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Recently I was asked to write about the item I cared the most about in my home. That was difficult to identify because almost every possession I have has a story.
There are books I cherish, family history records and many
small objects like both of my grandfather's shaving mugs, my high school
letter covered with pins and awards and the entire contents of my craft
"studio". There are countless family photographs, diplomas, my
grandmother's "flow blue" tea cup and the hand made flour sack doll I
got when I was six years old.
They are all the treasures I have due to being the youngest child of two youngest children.
There are many more things I could name, but the most unusual
is the small travel trunk that belonged to my Great grandmother, Fannie
Taylor Watkins Arnett. In 1875, her husband was killed in a foundry
explosion at a Tredegar Iron Works on the James River near Lynchburg,
Virginia. She was a young widow with two little girls- Laura, age 5, and
Mary Willie(my maternal grandmother), age 3. Penniless and with no way
of getting a job, her only option was to travel by train to southwest
Missouri and live with her brother, Pete Taylor. All of their worldly
possessions were in an approximately 12x12x24 inch wooden trunk with
bone handles.
The little trunk reminds me of her strength and resolve to
make the best of what life gave her and how we can survive hard times.
Click on the author's byline for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.
This issue appears in the ezine at www.pencilstubs.com and also in the
blog www.pencilstubs.net with the capability of adding comments at the
latter.
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