Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Artifacts Did You Find in an Ancestor's Closet/Attic/Garage?

Coming to the party a little late, but better late than never, right?  I have received treasures I can write about for the recent Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Were you lucky enough to receive or find artifacts from your relatives (parents, grandparents, others) as you pursued your genealogy research?

2.  Describe one or more of the artifacts you found or received and where you obtained them.

3.  Share your information about your ancestral artifacts in your own blog post, write a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Substack post, Facebook Note, or some other social media system.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

Thank you to Marian B. Wood for this SNGF suggestion.

I have received two such artifact bounties and, to some degree, found a third.

After my paternal grandfather passed away in 1995, his widow moved to live with her nephew.  A couple of years after she died, her nephew contacted my aunt and asked whether she was interested in my grandfather's old papers and photographs.  I am still thrilled that she said yes and accepted them.  She kept them for some time and then gave them to my father, who dreamed of scanning everything.  He eventually gave up on that and asked me if I wanted them, and of course I said yes.  The photographs eventually helped me find my aunt (my father's youngest half-sister), and the papers follow his career through the civil service.

When my father passed away in 2019, I told my siblings the only physical items I was interested in were his photographs and his racing trophies.  They were all taken by my stepbrother from Florida to Texas when he closed out the property and moved his mother (my stepmother) to his home, and eventually found their way to my sister, also in Texas.  I still don't have the trophies or the original photos, but my sister's niece scanned the photos (I hope all of them), which my sister sent me on a flash drive (my photo bonanza).  I am still working on identifying many of the photos, and I have posted several here on my blog.

When my material grandmother suffered a stroke in 2005, it was immediately apparent that she would be unable to live on her own anymore.  I was able to arrange to work remotely, so I flew out to Florida to pack up everything from her apartment.  I brought home three large boxes of photographs stored in her closet, most of which were identified because I had visited my grandmother a year before that and had convinced her to let me label them.  I have made copies of and scanned several photos and shared them with my many cousins.