[katiesue]

I've done a awful lot of postmortem detective work. Our house was full of everyone's things. My maternal grandmother bought it in 1952. Her mother in law and her mother both lived with them before they died. So some of their things ended up in the basement.

My paternal grandmother (this all gets confusing as my Dad was raised by his aunt and uncle only no one told him) died in the early 60's right after my parents got married. My grandfather then moved away so a lot of her things got stored in the basement. Some hadn't even been unpacked they were still in the original newspapers.

Then various Great Aunts and Uncles passed away. Some never had children so their things ended up in the basement as well.

We moved into the house in 1976. So lots of our things ended up down there as well. Then my Dad died in 1990. Mom went through some of it (the large porn collection was gone) but a lot of it was still there.

I spent a year going through all of their belongings. A lot of it I don't really know whose is whose. Boxes of blurry, tiny, mystery photographs. Letters from people I have no idea who they are. Little boxes of treasures that must have meant something to someone.

There were a lot of my paternal grandmothers things. All still boxed up as they were in the early 60's. It made me sad. None of her things were deemed worth enough of even taking out to look at in all that time. I found a beautiful tea set that I took home. She loved to give large parties and had an extensive collection of glasses. None of them costly crystal but I've got a few of her champagne and liqueur glasses. I'm guessing I'll never use most of this but I feel she passed in our family relatively unnoticed.

There are very few photos of my grandmother. At least that I've found so far. The ones she's in are small and she's far away. I found one portrait of her as a child and one with my grandfather when they were very young. My cousin told me it was a very unhappy marriage. I know my Dad was very spoiled being an only child. He rarely spoke of her. I'm not exactly sure what all went down when he found out she was really his Aunt, and his real parents and sisters lived one house over. Whatever it was he never spoke of it.

No one actually spoke of her much. My grandfather remarried (his high school sweetheart) and I never heard him speak of her at all. My Dad only very rarely. My great Aunts & Uncles, Cousins, all never really speak of her. I have no idea if she had any friends. I know family was very important to her. Otherwise not much else. No letters, scrap books, photo albums. I'm sure she must have possessed all of those things.

I just feel badly that she's so missing from our family. She died before I was born. I'm sure she would have been one of those grandparents that was at your house every day. At every game, play, awards ceremony. My cousin Lorena is like that. My other grandparents weren't horrible people or anything but my maternal grandfather died long before I was born, my fraternal grandfather moved away and my maternal grandmother worked, then moved when I was in 4th grade.

I think I missed out not knowing her. And with the few artifacts I've got I don't get a great sense of what she was really like. A few of my relatives that knew her don't really say much about her. It just makes me sad. And even more sad knowing that my Dad was so important to her, but seemed to have erased her. I don't know what their relationship was like in person but with how little he even mentioned her I don't think he ever got over it.