The Family "Museum"

I love family history-things! :D For the past couple of days, Anna and I have been at my Grandmama and Grandaddy' house, helping Grandaddy clean after their church's VBS. During the in-between-times, Grandmama showed us a ton of family "artifacts". ;) We saw a dress from the `40's that my Great-Great-Grandmother had made, still in perfect condition. And then we were shown a bunch of sweet paintings that had hung in her house. They were not rich, so they are not originals, but framed prints. There is one great gorgeous one of the singer Jenny Lind, and then a few others. Also a huge framed print of some famous Revolutionary War painting. These things were really fun to see, but my favorites were the papers and photographs, and the stories that went along with them! My great-great-great-grandfather was a city jailer in Norfolk, Virginia. One night the prisoners broke out, and were about to shoot him, but one said, 'Don't shoot him- he was nice to me." So they locked him in a closet instead! :P It was all over the papers, and there are pictures of him, just as Grandmama has always described him; bowler hat, glasses, smart cane, and dapper suit. From what I hear, Great-great-great-grandfather was a bit of a dandy! :D
We were shown pictures of relatives, some unmarked. It was rather funny to see the "bathing suits" of the day, because they look like ruffly pillow-cases! :) Just like any other story there was some tragedy mixed up in the bunch. The lovely Gertie, with the most delicious dimples in her cheeks, traveled for years to try to recover from her tuberculosis, but ended up dying of it. Previously, her husband was killed by a cargo hook in a riot! :O One uncle, a police officer, was kicked by a drunken woman and died of blood poisoning! :( Rather gruesome ways of dying! But then there were some sweet stories to go along with the sadness! My Great-great-grandmother married one Gates brother, and they had my Great-grandmother. But only two years later, that Gates brother died. A couple of years later my Great-great-grandmother married the other Gates brother, and they had two more children and lived happily ever after! :) I love stories like that! :) And then there were pictures of the most deliciously adorable babies, and we aren't even sure who they are! Anyway, this may not be interesting to anyone but myself, but I just LOVE family history! The little oddities that surface when rummaging through attics, and the secrets lying on the pages of long-forgotten papers...it's enthralling! I got a peep at my Great-great-grandmother's marriage certificates! On one of them, the clerk had not finished the year! All it said was "September (something or another), 190-". He probably just forgot to finish it! But it is much more funny to imagine something about that clerk. Maybe it was a quiet wedding, and he had had a little too much of a nip at the champagne provided for the wedding party! During the ceremony, the pastor' droning voice lulled him to sleep over his pen. A few minutes later with a loud"ahem!" the clerk woke to the gruff pastor, and the loving couple watching him anxiously. With an incoherent mumble, and a rough rubbing of his suspiciously rosy nose, the clerk took up his pen again, and, not being quite himself, could not remember the year, and so skipped it, and quickly finished the certificate, hoping no one would notice. There! I have incriminated the poor clerk of over 100 years agone! Justice comes someday! ;D Hey! Wouldn't it be fun if each family could have a sort of family museum, where all the treasures were displayed? It would be so much the better to be able to enjoy and learn about the things from people who knew the owners of them, than to wait till they've all died off, and everything is merely speculation! :) Just an idea! -Rachel