WSHS Delivery
Yesterday we made a quick trip up to Tacoma to deliver a load of “stuff” to the Washington State Historical Society Research Center. Thirteen banker’s boxes of documents and ephemera to be added to the Espy Family Archive. Whew! It is a relief to have them gone from here and a bigger relief that they are safely where they belong.
I wish that I could say, “That’s it!” But I wonder if I ever truly will feel that we have finished sorting, organizing, and delivering the generations of correspondence and other archival materials that lurk in this house. It seems to me that every time we turn around, there is another treasure trove to be examined.
And now that we are in the clean-out-a-box-every-rainy-day mode, it’s getting worse not better. In fact, on the drive home yesterday, Nyel said that we are getting down to boxes of my own “stuff” – original manuscripts from books, correspondence from all those years before email, keepsakes from my thirty-nine years of teaching…
Of course, it goes without saying that saving all of that stuff is a genetic condition. We have sorted through three generations of it during the past fifteen years and have delivered more than 100 boxes to the Research Center. But, until yesterday, it never occurred to me that anything of mine would, or even should, join the Family Archive.
“Well, you are the next generation,” Nyel said. YIKES! First thing this morning I tried to send an email to Ed Nolan, the archival collections guru. I’m hoping he’ll say, “Toss it all, Sydney.” And then, I’m hoping that I can!
But, wouldn’t you know, I can’t access my email program this morning. Dead in the water. Can’t receive, can’t look at old messages, can’t access my address file, can’t send. I’m thinking the gods might be giving me some kind of message, but I’m not clear about what it is. And I’m feeling a bit panicky about my email files. It’s one thing to deliver hard copies of old “stuff” to Tacoma. It’s another to be disconnected from current correspondents. This is definitely not a good beginning to the day.
I can’t imagine Ed saying toss anything…but if he does please toss it down toward the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum. You are an important part of the Peninsula’s story!