Comments on: Kansas to Berlin to Kansas

By: Helen Neal

Helen Neal — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:36:04 +0000

Thank you so much for sharing this article. It is so timely, as I’m weeding through boxes in the basement of things that belonged to my late husband, his mother and father, my mother and my own things, all important in someone’s memories, but so few that will mean anything to the kids and grandkids! It seems such a responsibility to make the choice on what to keep and what to dispose of! Some things I’ve been able to find “good homes” for, and those I feel good about, but most of the things don’t fall into that category. For instance the German church songbook that was my grandmother’s I can’t part with, even though none of my kids speak German – it’s from the church I was baptized in and I attended as a child before I came to the US -maybe that’s something that will be in my “box even though I haven’t attended church for many years!

By the way, I vote for going to Berlin – so much history there!

By: donnatrussell

donnatrussell — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:31:23 +0000

Hi sweetiegirlz! Thanks for your comment.

I love artifacts too, and those that belonged to my grandmother are very dear to me. I even went on ebay to see if I could find water goblets that would remind me of the etched crystal my grandmother used on Thanksgiving.

I’ve never been overseas, and the clock is ticking. My brother says I should go to Italy. My nephew says I should go to Berlin.

By: sweetiegirlz

sweetiegirlz — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:49:16 +0000

The biggest gift anyone can hope to give their children are the mementos and treasures and history of their lives. I have worked in a nursing home before and the elderly are sequestered there, in their rooms with a box. It is a box that holds their lives in a nutshell. As a soldier, and a soldier’s wife, I have been to Germany twice. I loved every bit of it. In Landstuhl we lived by a castle. It was amazing.
Oh and I live very near KC at Ft. Leavenworth.