My grandma was born in 1924.
And this month we will wrap up distributing her worldly treasures throughout the family via a Google Doc.
My grandma lived through an amazing range of experiences. She shared with me a story of the first time she saw an airplane in person. My imagination could never see her as a little girl, but I could picture her description of people giving coins for a ride in a field at the north end of town. And to think while she was still busy raising her seven children she was able to watch on television as Americans first walked on the Moon. She shared many anecdotes about living through The Depression and was always generous with her 19 grandchildren and delighted in the opportunity because she had survived so many lean times.
One decoration I remember from my grandma’s kitchen said “Grandmas are just antique little girls.” That made sense to me since my grandma and her mother had been antique collectors and run antique stores out of their basements/garages. Not many little girls of my coordination level remember playing in an antique store. Did I mention my grandma must have also had a great deal of faith? I do not remember breaking anything. Not that anyone would rat remember now.
As a function of loving antiques, and having a mother who loved antiques, grandma collected many ‘treasures.’ And when her time with us was ending she decided to help us one last time. She wanted to distribute her treasures to her children, grandchildren, and beyond as evenly as possible. On my last visit to see grandma, my aunt, her youngest child was talking to me about a way to share pictures of all of grandma’s treasures and between the two of us we settled on a Google Doc. My Aunt had someone take the pictures and I uploaded them to a table. During the day my aunt would sit with my grandma and get the story where each treasure came from and who the original owner was to the best of grandma’s recollection.
Grandma marveled at how entering information into one page allowed every one of her 19 grandchildren the ability to see the same thing. And even if you didn’t want to request something after she was gone you could still read through the description, you could still keep this record of her treasures after she was gone. What a gift.
My grandma died in 2015.
I know she was amazed at sharing her treasures this way and I am so glad that we all have a “copy” of all the meaningful things she wanted to share with her family. Thanks Google.
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