We managed to bring home a box of papers Mom had saved over the years, lots of treasures....one was a story I wrote and the excitement of finding a family....more to add to it, just tired of typing...LOL
I am so glad my mother thought to save items I wrote....I found my treasure today....I made the paper in 1998, so will share it with you...
Touched by Victorian "baby book", Texas woman sought family
Editors Note: the following is an article written by staff reporter for The Evansville Press Patricia Swann in Evansville, Indiana, on December 25, 1997, about one of our local resident's search for the family of a "precious treasure"--an eighty year old- plus baby book.
As soon as Gaynelle Callaway saw the robin's egg blue volume at the Cross Plains (Texas) Library's used book sale, "I just knew it was a precious book"
After she started to read it-a baby book more than 80 years old-she decided it was indeed "a precious treasure". Too precious to be kept by strangers. She felt it had to be returned to the family, whoever they might be.
It took her a telephone call to the Evansville Press, some local historical research and a call to Fort Worth , but today-on Christmas morning-a little boy will get to look at pictures and read about the grandmother who died two years before he was born.
"You can just tell how much this mother loved her baby", said Callaway, a nurse. "I cried all the time I was reading it."
The baby was Muriel Marjorie Van Dyke, born September 29,1911 to Roscoe and Mabel Van Dyke at the family home, 26 Jefferson Street, in Evansville.
In spidery, old- fashioned script Mabel Van Dyke faithfully recorded details of Muriel's early life, from her nurse-Miss Lilly Metz, paid $2 for the first day- to her first baby present- "from Papa, red rose buds.
Her first "outing" was at 4 weeks October 18. On front porch, held by Grandma Neale (a nurse) while Momma went driving.
Locks of her hair are in the book, with the notation: "when I was just a few days old, they robbed me of a lock that hung, down at the nape of my neck, and still I had so much, it will never be missed." By June, her bangs had been cut three times "and hair peeps below bonnet".
After she started to read it-a baby book more than 80 years old-she decided it was indeed "a precious treasure". Too precious to be kept by strangers. She felt it had to be returned to the family, whoever they might be.
It took her a telephone call to the Evansville Press, some local historical research and a call to Fort Worth , but today-on Christmas morning-a little boy will get to look at pictures and read about the grandmother who died two years before he was born.
"You can just tell how much this mother loved her baby", said Callaway, a nurse. "I cried all the time I was reading it."
The baby was Muriel Marjorie Van Dyke, born September 29,1911 to Roscoe and Mabel Van Dyke at the family home, 26 Jefferson Street, in Evansville.
In spidery, old- fashioned script Mabel Van Dyke faithfully recorded details of Muriel's early life, from her nurse-Miss Lilly Metz, paid $2 for the first day- to her first baby present- "from Papa, red rose buds.
Her first "outing" was at 4 weeks October 18. On front porch, held by Grandma Neale (a nurse) while Momma went driving.
Locks of her hair are in the book, with the notation: "when I was just a few days old, they robbed me of a lock that hung, down at the nape of my neck, and still I had so much, it will never be missed." By June, her bangs had been cut three times "and hair peeps below bonnet".
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