When my MIL passed away last fall, we found some unexpected things in her belongings. She still had her mom's pay stubs from the 1950s, countless obituaries for relatives of her friends, as well as a nude female salt and pepper shaker (one boob for salt, one for pepper).
But, by far, the most unusual thing we found was her long-dead dog's gallstones in a prescription pill bottle.
So, I am wondering what unusual "treasures" you have found in your own clean up efforts?
And, for those brave souls, what possession do you have that might raise some eyebrows from those you leave behind?
I'm realizing that none of my stuff will be unexpected - maybe I need to paint outside the lines a bit!
Hoping to find some things to laugh about! Thanks.
Luckily the thing I kept finding when I cleaned out my father things was CASH. He had little bank envelopes of cash tucked everywhere. I had to carefully go through every pocket, every suitcase, every bag, every nook and cranny in the house.
I only found lint and wadded up kleenex in her pockets!!
I was a nosy child too until I found my mom's spermicidal jelly in her bedside drawer!
My Mom kept the immunization certificate for my polio shot from the 1950's.
My mom is one to keep everything also. She has even tied broken rubber bands back together. She moved about ten years ago but kept the drawerful of the address labels from her previous house. My sister and I wrapped her Christmas gifts in tissue paper and then covered the paper with all of the old labels. Fortunately, my mom laughed with us over that one.
In one of the bedrooms was a portrait of the two of them. A photo taken by them by a photographer not long after they married.
I took it down and leaned it up against the wall. It fell over. There was an envelope taped to the back.
I opened envelope. There was a letter addressed to “Whoever finds this Letter”.
The letter started out saying” I guess if you have found this letter I am dead and gone.” “Have fun cleaning out my house”.
No need to apologize! I certainly laughed when I found it.
Honestly I had forgotten about it until I saw the posts in this thread today. I know I kept the letter. Not sure where I put it.
Thinking about it made me smile today.
He was a very romantic fellow. He wrote things like "My Darling Jean" and just beautiful words. I also found the medals off of his military uniform.
I had known they had a deep love but never got to witness it cause I was very young when he died. But I did see the faraway look in my mom's eyes always and I'm sure it was him that she was thinking about.
I am thinking that lots of moms keep their kid's baby teeth - not much different from that first lock of hair. But, I do admit the chihuahua's baby teeth made me laugh. Can't imagine how small those are!!
One day we were talking about being prepared for the inevitable and she said "Tell me where you keep your "toys" and I will make sure to get rid of them before anyone knows about it!" I love that girl!
You have raised that woman well. Hats off to you!!
My MIL and I had a running joke that she donated her "toys" to charity. My husband did not find that funny like we did :)
She's kept the wristband instead.
On top of my mom’s dresser was an empty plastic container (like what an individual serving of jello comes in). Inside the container was a tissue, and I almost threw out the entire item, but something told me that I needed to take the tissue out and check beneath it. When I did, you can imagine my surprise to find the wedding band of my mom’s oldest sister. Mom apparently inherited it from her sister several years before when my sweet aunt, who had no children of her own, had passed away. She and my mom were extremely close, so I was glad that I didn’t throw out the wedding band with the tissue!
My dad was an artist. In his last years, he painted on various pieces of paper that ended up in his room at a nursing care facility—paper placemats, greeting cards from friends, etc. Sometimes Dad would set one of his finished (or nearly finished) pieces on a table between newspapers and magazines. I had to make a point to look between every layer of newspaper whenever I was helping him pick up in his room. Sometimes I found lovely art work that I took to my brother to be framed. We have no idea how many paintings ended up in a dumpster (or in the home of one of the cleaning staff), since we didn’t do a daily purge for him.
I found it dead in my backyard and I thought I would save it to show the kidlets.
Wouldn't people be wondering about that.
