Making New Family History, Discovering A Small Piece of Old Family History

Been an exhausting day around here, started early, included a LONG shopping trip with my soon to be new daughter-in-law.  Small matter of needing a dress for the upcoming wedding, my hating shopping and to my delight, discovering that she does not like it much either!  We had a grand time, rushing around through the stores, laughing at how we kept finding clothing we might buy if we were not on the "long dress hunt".  Oh, did you know that short, and I mean, MICRO MINI short dresses are all the rage for the prom crowd this year.  Cute, if you are under 20 years of age and petite.  Size 6 and below. But, I digress.

After 4 major stores, I did bring home a dress, which I may or may not wear, that decision will be made later.

Man's mother has been moved to an assisted home facility, and since her sticks and bricks home will be vacant, Man and the boys have been doing the clean out procedure.  So, if something undesireable happens, photos and momentos will not be there to be destroyed, stolen or lost.

Son # 3, the groom, took a small box that he remembered from visits to his grandmother's home when he was a child.  Most of the items in that box were Man's father's, buttons from his WWII uniform, some nasty looking bayonette things, shaving stuff, like razor straps for sharpening single edged shaving blades, some other neat stuff.  I decided I wanted photos, so, since I never leave home without it, I grabbed the camera, and we went through the box, item by item.

One item was a small sewing kit.  We originally thought it was Man's father's, from WWII.  After a bit of review of the photos, I don't believe it.  I think this belonged to Man's grandmother, Edna May Fenton.

Here is a photo of the kit:

And, here is a close up of just the case.  It is inscribed:  J. W. Greene Co., Pianos - Victrolas, 801-5 Jefferson Ave., Toledo, Ohio.

Two flags went up for me, one:  Toledo, Edna and Art (Man's grandparents) were married in Toledo in 1918.  AND, Victrola.  Victrola's were not WWII era.  I did go look up Victrola, and the company seems to have been in business from 1901 - 1929.  I found two references to J.W. Greene Co in books at GoogleBooks, one of the books reports history of the company and the other has a biography and a photo of J. W. Greene himself.

I cannot be sure that this little sewing kit is Edna's, well, not 100% sure.  But, I am comfortable saying, this was not a sewing kit issued to Man's father during WWII.

It is a rare day that you can say you made some new family history and discovered a small piece of some old family history, but, I can today.  And, I am whooped from all this exciting stuff, goodnight!

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

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