She Treasures Others’ Memories

Re “Snapshots Into the Souls of Another Time,” by Rip Rense (Jan. 13): Families are so splintered now and it seems no one cares or wants Great-Great-Aunt Matilda any more. Well, I do. I love the sense of history and mystery and sometimes sadness.

The memory box I have holds snippets of vintage lace (from a long-departed relative’s dress?), dried-out, flattened leather baby shoes and a ponytail tied in a pink satin ribbon. The box of family photos tracing a family through marriage, birth, old age. The high school memory book from 1918 so lovingly filled with dance cards and a snippet of material from, perhaps, a prom dress.

My friends, aghast at the thought that I don’t discard it, don’t understand. It is someone’s memory and how can I just throw it in the trash?

GLENDA JACKSON

Ventura