Dumpster Diving: Saving History One Collection at a Time

• Official Department of Health medical ledgers recording 1918 flu quarantines - discarded for no known reason
• Trophies showing the achievements of former students - discarded when the school wanted to celebrate new beginnings and make a clean sweep of the old
• Vital records - discarded after they were digitized

These are some of the collections that I have found in archives in my career. They were saved from the trash by well-meaning persons -- citizen archivists, if you will -- who had the sense to question the decision of another well-meaning person. Records (and artifacts) may be tossed for nefarious reasons such as the desire to get rid of evidence, but more often than not materials are thrown away due to lack of understanding about the documentation of history.

• Medical records - useful for broadening our understanding of epidemics and communities. Required by law to be maintained.
• Vital records - required by law to be maintained even after digitization. Digitization of original records is not an accepted permanent preservation measure for state recorded data.
• Trophies - useful for increasing our understanding of our history, showing that our history has long roots, and for boosting civic pride. (Though not quite on par with the materials above, and focused on what are usually considered museum collections and not archival, I threw this one in here because I'm betting that some people can relate to this scenario. Don't live in the moment when evaluating artifacts. Consider the future.)

There are many reasons to consider taking items out of your collection. Those maintaining collections are encouraged to familiarize themselves with acceptable procedures for disposition. Gain an understanding of archival appraisal.   Contact appropriate authorities if you are not certain of disposal practice. For government records, contact your State Record Manager or archivist. They are usually found through your secretary of state's office. CoSA (Council of State Archivists) can refer you to the proper place. Consider hiring an archivist familiar with procedures if you are an independent facility, such as a historical society, before making decisions.

I hate seeing collections saved by dumpster divers because I know for every collection that they saved, it is more than likely that others were lost on another day. Our history is precious. Records and artifacts lost cannot be regained. Be sure of what you are doing when you get rid of something. If you are not sure, please don't do it! And spread the word!

Gifts of Heritage 2013

As the leaves begin to turn here in the Northeastern United States, we begin to think about the holiday season. In past years, I have posted about making holiday gifts of heritage. [Gifts of Heritage 2011 ;  Gifts of Heritage 2010] This year, I am going to post about finding gifts. Fresh from my local Comicon event, I am thinking about the things from our childhoods that bring back memories. Giving items that bring back holiday memories for the recipient is fun, but it is also fun for each of us to set out on a mission to find items from our past.


Love for Comics Span Generations

Last week, we walked through the aisles of the Granite State Comicon searching for My Little Pony items for my young crazed fan. MLP has a huge audience these days. In fact, My Little Pony was an "in" toy for 80s children a few years younger than I. Today's audiences are a whole different breed. Kids today like the big eyed ponies, rather than the rounder bodied ones of my youth. The ponies are also popular with "bronies,"which was something unheard of in my day. Comic books bring us together and could make a fabulous heritage gift for any living generation. For my parents, Howdy Doody and Superman comics abound. For me, it was the Marvel superheroes, Archie, and Casper. Check your local comic book store, Ebay, or the local garage sales to seek those characters who bring back happy memories for the holidays. One does not need to be a collector to enjoy a bit of one's most fun childhood reading material.

Food Heritage Gifts

 I'm big on creating and recalling memories with food. Consider filling a Christmas stocking with a comic book and some good old fashioned candies. [Consider that it's also not too late to buy some heritage candy for the Halloween season, since I got a jump start on this column early this year!] Many companies these days offer the candies of old. Search Google for "old fashioned candy."

When I was young, my holidays were filled with potato pancakes and matzoh balls. We don't make these things often enough in my house. While many of us still hold on to cooking and baking traditions, so many of us have given them up. We bake cookies in December in my house, but when I was young my mom covered the dining room table with chocolates that she gave as gifts to teachers and others who helped us throughout the year - chocolate covered cherries, chocolate and mint wafers, peanut butter cups...she even made a chocolate house for the family to enjoy. It would be nice to bring back some of those traditions from my childhood to share with my kid.

Toys with Memories

I plan to include this photo of me drawing in a gift of
brush markers for my daughter this coming holiday season.

The toys from our past still make great gifts and can bring back comforting memories. Do you have memories of a favorite toy? Consider sharing your love for that item writing down your memory of it and including it in a wrapped gift to a child. For example, I remember sitting in our large front hallway zooming Matchbox cars back and forth with the neighbors. My daughter loves to hear stories of my childhood and sharing it through my childhood toys adds to the interest.

