Letters From Home

We went to an ephemera auction today.  Ephemera auctions offer paper items for sale, including books, magazines, legal documents, advertisement, trade cards, postcards, stamps, letters, posters, photographs, etc.  There were a lot of interesting items for sale, though nothing we had to have.  Frankly, when I pick up items at auctions, they either have to be utilitarian (like tools) or have obvious decorative use (like pottery, etc.).  Many of the objects could be used as decorative items, but the most interesting were more personal, such as the photographs and letters.

Many of the photos were from family albums. Generation after generation of people were in the albums and boxes.  There were score of letters, some appeared to be years worth of correspondence between husbands and wives from World War II and other times.  I remember when my father was overseas in the 60's.  He wrote to mom every night.  She would write back.  Those were the days when you couldn't email, whip out your cell phone, or Skype back home. We would get a phone call once in a while, but it was costly.

It was sad that these items seemed to find there way from someone's estate into the hands of strangers.  I was glad that there are people who find such ephemera of interest, but I couldn't help to think that such items should be in the hands of a family member.

In time, my mom and dad disposed of their letters (probably as a common house cleaning chore).  They both passed over 7 years ago.

I would love to have a few of those letters now...


Auction Update:

As I mentioned in a previous post, we had picked up a Coca Cola sign.  I fitted it to a wooden frame and hung it on the side of our barn.  It looks great.  We'll continue to look for more signs.