What we did find was a side of her we didn’t know existed until she died. She had a huge trunk that, as far as we all knew, had family pictures and a few things from when her kids were little. Now, over the years she never seemed to appreciate anything anyone gave her. She would ask for receipts to return them. Or they wouldn’t be used. Some were regifted. I finally gave up and started giving her photo books & pictures of the grandkids for Christmas and flowers for her birthday. I figured she was even more disappointed with those things than all the other things we’d given her in the past. Well......when we went through that trunk, we realized she was an extremely sentimental person! That trunk was full of pictures, every card her children and grandchildren had ever given her, old school assignments, love letters to and from my FIL/her ex husband. She kept EVERYTHING! Then we found that she had a special wood box for each grandchild full of pictures of them, some of them had albums she was working on, plus trinkets and party favors from their baby showers and birthday parties and The photo books I made every year.
It was just really a surprise finding all that stuff, carefully stored. It really meant a lot to all of us actually. It was comforting. And we learned a lot about her......
Thank you for sharing!
- the cast my brother wore when he broke his hand at age 8 (he didn’t want it)
- our birth announcements from the 50’s (Which I had never seen)
- an incredible lacy dress with bonnet and panties Mom made for my 1st Easter
- cash tucked in cards, purses, pocket, and film canisters (always check! We found over $300 squirreled away)
- enough pencils, pens, markers and erasers to fit out an elementary school
- 5 gold pocket watches
- a receipt for materials for a hat rack my dad built in high school wood shop (I still use that)
- the toy Batman car my brother's couldn’t agree who owned (sold that on eBay and gave Mom the money)
- 3 sets of very old silver plated flatware that she never used
- a paper Cuban peso dated 1895
- a complete set of state quarters that "the kids might like to have" (the kids are all in their 30’s!)
- a knife sharpener with a deer antler handle
I could go on and on! The best thing is, whenever I show Mom these things she says "where did you find that?"
So I was looking at this stuff and thinking I should give it to my other brother who has been doing most of the looking out for this brother as of late. Then the phone rang and it was him.
The weird thing is I looked at all mom's stuff and I never recall seeing this envelope before and there it was right on top of all the other stuff. I must have pored over all of mom's stuff a hundred times and do not recall ever seeing this envelope.
Strange indeed.
My eldest brother could not be there for some reason, so a few things were put aside for him, but we did come across Ahem.... my Dad's Penis Pump kit, a full on medical device Rx'd by his Urologist and purchased from a Medical Supply store. I thought it sweet that my Dad thought enough of my Mom and their romantic life that he wished to do everything he could do to maintain their sex life one it became difficult due to his Prostate issues. Still, it produced a laugh to all of us.
Anhoo, after the laughter finally subsided my younger brother decided that it would be funny to put a post mortem "note from the grave" from my Dad to our eldest brother "gifting" him his Penis Pump, as he "knew it would come in handy for him one day soon". We all laughed our Azz's off for a long time as it was something my Dad would have thought funny too and would have got a kick out of, but my Mom would have been mortified! It brought some real laughter to what was a somber situation, but was exactly what we needed, and a real bonding moment for all of us. We are all super close anyways, so it is a great memory and one we bring up every once in a while, Notes from the grave! Lol!
My story, mom had not passed, actually far from it. She and dad divorced when I was young. She dated, her mid-40's. When she was out one night, I went snooping through her dresser. Found a diaphragm, shocking! Actually, shook me up a bit. I must have been 14 or so. Well it was in the drawer then....
Mom dated the minister that married her and my dad for awhile. They once went out of town for a weekend, I was probably 16 by that time. So, I decided to check to see if the diaphragm was there. Nope!
She had great admiration for this minister. He was cool because he smoked. How times change!
Well one day recently,I decided to look way up on the top shelf where Iv'e never looked before and I found a bag with a note inside.The note says"Confiscated from the children",meaning the 3 of us kids and when I looked to see what was in the bag ,it had nasty boxed jokes we used to buy at Spencer Gifts in it as well as a doodle cover that was an elephant with a place for the "trunk" and a big clothespin with 2 people doing it when it clasped together.
I'd forgotten about some of those things but I'm gonna blame my 2 brother's when we go through everything together....IF we ever do.
My fav was the Lava Lamp - which is back in vogue these days, lol.