This year, I began bringing games into my library for my students. I brought in some of my thinking favorites such as Mille Bornes and Battleship. I asked the high school students what else they wanted. Reminiscing about their earlier childhoods already, they asked for games such as Candyland, Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders. I was surprised that teens wanted to play these kids' games. I was equally surprised that so many of their games were games that conjured memories from my own childhood.

So when thinking about gifts this year, think about those memories that you can share. Think about connecting generations with gifts that appeal to all. Go out and look for them if you don't have them in your home. Bring your child to help you find gifts for your significant other. Talk to your parents and spouses about their most special old toys and foods and try to bring back that feeling of "specialness". They say that you can't really ever go back, but you can keep the memories alive. And, you can create memories for future generations based on past traditions.

The Information is in the Details

Have we lost our curiosity?

I remember the red. We sat on the floor -- 20 five and six year olds -- staring up at the pull down screen. The film projector whirred and clicked behind us, the light from the image catching the dust in the air. It was my first time. REVOLUTION. AMERICA. RED COATS. Funny outfits. Fascinating outfits. They were a long way way in time from my saddle shoes and yellow yarn hair ribbons. They were a long way in space too. My Long Island home seemed very far from this New England.

The second time...that I remember at least...my fifth grade teacher suggested that I go visit a mansion for sale in her neighborhood. "It's old. I think you'll like it. Ask your parents to take you." Not surprisingly, it was the details of the library in that old house that I remember. Books lined every wall. Columns punctuated corners. There was light streaming in from the windows at a perfect angle for any reader lucky enough to sit in the lemon yellow reading chair in the corner. The smell of mold permeated. "That is the smell of old," I thought. "People lived here and now they are gone. Who got to read in that chair?"

Slowly throughout my childhood I took in the details. The dust catching the light of the movie projector was the same dust that got caught up in the sunlight of the old house. It was the same dust I saw when I hung upside down on my parents bed to look at the ceiling. Books were everywhere. (It helped that mom brought me to the public library every week to help develop my healthy appreciation of books.) Reading was everywhere. I read signs and cereal boxes. Signs of life and ideas were everywhere. Someone had written a symbol in the wet cement of my childhood driveway when it was first poured. It was there before my family. "Why did someone put it there?"

The details of the pines at Lake Massabesic in Manchester, NH
are inspiring. It's the details that awaken our curiosity.

My curiosity drove me to look for the information in the details. Curiosity lead to more curiosity and eventually discovery. But now, I am beginning to wonder, is our first stab at life in the 21st century killing our curiosity? Do we notice the details any more? Have our kids ever noticed the details? I watch people walk by informative signs every day. I watch readers power through or struggle with passages without picking up another resource that helps explain the parts that are not understood. I watch spring flowers pop and hear the birds chirping. I stop to listen and look for more. The information is in the details. The learning is in the details. Do other people stop to look and listen?

Information resources can be like the whipped cream on top of the sundae. It adds a little extra something sweet. OR, information resources can be the chunks of chocolate deep within the ice cream of that sundae. When you dig, you find something extra special.

I think that we may be forgetting this. I think that many of us are not teaching our kids this. My kid is creating creative videos and doing a lot of writing on a tablet these days. Despite how awesome it is that she is creating, we require her to come up for air to go for nature walks, play ball, visit a museum or just play outside. I may be one of the biggest fans of digital information tools and social media that I know, I am still concerned about losing "real life" and a real sense of history to it. I am worried that my kid does not get enough of it.

I think that we are forgetting that it is worth digging beyond the surface sweetness to find the true nuggets that make our lives meaningful and connect us to our communities of the past, present, and future. In my field, "who lived here before me?" is only adequately pondered when striving to take in the details. I don't care who built this house if I just live here. That is, many of us don't care who lived here unless the basement floods. Then we wonder, "what crazy person built the home on a flood plain?" Instead, I'd rather ponder the question every day. "Who looked out these windows before me? Did they hear the birds singing too? Were they the same kinds of birds?"

To understand information and its value as a whole, one needs to be curious about the details. We gain that curiosity by paying attention. We are taught to pay attention by our encounters in life. If our children bury their noses in iPads all day, they don't get a chance to encounter life. What information are we then losing? What sense of purpose are we losing?

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Food Memories

There is always a story behind what we eat (and what we don't eat). 

