For which family heirloom are you most thankful? How did you acquire this treasure and what does it mean to you and your family?
First of all - I'm a bit late with this post - I had intended to post on Sundays. However, I was returning from RootsTech in Salt Lake City. Every genealogical researcher should try to attend! What an experience it was ...but I digress.
Family Heirlooms. I'm sure I have more than my share, even thought no family heirlooms survived the Civil War. I have the buffet that was my great-grandmother's. I sleep in the bed that my father-in-law and his three brothers were born in. I have the nativity that graced my grandmother's mantel every Christmas. I have a few pieces of china that came from Germany with my step-grandmother. I have needlework, I have quilts. I could go on and on and on. I am exceedingly thankful to have so many remembrances of my family.
My mother and I lived with her parents from just before my second birthday, through her remarriage, until the summer I was eight - you could say during my "formative years". My mom was a working mom so I spent many hours with my grandmother. After we moved out of their home, we continued to live relatively near them for the remainder of their lives.
My grandmother and I have the only January birthdays in the family. My granddad gave her a lovely birthstone ring - garnet is our birthstone - some years before I was born. It was always on her finger and she lived to be 86. Just a year or so before she died, she gave me the ring ...she wanted to be sure it would be mine and would not descend to anyone else.
It is not the oldest heirloom I have, nor is it the most valuable - but it is the most precious to me.
The ring represents the love I witnessed between my grandparents and the tender loving care she gave to me. When it's on my finger, I feel her presence still.
