A spiral-bound notebook lined with handwritten entries is the best read I’ve ever had and it’s held my interest in the few years I’ve possessed it, luring me back to check for clues like an unsolved mystery. In pencil, my paternal great-great-grandfather accounted for his family’s lineage, labeling the top of each section on the […]

We shared a platter of fried calamari and drank white wine and navigated first-date jitters on a balmy summer afternoon. Even though we had met years before, it was only now that circumstances were right for us to be together. It was August 2004, and I thought it would be fun to take him to […]

My keepsakes aren’t lined up on a special shelf or stored in a special drawer. I don’t keep them in the house at all. My keepsakes are flowers in my garden and trees in my yard, each from a special person in my life who I have loved and who has made my life what […]

In 1881 my paternal grandmother, Franziska Mensch, was a 16-year-old orphan in Germany who came to America as a sort of indentured servant to a wealthy family. She probably had very little to bring with her, but she did bring something that would become our family’s keepsake. In 1882 my paternal grandfather, Louis Maus, arrived […]

Among the hundreds of keepsakes I’ve collected over the years, one alone holds the title of most cherished. It is a charm-sized “key” that belonged to my grandmother, evidence that a simple farm girl from Morrill, Maine, had been elected to the nation’s most prestigious honor society, Phi Beta Kappa. It is engraved with her […]

I cut the fruit in small pieces – strawberries, watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe. And then I reach for the clear green Depression glass bowl in the kitchen cupboard, pile the fruit into it and stash it in the refrigerator. That bowl always stood on the shelf in a kitchen cupboard of the old family homestead near […]

David Brown, my Great-Uncle Dave, arrived in the United States from Scotland in 1889 at the age of 2. He and several of his unmarried sisters lived together in Worcester, Massachusetts, and raised my mother when my grandmother was unable to look after her. I remember him as one of the sweetest, most soft-spoken people […]

Mourning the death of a place feels different from mourning the death of a person. When we lose loved ones, we keep them alive in our memories as best we can. We make their favorite recipes, look at old pictures, hold sacred objects in our hands and visit the places that keep their spirits alive. […]

My keepsake is a box without a silver key Filled with the treasure of memory. No diamonds, no rubies, No emeralds or rings fill my keepsake box Just moments not things Lined with gold of history hinged with eras known once to me Hands cannot grasp And make time stay Or hold the memory of […]

I got a call from a cousin asking me if I’d like a memento from her mom’s house, which she inherited after her parents died. She was sorting, donating and packing decades of family belongings so it could be sold. Her mom was a beloved aunt who welcomed my curiosity when looking at many objects […]