In December, my daughter and I were admiring the gingerbread houses at a local pastry shop. The shop is down the street from her dance class and I bring her in once in awhile so she can get a treat. The gingerbread houses were part of a contest. My daughter and I voted for our favorites and this entered us into a contest to win a free tray of pastries. Above is the winning tray - a plate of pastries that I won for my friends. (Thanks Frederick's Bakery!)  BUT, I have Celiac disease and can't touch the stuff. I think the last time I won a raffle was for Yankee tickets when I was in high school. My Dad  gave them away because we couldn't travel into the city to use them. The treats do look delicious and I'm awaiting my friends' visit right now for some tea and company, AND so I can give away my treats like a pair of Yankee tickets... but I digress...

Bring up any particular food and I think I'd have a story about it that represents my life at that particular moment: From the Three Musketeers bar that I ate on the way home to placate my sweet tooth while the Frederick's tray sat beside me; (Yes, the candy is gluten free.) To the salami sandwich I had for lunch yesterday, which my husband proudly invented for me when I was ill last year... there are stories for almost everything I eat - when I first discovered the food; what I like about it and why.

On my drive home from the bakery I began thinking about all of the snapshots of food that I have in my photo albums. I have one of me laughing as a teen with my mouth closed tight full of cake. It's one of my favorites because my hair looked good that day. I have another one of me holding up a birthday cake that I shared with my aunt because her birthday is around the same time as mine. I have one of me cutting cake with my husband at our wedding... In fact, I realize now that I think about it that most of the food images I can remember involve birthday cake or sweets. I guess that most people must document birthdays and cake events better than any other event in their lives.

The black and white images in this post are orphan photos that I found in antique shops to illustrate my "Life in Context" project with professional organizer Sue West. Part one of the project focuses on food. All of the images involve meals at the table, foods half way to the eater's mouth or piled on plates. They are very informal images, capturing a moment in time and illustrating a shared human experience. [hmmm...There is no cake.]

It wasn't too hard to seek out images of food for illustration. The images are plentiful, yet we give them little thought. I'm going to try to go dig mine up today and see if they tell some sort of story about my life - a tale of who I am through what I eat.

How are you documenting your food memories? Do any of these images kick off memories for you about food? What role does food play in your life? How do the choices you make reflect your communities and people in your life? Have you won any food contests lately?

(This one is my favorite!)

Share your food memories at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeincontext/ and look for these images in the upcoming Life in Context Food Memories Workbook!

Is It Important to Recall Memories Accurately?

I had an interesting conversation with my mother the other day. (Sorry mom, all conversations are writing / presentation fodder unless they obviously aren't or you instruct me otherwise!) I often use family stories to illustrate points about saving and preserving archives. Mom mentioned that I get her stories all mixed up sometimes when I write about them. Then she said to me, "Oh well. It doesn't matter. They will never know." We laughed about my deranged memories while I wondered, "Which do I get mixed up?" but I didn't actually articulate that thought. (I've got a feeling that we might have long conversation about this in the next few days.)

How important is it really to get the stories accurate? Are family stories just a matter of remembering our loved ones and having a general idea of what they went through? Or, are the details important? And to whom should those details be important?

Memories are like a game of telephone, especially with family stories. One generation relates tales of upbringing to the next. A mother tells a daughter what her mother told her. The story gets changed a bit in the telling. This happened with my own daughter the other day. I explained to her that like her, I was very good at math and I loved it, especially geometry. Then when I was in high school, I had a teacher for trigonometry with whom I didn't click. My interest moved away from rigorous study of math in part because of the teacher, in part for other reasons. Whereas, Daddy is a definite math type. He studies calculus for fun. I told my elementary school aged daughter that one day Daddy will be the one to help her with her calculus. Somehow, this got mixed up in her head and came out a few days later as, "Mommy you are not good at math like Daddy and me."

Never mind that I don't want to be remembered for not being very good at math, especially since I use it all the time for things like space planning and for adding the grocery bill in my head. How important is it that the detail that mommy was an excellent math student gets passed down one day to my descendants?


Information about our activities may never end up in a repository. The details of one's life may never be studied so that a researcher better understands society and culture. But, then again they might. Even if they are not examined by a wider community, I believe that the truth about our lives has a place in family memory. I almost titled this post "How important is it to record memories accurately?" And I think that is the point here. Record what you know. Keep the important details safe by having evidence of them. Allow the accurate memory to stand up for evaluation so that others can learn from you and have a better understanding of their own place in the family history. Do not settle for heresay.


Memory is a very funny thing. Of course even our own memories of events can be distorted by point of view and time. Two people who participated in the same event could have very different memories of it. I also love to think about how memory gets translated into documentation. How we choose to record our memories can impact how they get passed on and what bits are savored later on by us and by others.

...I'm just hoping that mom has saved those straight A math report cards as evidence.