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| Ralph with a model airplane, late 1940s. |
In February 2021, over the course of several cold and dreary days, I gathered with SM and LM and their children at Ralph and Ella's home in Centerville, Utah. We were there to help in the continued effort to sort and find new homes for Ralph and Ella's belongings and mementos, as the family was preparing their home for sale.
I brought my scanner as a carryon, and set up shop in Ralph and Ella's office. We organized photos and documents, and I scanned and scanned and scanned for days (and twice all night), creating digital versions of these priceless treasures, to be able to document and share these files with the broader family.
The days I spent there were so sacred, to be granted a peak into what Ralph and Ella saved, what was most important to them, what they hung on to, and what they wanted to remember. Each item made a statement about what they valued.
But what touched my heart most was to find concrete evidence of the stories that Ralph and Ella told. The stories were already real, but these relics brought them to life.
Here are a few examples:
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A range that Ralph purchased from his uncle Ray's shop, Inglish Electric.
Paid in 30 monthly payments of $8.56.
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View of Mesa, AZ, from the air, of Rendezvous Park
(coincidentally, where Ralph and Ella met) |
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| This was labeled on the back, "My hobby." |
- The huge family tree that Kate Findlay (Ella's mother) had created. She was ahead of her time with her genealogical research! This chart starts with George and Kate Findlay (born in 1903 and 1904, respectively), going back I'm not sure how many generations, but the earliest date listed is 1080 AD. (See a video of it here.)
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Kate Findlay's handwritten family tree.
For context, this chart measures about 5-feet wide and dates back to 1080 AD. |
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| Reclining against the handle bars. |
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| On two wheels! |
- Ella's school notebooks and study guides from Scotland, while a student at the Aberdeen Central S. S. School as an early teenager. Ella talked about how when she emigrated at age 15, she was ahead of the schooling standards for the same grade in America. But the Scots really set the bar high for their students!
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Ella's notebook for English exercises, filled with essay she wrote
on various prompts. |
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An essay Ella wrote about a week-long school camp to Kemnay, Scotland.
(Other stories and photos of Ella's family in Kemnay, here.) |
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Note how spelling and grammar were corrected, and then Ella had to
rewrite the corrected words at the end of her essay. |
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| Ella's English and Arithmetic exam book |
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"Mental Arithmetic" - I wonder whether this was a focus in the US curriculum for this age
in the late 1940s. Ella was really good at doing mathematic calculations in her head. |
- Files and files and files of family history work, for both Ella and Ralph's sides.
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Just a sampling of the many files of family history work
that Ralph and Ella saved. |
- Sweet correspondence with loved ones far away - grandparents, cousins, friends, and even Ma Pat, the sweet woman who lived upstairs from the Findlays on Prospect Terrace in Aberdeen, and who assisted in Ella's birth.
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A letter from Ma Pat to Ella, 15 January 1952
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- Every card, note, photo - it seems like that they ever received - saved in shoeboxes and plastic bins. Including children's art projects, letters to Santa, notes from children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
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A note to the Easter Bunny,
from Ralph and Ella's daughter BR. |
These, and many more artifacts, are physical testaments -- evidence of the stories they told and lives well lived. (May I live my life as well, and with the evidence to show for it.)
