Some old a neat

[wvfarrier]

We recently purchased an old cabin in the mountains. The previous owner had quite a book collection including some really, really old Zane Grey. I gently pulled out "Nevada" to read....its fairly fragile at this point. Once opened I saw this handwritten poem on the first page....in cursive of all things .

"To all the heart wounds touched afresh this day
As on the soldiers resting place we lay.
Thy flowers, GOD in tender memory.
Give healing Thou, this eventide.

And for the sorrowing ones who yet remain.
To whom the heart break and the bitter pain.
Come like the memory of an old songs sad refrain,
Have pity Thou, this eventide.

By all the flowers of youth in battles slain.
By all of woman’s heritage of pain.
The prayer that it has not been in vain.
We leave with thee dear GOD, this eventide."
--Lucille Simpson Belle

[AJMD429]

.
I've learned to leaf through ALL old bookd before even considering tossing them out.

I've found notes and cards and letters, used as 'bookmarks', in addition to notes written in the margin, and so on.

I found an 'autobiography' my mother wrote in the 1930's as a college student, that included 5 generations of her past relatives, back to the days (and family of) William Tell. It was a nondescript handwritten bunch of stapled-together pages, maybe a dozen in total, but a treasure trove of information that would have been lost forever had I not seen that stuff literally IN THE TRASH OUTSIDE OUR BACKDOOR (I'd asked my daughter to clean out some old boxes of stuff).

I had a patient who was quite wealthy, but they had no children, and he was talking about what kind of organizations or causes he might put his estate towards (he also had 2-300 firearms I wish he'd have sent my way, but they were vintage collectibles, and I'm more a 'shooters' and 'truck guns' type guy, so told him either to donate them to an ethical gun shop owner I know who could sell them and use the funds towards a charity of the guy's choice, or to donate them to the NRA itself, or even a museum, since some of the guns sounded really valuable). Anyway, he had ALSO realized his wife had access to large amounts of cash still, but was getting dementia, and she would order pizza when he was away, and tip the delivery person several hundred dollars. Fortunately one of them contacted him and let him know what was going on, and he also found out she was hiding thousands and thousands of dollars in books - apparently at 'significant' page numbers like the day of month of her birthday or their anniversary or other dates - most of which she'd forgotten anyway. So he had to go through rooms full of books they had to grab out all that money. She'd given dozens of boxes of books to GoodWIll and used book stores over the years, too, and he will never know (but always wonder) how much money was in those...!

[Bill in Oregon]

That’s really sweet.