The Beginning

This project started innocently enough with a three-year request from my mother to go through the boxes in the back corner of the basement.

This is my mother, Jacque Johnson Burkhalter.

This is her basement.

And yes, we do all refer to it as the "Dead People's Room". (If you know my mother, you shouldn't be surprised or offended.)

This is my grandmother, Lottie/Charlotte Jensen Johnson.

This is her stuff.

This was going to be quite the task.

I was apparently the best daughter (for the job) because I am a sentimental minimalist. This might be an oxymoron, but one that fits. So finally, after three years of nagging requesting, I set aside a weekend to sort, toss, and shred.

I started with twelve boxes. Twelve boxes from my grandmother which my mother "inherited". A writer from the Depression-era, my grandmother saved everything and my family has a weakness for paper. But as I went through the expected medical records (shred), tax documents (shred), letters (keep), and essays (keep), I began to see that this was not an easy task to just "get rid of it". What do you do with the news clippings from the 50s (recycle), your aunt's kindergarten artwork (mail), and the milk delivery receipts (recycle)? I'll admit, a lot of things initially went into the recycle and shredding piles.

But half-way through box #4 or #5, I realized I was learning more about my family in these two days than I ever thought I would. The names were familiar - Pops & Dora, Uncle Martin, and Oakland, Nebraska - but never really meant anything to me.

So I started over.

The recycle bin was looted.

The shredding pile was reconsidered.

And this blog emerged.

So just as you open the boxes in your own basement, attic, garage, or dead people's room, this blog is a collection of those random items that aren't really so random.

Postings will be the actual items from these boxes: letters, photos, and family memorabilia. They won't be in any order, because, well, when you open these boxes, it all is a bit out-of-order. And since my youngest sister hated waiting for herself to show up in the family albums, going in chronological order would not only be a hefty task, but we'd be stuck on letters from the 1940s until April. And we'd never make it to my sister for a really long time.

And just in case we don't get to her for a while...this is my sister, Marian.

I think her son now has that giraffe!

OK, M, I'll be fair...here's my other sister, Elisabeth, and me. Yes, we know. We don't look alike.

Posts will be labeled with names and dates; you can search through this blog for certain items. And while I'll attempt to give good representation to all family branches, I'll admit the findings are somewhat lop-sided. (If you have things you want to add, contact me. But only if you are related to me.)

I encourage stories and back stories to go along with any postings, big and small. And yes, some of these things are quite small. But they all have meaning, if only to one person. But here everything gets its place. So stay tuned for the Christmas letters, birth announcements, and school photos...they all have something to say.

P.S. There still was quite a bit of shredding.

To be done (will pay $1.00 per hour for assistance)...

Completed, with help from Luke & Kate, who were paid $1.00.

Gotta love curbside composting!