things through the time I left home. First is the WD-40 pocket protector he wore to work every day, then a picture of me I gave him as a teenager during my SCUBA diving phase, and lastly, something that reminds me most of my father — a small bag with a drill bit, appropriately tagged.
I’m not sure what the drill bit was for, but it was just like my dad to save it in case he needed it someday. I learned quite a few things from my father, as we all do, though I often wish he had taught me more. To this day I also save everything, and I am similarly inclined to bag and mark things the way he did. So at least when I die and someone goes through my many envelopes of mementoes, everything will be well organized.
I’m glad I was here to open my dad’s satchel of memories and give them one last spin before they fade away forever. Thanks for indulging me.
This article was last modified on May 18, 2023
This article was first published on August 15, 2008
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