Memento blog | Memento blog
Jul.15.2012
My Armenian grandmother, Yekaterina Gregorian, passed away last March, at the age of one hundred. Several years ago, when, blind and almost deaf (but her mind as sharp as a needle), she was moved from my mother’s to a nursing home, I raided her cupboards and drawers, grabbing anything...
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Jul.10.2012
The attic in the house we just bought from the old man is alive with antiquities and memories he refuses to take with him. Dusty old portraits showing sour-faced old men and women in their early Eighteenth Century best. A Civil War diary written with a cursive flourish by a young girl pining for...
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Jul.09.2012
Intangible
When the Redroom invited me to blog about the most meaningful memento that brings a story to life, I honestly couldn’t find one material thing that sparked my imagination. Nonetheless, even after my careful search, it dawned on me that I haven’t any tangible treasures larger than words....
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Jul.09.2012
There's something special about an old letter found in a shoebox or trunk or between the pages of a book, like the letter from my grandmother to Little One Finger Jo. It's not a nickname I ever remember Gram calling me, but the letter was to me, as were several other letters written to One...
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Jul.09.2012
A few years ago, at Christmas, my sister handed me an envelop and said that she was cleaning out some boxes and came across several letters that I had written to her when she was in college. She thought that I might like to read them and said to throw them away when I was done. It was...
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Jul.08.2012
I found a box of old photos in my mother’s apartment after her death, which reminded me of the stories my parents had told me about their adventurous lives as survivors of the Holocaust and about their lost loved ones. This led to my first book: "A CENTURY OF LOVE: 1905-2004", a...
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Jul.07.2012
Toward the end of her life, my aunt sent her family a large collection of stories from her childhood. She shared about her birth in Poland and how she and her family immigrated to the United States and moved to a small town in Illinois when she was three years old. She had a brother seven...
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Jul.06.2012
With the introduction of e-mail and voice mail, we hardly find hand written letters posted to our residential addresses. During those days receiving a letter from faraway place is an event to celebrate. While shifting to our new house, I have come across the bunch of...
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Jul.06.2012
I was 10 the year my parents drove from Michigan to the Rocky Mountains for summer vacation. The trip meant six weeks in the back of a truck camper: no TV, no radio. No parental supervision, since they rode in the cab of the truck. These were the days before handheld video games or home...
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Jul.06.2012
Riding home from our annual 4th of July family barbeque, my five year old Granddaughter made a serious revelation. “Uncle Al said that the reason that we don’t see all of our cousins, aunts, and uncles that often is that we keep them on ice and bring them out on the Holidays.” My assurances to her...
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