Treasure Chest Thursday – Transported Back in Time

Lola was berating me last night. She hadn’t been on a walk for two days and she had a lot of pent-up energy seeking release. It was half past dark, so I promised her we would go first thing this morning.

It may not have been the first thing we did, but I kept my promise.

The afternoon highs are still in the 90s here, but we have experienced the hope of fall. The winds shifted a couple of days ago and there was the slightest, but real, hint of fall. You could feel it. You could breathe it.

As I was contemplating the potential of cooler weather, I noticed a pecan growing on a young tree right at eye level as we walked by. That pecan transported me back to the days when my oldest daughter was a toddler and we would take walks and find treasures. A pecan lying on the ground would have qualified.

I found her a shoebox and we called it her Treasure Box. It became the dedicated space for all the treasures she picked up and brought home from a walk or found in our yard.

So on my walk this morning, I found myself picking up the kinds of treasures my daughter might have found 25 years ago – feathers, shiny rocks (always a favorite), acorns, acorn tops (good hats for fairies), pretty leaves (none of those today), and anything else that looked interesting.

It was a happy memory – walking with a little one, oooh-ing at a new find, talking about the newest treasure – what it was and why we enjoyed it, putting them in the treasure box, taking them out to look at again when we added more treasures. I hoped she would learn that real treasures are not found in a store.

My daughter added to her treasure box for a couple of years and hung onto it even longer. Sometime in her tweens, she went through the Treasure Box one last time and threw everything out.

I may have been more sensitive to this memory today because of something I saw on GMA before our walk. It seems that a young mother of a 10-week-old baby blogged that she was taking a vacation for six days. She wouldn’t be taking the baby with her. She has received a lot of flak.

It was annoying that GMA, in discussing this, paired one of their doctors with a “real housewife” from somewhere who, I thought, had nothing of value to say. I wondered how the doctor had allowed herself to be paired with this woman. I felt humiliated for her (the doctor). I changed the channel.

All I can say is – I hope this young mother comes back from her vacation refreshed and renewed. I hope she misses her baby while she is gone, for if she does, then there is a bond between them. And I hope they fill a Treasure Box together.

 

 

Treasure Chest Thursday – Me, My Great-Uncle Fred, and a Love Story

I am sharing several posts about my great-uncle and great-aunt, Fred and Carol Webber, this week. The 80th anniversary of their wedding was Tuesday.

I don’t really have any memories of Fred and Carol Webber. We lived many states away from one another and we didn’t often visit relatives at the same time. But here I have a photograph of what was probably our first introduction to one another. I look quite happy in his arms.

This picture was taken at the home of my great-grandparents, Dorinda Strange Webber and Myron David Webber. There was a lot of picture-taking that day, so I’m going to add a couple more. The back of one of the pictures says that I was 4 months old, so these must have been taken sometime in February 1954.

 

The 2nd treasure for today is a family story. I meant to include it here, but didn’t yet have permission from the story-teller to use it. As told by Fred’s and Carol’s son Ted (“The Strange Webber Connection” Spring 2000):

One of the greatest things I heard about Fred Webber I heard after he died. Mom told me this story and I think it is nothing short of being a great love story. Excuse any poetic license I may use in telling this story, because I don’t remember each and every detail. I have told this story to my friends and they also find it to be an amazing story.

It seems that Mom received a call that Dad would be late. Maybe the call came late and Dad had to go out late. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he was gone, was out the entire night, didn’t call and let Mom know where he was. Quite assuredly, Mom was upset over the evening. Dad came back to the house the next morning, got dressed for work, went to work and said not a word about the incident.

It was years later, maybe at the going away party when they left Hamburg, that a woman came up to Mom and told her how much Dad meant to her. It seems that on the night in question, this lady had to have her son committed to a mental institution. She was totally stressed out and Fred Webber was there for the entire night helping her with what had to have been the most difficult night of her life.

To me this story tells the whole story of Fred Myron Webber. He lived to serve other people. He loved others and loved making life better for others. That he did what he did and kept his sanity is hard to believe.

It also tells of the great love Carol and Fred Webber had for each other. Dad, out all night, had enough confidence in Mom’s love to just go to work the next day. Mom had enough confidence in Dad’s love to assume  nothing. How many marriages can go through a night like that without any stress and strain?

Thanks for sharing this wonderful story, Ted!

 

 

Treasure Chest Thursday – Newly Acquired Treasures

I returned from my trip to Iowa with a few new-to-me treasures.

Abbie's Box

First is this jewelry or trinket box that belonged to my grandmother Abbie Webber Smith Brender. I have no memory of this particular box, but it looks as though it was well loved/used. It is about 5x7x1.5 inches and made of a lightweight wood. It is covered by a thin veneer or paper with a hand-painted design (you can feel the texture of the paint). The bottom of the box says “MADE IN JAPAN.” Grandma wrote her name and address inside, so maybe she took it with her somewhere and wanted to be sure it would be returned to her if lost. If anyone in the family recognizes this box, I hope you will leave a comment to tell me more about it. Or if anyone can help me date it, that would be nice to know as well.

Secondly, Dad(Jerry) gave me this Bible that he said also belonged to Grandma Abbie.

One of Abbie's Bibles

It is a Golden Book Edition of the King James Bible. I am familiar with Golden Books for children, but was unaware that they also published bibles. Distributed throughout the book are four-page spreads  – usually a summary of a story, a 2-page picture, and an informational list (the story of the first miracle of Jesus, a depiction of the story and a list of the miracles of Jesus, for example). Some of the pictures are artist illustrations, others are photographs.

Unfortunately, this is not a Bible that contains family records and I don’t know if this was given to her or if she purchased it for herself. I know she used it because she left a folded paper towel between the pages here, a bookmark there, a scrap of paper to mark her place in the J’s in “The Bible in Alphabet” section and this little folded and typed paper tucked between the pages of Zechariah and Malachi…

 

If you plan to enter a Bible trivia contest, you might want to study the first half of the above.